Nathan Chen

Nathan Wei Chen (born May 5, 1999) is an American figure skater. He is the 2022 Olympic champion in both the men's singles and team event, a three-time World champion (2018, 2019, 2021), the 2017 Four Continents champion, a three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2017, 2018, 2019), a ten-time Grand Prix medalist (8 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, and a six-time U.S. national champion (2017–22). At the junior level, Chen is the 2015–16 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, 2013–14 Junior Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, 2014 World Junior bronze medalist, and a six-time Junior Grand Prix medalist (5 gold, 1 silver). He became the youngest skater to win a U.S. Championship at the novice level in 2010, at age ten, a title he successfully defended the following season.

Chen, who has been referred to as one of the greatest men's figure skaters of all time by various news outlets, holds the highest winning percentage in competitions in the modern era with a more-than-three-year winning streak from 2018 to 2021. Chen is renowned for performing some of the most technically challenging programs in the world and is acclaimed for surpassing the expected athletic standards in the sport. He is known as the "Quad King" for his mastery of quadruple jumps. Chen is the first skater to have successfully landed each of the five reverse take-off quadruple jumps (Lutz, flip, loop, Salchow, and toeloop) in competition with a positive grade of execution. He has broken world and national records, and is the current world record holder for men in the short program and combined total score, and former world record holder in the free skate under the ISU Judging System. He currently holds the highest total scores of three major ISU competitions: the Olympics, the Four Continent Championships, and the Grand Prix Final. Chen is the first Asian American man to win U.S., world, and Olympic titles in single skating. At age 17, Chen became the youngest U.S. champion since Dick Button (1946), and in 2022 became the first man to win six consecutive U.S. titles since Button (1946–52). When Chen won the 2018 World Championships, he became the youngest World Champion since Evgeni Plushenko (2001). In 2021, he became the first U.S. man to win three consecutive world titles since Scott Hamilton (1982–1984). He is the first single figure skater to win both team and singles gold medals in the same Olympic games (2022).

After his gold medal-winning performance at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Chen was named Most Valuable Skater at the 2023 edition of the International Skating Union's ISU Skating Awards and earned a nomination for a Laureus World Sports Award. In 2022, he appeared in Time magazine's list of the 100 most-influential people in the world and was announced as one of Harper's Bazaar'''s Icons. Chen was included in Forbes 2020 30 under 30 Sports list. Chen has written two books: his memoir One Jump at a Time: My Story and the children's book Wei Skates On. He matriculated at Harvard Medical School in 2026.

Early life and family Nathan Wei Chen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Chinese immigrant parents Zhidong Chen, a research scientist from Guangxi, China, and Hetty Wang from Beijing. He has four older siblings: Alice, Tony, Colin and Janice Chen, who worked for the Jennifer Doudna lab and co-founded Mammoth Biosciences. Chen was more active and fearless than his siblings, whom he tried to copy. He aspired to become a hockey goalkeeper after watching his older brothers play hockey, but his mother gave him figure skates.

To improve his coordination and strength and supplement his skating, Chen's mother enrolled him in gymnastics and ballet classes. He trained with Ballet West Academy for more than six years and competed at state level in gymnastics, placing first in the all-around at the Utah Boys' State Gymnastics Championships in St. George in 2008. As a child, Chen also trained as a pianist and won local competitions in his age group and later learned to play guitar as an extracurricular activity. According to Chen, he comes from "a huge chess family"—his siblings competed as children in chess tournaments —but, he says, he is less skilled in the game than the rest of his family.

Competitive skating career

Early career Nathan Chen was part of an increase in the number of infant skaters following the 2002 Winter Olympics in his home town. He started skating at the age of three in a beginners' class at the Salt Lake City Sports Complex, which served as a practice rink during the Olympics. He entered his first figure-skating competition in 2003. When he was seven, Chen started competing at the juvenile and intermediate levels in the U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships, placing 10th at the juvenile boys' level in 2007; in the same competition, he won bronze in the juvenile boys' division in 2008 and the intermediate men's silver medal in 2009. He remained at the novice level for the 2010–2011 season and became the first male skater to retain the U.S. novice champion at the 2011 U.S. Championships in Greensboro, finishing almost 36 points ahead of his nearest competitor. Chen debuted as at the junior level in the 2011–12 season, and won his first national junior men's title at the 2012 U.S. Championships in San Jose. At his first international appearance, Chen won the novice men's event at the 2012 Gardena Spring Trophy in Italy.

Chen had started working with former Czechoslovak skater Karel Kovář, who used to train with Russian coach Alexei Mishin and taught Chen to pull his arms across his torso in a "seat belt" position when he rotated, a position Chen still uses. Kovar introduced Chen to fellow Czechoslovak skater Jozef Sabovčík nicknamed "Jumping Joe". Sabovčík was the first coach who told Chen not to stop in the middle of a program during a run-through.

