And so Evan Lysacek, a fourth place finisher at the Olympics four years ago, became the first American male skater to win the gold medal since Brian Boitano did it in 1988. Lysacek did it with a technically brilliant performance, controlled jumps, nearly perfect spins. It was, he said afterwards, the fruit of his constant and sometimes maddening labor on the basics.

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Gold Medalist Figure Skater Evan Lysacek:

I’m so thankful, because I resisted so many times and said why am I working on such simple moves. I can do a loop already. I can do a jump already. And my coaches and choreographers said do it again.

And even in practice here I kept getting frustrated because, like, I want to work on jumps more, and they were having me work on those turns. And tonight, my focus was getting every point out of that program I could.