Nathan Chen

Nathan Chen

nation

United States

birthday

5th May 1999 (age 21)

place of birth

Salt Lake City

size

166 cm

Career

discipline

Single run

society

Salt Lake City FSC

Trainer

Rafael Harutjunjan
(Former coaches:
Marina Sujewa , Oleg Epstein,
Evgenija Tschernischewa,
Stephanie Grosscup,
Karel Kovar, Amanda Kovar)

choreographer

Shae-Lynn Bourne (KP),
Marie-France Dubreuil ,
Samuel Chouinard (K)
(Former choreographers:
Lori Nichol, Nadja Kanajewa,
Marina Sujewa, Nikolai Morosow ,
Phillip Mills, Stephanie Grosscup,
Evgenija Tschernischewa)

status

active

Medal table

Olympic medals	0 ×	1 ×
World Cup medals	2 ×	0 ×
VKM medals	1 ×	0 ×

winter Olympics
bronze	Pyeongchang 2018	team
World figure skating championships
gold	Milan 2018	Men's
gold	Saitama 2019	Men's
Four continents championships
gold	Gangneung 2017	Men's

Personal best

Total points	335.30 ^act. 321.40 ^hist.	GPF 2019/20 WM 2018
Freestyle	224.92 ^act. 219.46 ^hist.	GPF 2019/20 WM 2018
Short program	110.38 ^act. 104.12 ^hist.	GPF 2019/20 SA 2017

Placements in the figure skating Grand Prix

Podium placements	1.	2.	3.
Grand Prix Final	3	1	0
Grand Prix competitions	6th	1	0

last change: December 7th, 2019
current: according to the points system from the 2018/19 season
hist .: according to the points system before the 2018/19 season
Bold: world record

Nathan Chen (born May 5, 1999 in Salt Lake City , Utah ) is an American figure skater who starts in a single run . He is the world champion of 2018 and 2019 .

Chen is the first and so far only figure skater who managed to successfully land five different quadruple jumps in the competition ( Lutz , Flip , Salchow , Toeloop and Rittberger ).

Personal

Nathan Chen was born on May 5, 1999 in Salt Lake City, the youngest of five siblings of Hetty Wang and Zhidong Chen. His parents immigrated to the United States from China in 1988 as a student. His mother, who accompanied him to ice skating training as a child, works as a translator in hospitals, his father, a doctor of pharmacy, works in the field of medical research and runs a small pharmaceutical company.

After the end of the 2017/18 season, Chen was accepted as a student at Yale University and began his studies in the fall of 2018.

Beginnings in figure skating

Nathan Chen began ice skating at the age of three after watching his two older brothers play ice hockey . His two older sisters also did figure skating. In addition to figure skating training, Chen also took ballet classes at the Ballet West Academy and participated in gymnastics competitions at the regional and state levels for seven years . He competed in figure skating for the first time in 2003. He won two US championships for both the novices (2010 and 2011) and the juniors (2012 and 2014). In 2016, Chen injured his left hip while exhibiting and had to undergo an operation, so that although he qualified for the world championships for the first time in third in the US championships , he was unable to take part.

Chen is training with Rafael Harutjunjan in Lakewood , California today . His choreographers are Shae-Lynn Bourne (short program) and Lori Nichol (freestyle).

Career

Season 2016/17 - rise to the top of the world

The extremely powerful Chen made it into the world elite of seniors in the 2016/17 season. With a second place in the NHK Trophy and a fourth place in the Trophée Eric Bompard , he qualified for the Grand Prix final for the first time . There he won the silver medal straight away.

In January 2017, Chen became the youngest figure skater since 1966 to become the US senior champion . He was the first figure skater ever to show five quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Lutz , Toeloop , Flip and Salchow . Together with his short program, he was the first figure skater to achieve seven clean quadruple jumps in one competition.

Chen made his debut at the Four Continents Championships in Gangneung, South Korea, in February 2017 . In the short program, to the music of Le Corsaire , he showed a quadruple Lutz triple toeloop combination, a quadruple flip and a triple axel . Furthermore, he received the highest possible level 4 rating for all of his pirouettes and step sequences. He improved his personal best in the short program by more than ten points and, with 103.12 points, was only the third figure skater after Yuzuru Hanyū and Javier Fernández to reach the 100 point mark. As the leader, Chen went in his freestyle to Borodin's Polovetsian dances and made his five quadruple jumps, but not all of them perfect. Nevertheless, he surpassed the 200-point mark and improved his personal best to 204.34 points. Although Hanyū was able to defeat the American in the freestyle, in the end it was enough for Chen to win his first major international championship for seniors. He not only improved his personal best to 307.46 points, but also broke through the 300-point mark as the third figure skater after Hanyū and Fernández.