Junior career Chen became eligible to compete in the ISU Junior Grand Prix in 2012–2013 In 2013–2014, Chen was placed first at both Grand Prix assignments in Mexico and Belarus, and qualified for the 2013 Junior Grand Prix Final, where he finished third. He won his second U.S. junior title with a record short-program score of 79.61 and a record cumulative score of 223.93 at the 2014 U.S. Championships, and won bronze at the 2014 World Junior Championships a few months later.

Chen at the junior men's medal ceremony at the 2014 U.S. Championships alt=A photograph of Nathan Chen holding his gold medal at the medal ceremony following the 2014 U.S. championships.

Chen was often injured during the 2014–2015 season, and was only healthy enough to compete at one Grand Prix event in Croatia, where he finished second behind Shoma Uno. Chen debuted as a senior in the U.S. at the 2015 Pacific Sectional Championships, which he won, and advanced to the 2015 U.S. Championship. A week before the championship, Chen developed a growth-related heel injury and competed with modified versions of both programs, placing eighth overall. After nationals, Chen was assigned to the 2015 World Junior Championships, where he finished fourth. In 2015–2016, Chen took first place in the Junior Grand Prix Final after winning both Grand Prix events in Colorado Springs, Colorado. and Logroño. At the 2016 U.S. Championships, Chen became the first U.S. man to land two quadruple jumps in a short program, and the first U.S. man to land four quadruple jumps in a free skate. He finished third overall behind Adam Rippon and Max Aaron; Rippon did not attempt any quads and Aaron landed two, restarting the long-standing debate over whether artistry should trump athleticism. While attempting a quadruple toe loop in the exhibition, Chen sustained an avulsion injury to his left hip and underwent surgery. He withdrew from the 2016 World Junior Championships and the 2016 World Championships. After a month of rehabilitation at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, he went to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to work with strength-and-conditioning specialists, and continued his rehabilitation. Chen resumed full training around July. At his senior Grand Prix debut at the 2016 Trophée de France, he landed clean quadruple Lutz and triple-toe combinations and clean quadruple flips in both segments. He received 92.85 points for the short program, breaking Evan Lysacek's U.S. record of 90.30. Chen placed fourth overall and returned to California to work with Rafael Arutyunyan before the NHK Trophy, Chen opened the 2016–2017 Grand Prix Final, placing fifth in the short program. He won the free skate with a performance that included four quadruple jumps, earning a combined score of 282.85 points, coming second to Hanyu. At 17, he became the second-youngest man to win a medal at a Grand Prix Final after Evgeni Plushenko, who was 16 in 1999.

At the 2017 U.S. Championships in Kansas City, Chen performed two quadruple jumps in the short program and became the first skater to land five clean quadruple jumps in a free skate. He won his first senior U.S. title with record scores of 106.39 in the short program, 212.08 in the free skate, and 318.47 overall to become the youngest champion in more than 50 years. A few weeks later, Chen won the 2017 Four Continents Championships. He scored 103.12 in the short program, 204.34 in the free skate, and 307.46 in combined total, exceeding 100 (short program), 200 (free skate), and 300 (combined total) for the first time in his career, and became the youngest Four Continents men's champion in history until Kao Miura in 2023. At the 2017 World Championships, Chen's boots had begun to fall apart, but he felt his back-up boots were too new and decided to try to repair the old ones with duct tape and hockey laces. Chen ended the season at the 2017 World Team Trophy, where he finished second in the short program and fourth in the free skate. The U.S. team finished third overall.

2017–2018 season: Pyeongchang Olympics and first World title Chen's first competition in the Olympic season was the 2017 CS U.S. International Figure Skating Classic. Working with choreographers Shae-Lynn Bourne and Lori Nichol, he debuted a short-program set to "Nemesis" and a free skate with music from Mao's Last Dancer. In the free skate, he landed his first quadruple loop to become the first skater to land five different quads in competition. After placing first in the short program and second in the free skate at 2017 Rostelecom Cup, Chen defeated Yuzuru Hanyu to win his first Grand Prix title. At 2017 Skate America, Chen secured his second title, finishing ahead of teammate Adam Rippon. With the two wins, Chen earned the top qualifying spot for the 2017–18 Grand Prix Final, where he had a narrow win over Shoma Uno. Chen became the first U.S. man to win the final since Evan Lysacek in 2009. At the 2018 U.S. Championships, which served as trials for the Olympics, Chen performed seven clean quadruple jumps—two in the short program and five in the free skate—to win his second consecutive national title.

alt=A photograph of Shoma Uno, Nathan Chen and Mikhail Kolyada (from left to right) with medals around their necks and flowers in their hands.

