Nathan Chen Exemplifies Hard-Work & Elegance

At 22 years old, Nathan Chen has already acquired a multitude of experience and achievements, from being an Olympic figure skater to an Ivy League scholar. By setting a world record of 113.97 points in the men’s single skate program at the Winter Olympics, he proved he’s a champion of figure skating. Two quad jumps and a triple axel allowed him to pass Yuma Kagiyama of Japan into the first place spot, earning him the gold medal in men’s individual figure skating in addition to a silver medal with team USA. Although he had one of his most disappointing performances at 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, this in no way defines him; it’s irrelevant to who he is as it fails to exhibit the extensive training he’s endured, which Chen reflected on, saying, “At the last Olympics, both of the short programs didn’t go the way I wanted. To finally get an opportunity to skate the programs I wanted feels really good.” His sentiment is upheld by his many achievements, including being the first man in figure skating history to land 5 quadruple jumps in one performance at the 2017 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

The amount of training and resilience Nathan Chen underwent to get to this point began in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was born to Chinese parents Zhidong Chen and Hetty Wang. By having sisters who figure skated and watching his brothers play hockey, he developed an interest in the elegant sport at the age of three. In addition, Chen spent several years in gymnastics at the state and regional levels while training in ballet at the Ballet West Academy. However, his astonishing resume ceases to end as he now studys statistics and data science at Yale, soon to be graduating this year. The only aspects of his life that make him more ordinary are playing the guitar and biking on the beach, whenever he finds time to skate away from the demands of life.

By Katie Leslie