Nathan Chen (center) on the podium of the 2017 Four Continents Championship

After his victory at the Four Continents Championships, Chen went with high expectations for his world championship debut in Helsinki . In the short program, however, the American fell on his three-time Axel . His performance was enough in the highest technical competition in figure skating history to go into the freestyle as provisional sixth. When he was under pressure, he tried six quadruple jumps in the freestyle and thus by far the most technically high-quality program in the field, but fell with four times Lutz and four times Salchow . Nevertheless, this was still the fourth best freestyle and confirmed sixth overall place. Although Chen was disappointed after the competition, he found consolation in the fact that despite the mistakes he was still able to compete against the strong competition. In the run-up to and during the World Cup, he also had to struggle with ice-skating problems that could not be satisfactorily resolved due to the lack of replacements.

2017/18 season - Olympic Games and first world championship title

Chen got off to a promising start into his first Olympic season. In his first competition, the US International Figure Skating Classic, a Challenger tournament in his hometown of Salt Lake City , in September 2017 he was the first figure skater to successfully land five different quadruple jumps ( Lutz , Flip , Salchow , Toeloop and Rittberger ).

The first Grand Prix competition of the season meant for Chen his first Grand Prix victory of his career. At the Cup of Russia he managed to leave the reigning world and Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu behind. The American also won his second Grand Prix of the season, Skate America , this time ahead of compatriot Adam Rippon . With this, Chen easily qualified for the second Grand Prix final of his career. Chen won this for the first time on December 8, 2017 in Nagoya . Despite numerous mistakes, it was just enough to win in the end before the local hero Shōma Uno , which was also faulty . It was the third victory of an American in a Grand Prix final after Jeremy Abbott (2008/09) and Evan Lysacek (2009/10).

At the beginning of January 2018, Chen confidently defended his title at the US championships with seven successful quadruple jumps; Only the three-time Axel caused him problems .

Chen went to his first Olympic Games with high media expectations. But problems with his short program already showed in the team competition. The American could not turn this off in the individual competition either. He fell both with the fourfold Lutz , the combination and with the triple Axel ; he got out of the quadruple toe loop prematurely. In the end he ended up in 17th place and had to give up all ambitions for an Olympic victory after the short program. Nathan Chen made his comeback in the freestyle to Mao's last dancer and Le sacre du printemps . He landed six historic four- fold jumps (including Lutz , Flip , Salchow and Toeloop) successfully, only with the four-fold flip as a single jump did he briefly have to put his hand on the ice. Even the triple Axel, which had been causing him problems lately, he easily stood, as well as a combination of triple flip, Rittberger and triple Salchow. His pirouettes also received level 4 ratings throughout. In the end, it was enough for him in the freestyle to achieve a new personal best of 215.08 points, the highest freestyle performance ever achieved at the Olympics. He won the freestyle with almost nine points ahead of Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyū and improved by twelve places to fifth place.

World Champion 2018

At the World Championships in Milan five weeks later, in contrast to the Olympic Games, Chen managed to complete his short program for Benjamin Clementine's song Nemesis without a fall. Although he struggled with his quadruple Lutz triple toe loop combination and his quadruple flip , which led to slight deductions in the degree of execution, the triple Axel in particular did not cause him any problems. Overall, he took the lead in the short program with 101.94 points. When Chen went into his freestyle as the last of the starting field, he already knew that all of his competitors had failed. Nevertheless, he did not simplify his freestyle and showed six quadruple jumps, all of which he successfully landed. In the end, his freestyle, the only one without a fall in the last group, brought him a victory with over 47 points, by far the largest advantage a world champion had since the introduction of the new points system at World Championships in 2005. With 219.46 points, it also meant one another increase to Chen's Olympic freestyle and thus personal best. His total score of 321.40 points was also a personal best; it was the second highest rated in figure skating history. With the two landed four-fold jumps in the short program and the six landed four-fold jumps in the freestyle, Chen also succeeded as the first figure skater to make eight four-fold jumps in a competition at the world championships.

Nathan Chen thus ended the season with victories in all competitions in which he had participated, with the exception of the Olympic Games.

2018/19 season - studies and second world championship title

Nathan Chen at the Grand Prix Final in Vancouver

As a Grand Prix competitions for the launched under a new points system post-Olympic season 2018/19 the now chose Yale students Chen Skate America and the Internationaux de France from. He remained victorious in both and thus confidently secured himself participation in the Grand Prix final in Vancouver . There, too, Chen won and thus defended his title from the previous year, again against Shōma Uno .

On January 27, 2019, Chen became the American champion for the third time in a row in Detroit . Neither in his short program with two quadruple jumps nor in his freestyle program with four quadruple jumps made mistakes. He received a total of 342.22 points from the judges.

