I Get Up Again Song Olympics Commercial
Figure skater Nathan Chen knows better than almost anyone on Globe the rush that comes with a perfect quadruple jump — his body spinning four times in the air in less than a second earlier alighting on the ice.
And he'south just as familiar with the bone-rattling crunch that comes with a fall.
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Chen experienced both during his Winter Olympic debut in 2018 in Republic of korea. Then, as now, he was Team USA's skating star and America's all-time hope for their kickoff individual skating medal in years. Articles frequently cited a nickname, considering of his peerless, how-does-he-land-them jumps: the "Quad King."
The failure seemed to confound him. "I idea I did everything right going into this," he said at the fourth dimension. "Things simply didn't click together."
Chen, now 22, will kickoff exist competing for the U.S. in the men's curt program segment of the figure skating team event. Each category (men'southward, women'due south, etc.) skates twice, in brusque and long segments; the scores are cumulative.
Chen will be the outset to tell yous that he's exactly the same every bit that 18-year-former skater from four years ago — except in all the key means that he isn't.
"I think that looking back in 2018, all I could retrieve about was skating and not beingness able to, evidently, skate well. Then I want to definitely exist able to embrace the Games in a unlike way," he tells PEOPLE now.
For example: "I really had a lot of fun at nationals," he says, referring to the U.S. championships in January. "And that'southward not something that I can definitively say was the truth the past few nationals."
(Then, as now, he also comes backed by a bevy of big-name sponsors, including the Wells Fargo Agile Greenbacks Visa Menu, whom he seamlessly shouts out for helping with his hobbies, similar guitar-playing.)
Nathan Chen competing in April 2021
| Credit: PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images
Nathan Chen loses his balance as he competes in Grenoble, France, in 2018
| Credit: Francois Mori/AP/Shutterstock
"It'south so piece of cake to autumn into the trap of being like, 'Oh my gosh, the pressure's edifice. Everything's then stressful. Everything'due south so scary,' " Chen admits. "I think that feeling in that way isn't necessarily a bad thing all the fourth dimension, only just being able to remind yourself like, yes, this is a pretty stressful time, but at the same time, there's a lot more to life. There's so much more than than this private competition, than this one shot."
And then he tries to remind himself, whenever information technology is helpful: "I'm here. I don't really have that many opportunities to be here."
"While it may come up off that I'grand super intense," he notes, "a lot of times I'm actually but trying to relax and savor it and I'll look up at the rafters, I'll look about at the audience but to see how cool the arena looks and all these things I think really help me just stay grounded and savor the moment more."
His life has inverse; his skating has inverse.
The quads are all still there, merely that'due south only part of his path to a medal. Judges as well score on artistry and presentation — functioning.
"We demand to take that technique, that technical content, but there's so much more to information technology than just the jumps," Chen says. His team has been "standing to try to push me forward and be more expressive and learn how to be more expressive."
Nathan Chen
| Credit: Courtesy Nathan Chen
The Salt Lake City native and youngest of 5 — ii older brothers, two older sisters — also enrolled at Yale University after the last Olympics. There he savored the anonymity of college life as he explored a world away from the rink.
"You encounter the same what, seven, 10 people every unmarried twenty-four hour period. And it'south crawly, you love these people, you abound really close to these people. You struggle, you have great successes with them, everything, ups and downs with them," Chen told PEOPLE at the fourth dimension, adding, "But you lot don't really go to diversify outside of that."
He says now: "Knowing that there's other things out at that place that I can find passion in and things that I volition be able to realize that I accept passions for I retrieve is really skilful. Considering before it was like, 'Okay, skating's it, so afterwards I'm done skating, then what? What exercise I take? That'south the only thing that I know and love. Is there annihilation else that I could mayhap know and love?' But and so having school gives me a new opening or a new door."
But he never set aside his Olympic ambitions. On get out from Yale, where he is majoring in data science and statistics, Chen aims to "experience it to the fullest while I'm there," he says of competing in China.
Nathan Chen later on winning gold at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January 2022
| Credit: Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty
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"I think beingness focused is something that I feel like I have to do," Chen says. "But at the same time, I call up over the past few years, what I've also learned is that in order to take fun, you also have to be relaxed and sometimes being intense doesn't e'er atomic number 82 to being able to enjoy what you exercise."
He'll exist in Beijing wearing the drape of U.Due south. star, which he says still feels weird to him — fifty-fifty in his 2d Olympics.
"Of course, that's been really special to me, just I still view myself as this young kid who's similar, 'Hey, I'yard coming to the Olympics and this is something that I've dreamed about' and don't ever really envision myself every bit like, 'Oh, this is a "household proper noun," ' " he says.
Chen is in Beijing with several shut friends, including Mariah Bell, the U.South. women'due south effigy skating champion. ("We've known each other for literally forever … Nosotros're pretty silly people when nosotros're around each other," he says.)
He demurs on questions almost his personal life — "ultimately skating is kind of the master thing correct now, and then once I have time after these Games to sort of figure out what I want in my life, so it'll be a lot easier" — and says that he doesn't envision a hereafter where he'll ever exist truly disconnected from his sport, though he does want to finish school.
Starting Thursday night, he'southward going to exit on the ice and he'due south just going to see.
He'southward been skating for 19 years, nearly his whole life. The Olympic podium isn't far away.
"While we accept these opportunities and while we can exercise these astonishing things," he says, "let's enjoy as much every bit we can."
To learn more almost all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, visit TeamUSA.org . Watch the Winter Olympics, beginning February. 3, and the Paralympics, beginning March iv, on NBC.
Source: https://people.com/sports/beijing-olympics-nathan-chen-returns-to-the-ice/
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