He's happy because he just scored a new world record 93.02 points for his short program. That's an 11 point lead over his nearest competitor, which means that, barring a complete meltdown in the long program, the men's gold will be coming back to Canada this year.
It's particularly sweet because he was being written off a couple of years ago (in spite of several strong showing including a silver at the Worlds) because he (they believed) didn't have a quad in his repetoire. What his detractors didn't know, is that he has been landing quads in practice for years, but decided not to introduce it into his competition programs until he was sure he could consistently nail it and had already fully refined the rest of his skating skills. He decided that this was the year, and the result was a gold at the Grand Prix final and, so it now appears, at the Worlds as well.
It's a shame, though, that neither Nobunari Oda nor Daisuke Takahashi from Japan appear to be skating at their best; I wonder if their training has been impacted by the earthquake/tsunami (which caused the Worlds to be relocated to Moscow from Tokyo). On the other hand, it was satisfying to see Brian Joubert from France completely fuck up his short program and place ninth (particularly a quad toe which earned him a -3 grade of execution, since his gums were among those flapping the most about Chan not attempting a quad. Chad's quad combination, OTOH, was the only quad in the competition to earn a positive GOE from the judges).
Ryan Bradley, the U.S. champion who was a surprise winner at the U.S. nationals a few months back, is currently in 12th place, which if it holds up would be his best ever showing at a world championship. Quite a comeback considering he was planning to retire this year.
