US Figure Skating Championships 2017: Final Results, Highlights and Reaction

Nathan Chen became the newest men's champion at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships after a dominant two days in Kansas City, Missouri.

As U.S. Figure Skating's Twitter account noted, his 318.47 overall score shattered the previous record.

Olympic champion Scott Hamilton explained what Chen accomplished Sunday:

The rest of the field could only battle for second place, which made it a successful run for Vincent Zhou. Despite being far off the lead, he showed a lot of ability with his high jumps and smooth transitions. Fan favorite Jason Brown ended up in third place.

Here are the final results from the last day of action at the Sprint Center.

Place	Competitor	Free-Skate Score	Total Score
First	Nathan Chen	212.08	318.47
Second	Vincent Zhou	175.18	263.03
Third	Jason Brown	175.00	254.23

Chen came in as the favorite in the competition, especially with defending champion Adam Rippon out with a broken foot.

The 17-year-old responded with a short program with a high degree of difficulty, which put him way ahead of the field. He scored a 106.39, with Ross Miner sitting in second place at 88.67.

While he could have taken it easy in the free skate, Chen wanted to show the world what he could do.

Chen landed five quadruple jumps for the first time ever in competition, impressing Kirk Wessler of the Journal Star:

Ladies' second-place finisher Ashley Wagner, who was tweeting from the John Wilson Blades account, summed up her thoughts on the winning performance:

Maggie Hendricks of USA Today tried to put the score in perspective for football fans:

The young skater was aggressive throughout his free skate and was nearly flawless in all of his jumps. His technical score was well ahead of the field thanks to the difficulty of the moves, but his smooth skating was also impressive.

Zhou had to follow that up with the final skate of the day and held his own, landing his own quads while doing more than enough to jump into second place. It wasn't a perfect showing, but the clean jumps went a long way in his final score.

Brown was in just fourth place coming into the day but put on a show with his free skate. Although his degree of difficulty wasn't as high as others in the field, he impressed those watching along.

Former U.S. champion Parker Pennington discussed the performance:

Ice dancer Madison Chock enjoyed the show as well:

Despite suffering a stress fracture in his fibula in December, Brown gutted out a strong performance and finished in third place.

Sunday was the final day of action for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but the top finishers will set their sights on the World Figure Skating Championships, which will begin March 29 in Helsinki, Finland. The competition will be stronger, but the Americans in each category will have a chance to bring home some medals based on what they showed in Kansas City.

Post-Competition Reaction

While the skating world struggled to comprehend what Chen accomplished on the ice, the 17-year-old noted the behind the scenes work to reach this point.

"Coming from last season after the big injury to being able to push myself back to where I am now, it's just unbelievable," Chen said after his run, via U.S. Figure Skating. "I'm so happy to be here."

Chen suffered a hip injury a year ago but is now on top of American skating. Before long, he could be among the best in the world.