At the World Championships in Saitama at the end of March, Chen again showed two flawless performances. In the short program for Caravan by Fanfare Ciocărlia , he easily landed a triple Axel , a quadruple Lutz and a quadruple-triple toe- loop combination. This earned him a personal best of 107.40 points, which gave him a comfortable lead of almost 13 and over 16 points , especially his two main Japanese competitors Yuzuru Hanyū and Shōma Uno, after faulty short programs . Chen went into the freestyle right after Hanyū's strong comeback, which had brought the hall to a boil and formed the emotional climax in front of a home crowd. Undeterred of Americans to let Country of All of Woodkid however, no doubt about its dominance arise. He opened with a brilliant fourfold Lutz , who got almost the maximum score of five bonus points for the degree of execution (GOE). A fourfold flip , a fourfold toe loop and a fourfold triple toe loop combination followed without any complaints . He broke the points world records previously set by Hanyū Moments in freestyle (216.02) and overall performance (323.42) according to the modified point system of this season. Chen won 11 of his last 12 competitions and has remained undefeated since the 2018 Olympics . It was the first time since 1984 ( Scott Hamilton ) that an American could defend his world title. With the third place of Chen's compatriot Vincent Zhou , the US men succeeded for the first time since 1996 ( Todd Eldredge , Rudy Galindo ) to occupy two podium places at a world championship.

Season 2019/20

Nathan Chen at the Internationaux de France in Grenoble on November 2nd, 2019

As in the previous year, Chen began the Grand Prix season with appearances at Skate America and the French GP and, as in the previous year, he won both competitions. His 44-point lead on Skate America was the largest in the history of the competition. With his win in Grenoble, he extended his winning streak in Grand Prix competitions to eight in a row. This was the last time Yevgeny Plyushchenko succeeded. Chen easily qualified for the Grand Prix final in Turin . There he achieved a new personal best in the short program with 110.38 points. In the freestyle, Chen improved with u. a. five flawless fourfold jumps his own world record to 224.92 points and thus also his world record in total performance to 335.30 points. In the end, this meant his third win in a row at the Grand Prix final. With a gap of more than 43 points to second Yuzuru Hanyū , it was also the largest point-wise gap between a winner in the history of the Grand Prix final.

Results

Nathan Chen at the 2018 French GP

Championship / year	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
winter Olympics					5.
World championships			Z	6th	1.	1.
Four continents championships				1.
Junior World Championships	3.	4th	Z
American championships	1st J	8th.	3.	1.	1.	1.	1.
-
Grand Prix competition / season	13/14	14/15	15/16	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20
Grand Prix Final				2.	1.	1.	1.
Skate America					1.	1.	1.
Cup of Russia					1.
Internationaux de France				4th		1.	1.
NHK Trophy				2.

Z = withdrawn; J = juniors

Nathan Chen, 2015

Detailed results of the main competitions

Season 2019/2020
date	competition	KP	K	total
December 5-8, 2019	Grand Prix Final 2019/20	1 110.38	1 224.92	1 335.30
Season 2018/2019
date	competition	KP	K	total
March 18-24, 2019	World Championships 2019	1 107.40	1 216.02	1 323.42
December 6-9, 2018	Grand Prix Final 2018/19	1 92.99	1 189.43	1 282.42
Season 2017/2018
date	competition	KP	K	total
March 19-25, 2018	World Championships 2018	1 101.94	1 219.46	1 321,40
February 9-25, 2018	Olympic Winter Games 2018	17 82.27	1 215.08	5 297.35
December 7-10, 2017	Grand Prix Final 2017/18	1 103.32	2 183.19	1 286.51
Season 2016/2017
date	competition	KP	K	total
March 29 - April 2, 2017	World Championships 2017	6 97.33	4 193.39	6 290.72
February 15-19, 2017	Four continents championship 2017	1 103.12	2 204.34	1 307.46
December 8-11, 2016	Grand Prix Final 2016/17	5 85.30	1 197.55	2 282.85

KP = short program; K = freestyle

Programs

season	Short program	Freestyle	Exhibition running
2019/20	La Bohème by Charles Aznavour choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road written by Elton John , Bernie Taupin sung by Taron Egerton , Jamie Bell Rocketman written by Elton John , Bernie Taupin sung by Taron Egerton Bennie and the Jets written by Elton John , Bernie Taupin sung by Logic , Elton John , Pink choreographed by Marie-France Dubreuil , Samuel Chouinard	Next to Me by Otto Knows choreographed by Nathan Chen
2018/19	Caravan by Fanfare Ciocărlia choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne	Land of All by Woodkid choreographed by Samuel Chouinard , Marie-France Dubreuil	No Good by Kaleo choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne
2017/18	Nemesis of Benjamin Clementine choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne	Mao's last dancer from Christopher Gordon Le sacre du printemps by Igor Stravinsky choreographed by Lori Nichol	No Good by Kaleo choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne Parachute by Otto Knows choreographed by Benoît Richaud
2016/17	Le Corsaire by Adolphe Adam , Léo Delibes choreographed by Marina Sujewa	Polovtsian Dances (from Prince Igor ) by Alexander Borodin choreographed by Nadjeschda Kanajewa	Stole the Show by Kygo ft. Parson James choreographed by Nathan Chen [1]