Brave 'Ice Prince' sees crown slip from grasp

Nathan Chen of the United States won the gold medal with 218.63 points in the free program and 332.60 in total. Japan's Yuma Kagiyama and Shoma Uno took silver and bronze respectively.

"I have given my all, and the quadruple axel was better than I executed before," said Hanyu, who also under rotated the quad axel and landed it with two feet at the Japanese national championships in December.

"I made a big mistake in the quad salchow, but I performed well to the music Heaven and Earth. I regretted the performance in the short program, but I did my best today.

"Honestly, it feels like everything has gone wrong this time around, but I did my best," he added.

Hanyu started skating at the age of 4, and made his international debut at the 2008 Junior Grand Prix Merano Cup, where he finished fifth.