Patrick Chan sets new world record for total points at the world figure skating championships

It looks like Canada may have another Olympic star in the making for the 2014 Sochi Olympics—at a mere 20 years old, Patrick Chan won gold at the world championships in Moscow earlier today. In the process, Chan also rewrote history with a margin of victory so large, according to the Canadian Press, one skating official compared it to winning the 100 metre dash by more than a second.

In fact, Chan broke three world records over the course of the competition: he set a record in his short program yesterday with 93.02 points, skating to Paul Desmond’s “Take Five”; he opened his routine with a quadruple toe loop–triple toe combination, followed by a triple Axel—and took a 12-point lead over Japan’s Nobunari Oda. Today, Chan earned 186.96 points for his long program, skating to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera,” executing two quadruple jumps in the opening 40 seconds of his routine. This means that Chan’s total score was a remarkable 280.98 points, which far surpasses the previous skating record of 264.41 set, in 2008 by last year’s world champion Diasuke Takahashi, from Japan. “I’m very proud of myself. That was a big goal this year for me, to find my feet no matter what,” Chan told the Canadian Press. There hasn’t been this much Canadian excitement in Russia since 1972.

• Clean sweep: Patrick Chan smashes one gold record after another to win world gold [Canadian Press]
• Canada’s Patrick Chan sets record in short program at world figure skating [Canadian Press]