I was disheartened to see Nathan Chen do so poorly in his short for the team event. It looked to be a classic case of nerves.
I wonder how much the hype before the games in ad spots, Olympic promotions, interviews, etc. can feed into that? Seems to me that if you see yourself held up as "the man to beat", these expectations can increase fear of failure. After all, the guy's only 18.
I know from my own skating tests that the jitters are something real to overcome, and they can affect performance mightily. For Nathan, the pressure is a magnitude greater than my moves tests done in a mostly empty rink. It really doesn't surprise me that his meltdown happened.