Nathan Chen Wins Figure Skating Gold, Claiming Prize That Eluded Him

In his final practice before skating for the Olympic gold medal, Nathan Chen made sure to take in the moment.

He stood alone at the edge of the rink in Beijing and looked around at the stands and the arena, and at the Olympic rings at every turn. Unlike at the 2018 Winter Games when he finished fifth overall, he is appreciating the experience of competing at the Olympics, win or lose.

And this time he won, unlike last time when his tunnel-vision was focused only on the gold.

With jet-fuelled quadruple jumps and a performance to an Elton John medley that raised goose bumps, Chen, 22, shouted loudly and clearly to all of the Beijing Games — and the world — that he has been the best skater around for more than three years and that nothing has changed. Four years after he finished fifth overall, dramatically rising to that spot after finishing 17th in the short program, Chen fulfilled the outside expectation that he would win the Olympic gold medal. Finally.

He came into the free skate with confidence after winning the short program with authority, nearly 6 points ahead of the second-place skater, Yuma Kagiyama of Japan. But he didn’t just win it — he crushed it, scoring 113.97 points, a world record, for skills that included impeccable quadruple jumps and gyroscope-fast spins.

Even before the free skate on Thursday, one of Chen’s main rivals — two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu — was out of the running to medal. In the short program, Hanyu aborted his first jump, later claiming he hit a hole in the ice, and the zero score he received for the skill seriously hurt his medal chances. He couldn’t make up the lost points in the free program, either, falling twice, including during the never-done-before quadruple axel.

Chen said he has gained perspective since the last Olympics. For two years while competing on the international stage, he studied at Yale, broadening the teeny-tiny world of skating he has lived in for as long as he can remember. He acknowledged that he’s not a kid anymore, certainly not the earnest, stressed out one who arrived at the last Olympics needing to win at all cost. Buoyed by a new sense of confidence, he has lost only once since the 2018 world championships.

If he lost a second time, today at the Olympics, Chen said he wouldn’t be devastated, at least for long.

“I think that oftentimes you kind of dramatize things and are like, ‘Oh, man, it’s the end of the world if things don’t go well,’” Chen said in an interview last month. “But really, no, the world continues to turn and things will go back to normal.”

Now the new normal is that he is an Olympic champion.