At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Chen performed his short program in the team event poorly and placed fourth, but won bronze alongside his teammates. A week later, Chen had another disappointing performance in the men's individual short program and finished 17th heading into the free skate. Afterward he said, "Honestly, it was bad ... I made as many mistakes as I possibly could have". Chen placed first in the free skate with a new personal best score of 215.08, and became the first skater to land six quads in a free skate, and finished fifth overall. Chen caught influenza and withdrew early from the gala to avoid infecting other athletes. A month later, Chen won his first world title at the 2018 World Championships, finishing first in both programs. He became the first skater to land eight quadruple jumps in a single competition—two in the short program and six in the free skate. He became the first U.S. man to win the World Championships since Evan Lysacek in 2009 and the youngest world champion since Evgeni Plushenko in 2001. His margin of victory over silver medalist Shoma Uno (47.63 points) was the greatest at a World Championships, Olympic Winter Games, and Grand Prix Final under the historical ISU Judging System (IJS). In early 2018, Chen was accepted into Yale University.

2018–2019 season: Second consecutive World title alt=A photograph of Nathan Chen performing his free program at a competition in France.

Chen's first competition as a full-time college student was the Japan Open, where he skated alongside Jeremy Abbott, Bradie Tennell, and Mariah Bell. He finished fourth in the free skate and Team North America finished third overall. At 2018 Skate America, Chen skated to "Caravan" by Fanfare Ciocărlia in his short program and to "Land of All" by Woodkid during his free skate. He won both segments and defended his title, winning by the largest point margin in the competition's history. At the 2018 Internationaux de France, Chen fell on his quadruple flip in the short program and entered the free skate in third place behind Jason Brown. He recovered and won the event with a total score of 271.58. At the 2018–19 Grand Prix Final, Chen won the short program and the free skate—though he made some mistakes—to win his second Grand Prix Final. With the win, Chen became the fourth man to win consecutive Grand Prix Final titles since the event debuted in 1995. At the 2019 U.S. Championships in Detroit, Chen received a record score of 113.42 for a two-quad short program and a record score of 228.80 for a four-quad free skate, ending with a record combined score of 342.22 points. He won the championship by 58.21 points over Vincent Zhou in second place and became the first man to win three consecutive national titles since Johnny Weir in 2004–2006.

Competing at the 2019 World Championships in Saitama during Yale's spring break, Chen defended his world title and broke the world record for the free skate and total score, with 216.02 and 323.42 points respectively. He won the championship by 22.45 points over Yuzuru Hanyu, becoming the first U.S. man to win back-to-back world titles since Scott Hamilton (1981–1984). With teammate Vincent Zhou winning bronze, two Americans stood on the men's podium at Worlds for the first time since 1996. Chen traveled back to Japan to conclude his season at the 2019 World Team Trophy, where he won both segments; Team USA placed first.

2019–2020 season: Third consecutive Grand Prix Final title alt=A photograph of Yuzuru Hanyu, Nathan Chen and Kevin Aymoz (from left to right) standing at the podium at a victory ceremony.

Chen opened his 2019–2020 season by winning the free skate in the men's event at the Japan Open, contributing to Team North America's bronze-medal finish. He went on to defend his title at 2019 Skate America in Las Vegas, becoming the first person to win Skate America three times consecutively since Todd Eldredge, who won four times from 1994 to 1997. Chen's 44-point margin of victory was the largest in the event's history. Two weeks later, Chen won his second consecutive Internationaux de France title in Grenoble. He became the first singles skater since Evgeni Plushenko to win eight consecutive Grand Prix events.

At the 2019–2020 Grand Prix Final in Turin, Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu were expected to compete for gold and silver. Chen had a clean short program and a new personal-best score of 110.38, 0.15 short of Hanyu's world record at the time. He went on to set new highest scores of 224.92 in the free skate and 335.30 in the combined total, breaking his own world records in both segments, winning the title with 43.87 points over Hanyu. While suffering from influenza, Chen resumed training less than two weeks before the 2020 U.S. Championships, where he won his fourth national title with a new U.S. national short program record of 114.13, and became the first man to win four consecutive U.S. men's titles since Olympic champion Brian Boitano in 1988.

2020–2021 season: Third consecutive World title With the pandemic ongoing, skaters were largely assigned to the 2020–2021 Grand Prix based on geographic location; Chen was set to compete at Skate America. Despite popping two planned jumps in the free skate, he won both the short program and the free skate with a total score of 299.15. Afterward, speaking to Olympic Channel, Chen said he was taking a break from school to focus on skating and the 2022 Winter Olympics; he said, "[The Olympics] are the end goal ... It's the driving force behind a lot of what we do and a lot of the decisions that we make". At the 2021 U.S. Championships, Chen won his fifth-consecutive national title, becoming the first man to win five consecutive titles since Dick Button, whom Chen cited as inspiration, saying:

At the 2021 World Championships in Stockholm, Chen placed third after the short program, in which he fell on his quadruple Lutz, with a score of 98.85. He skated a clean free skate with five quads and finished first with a score of 222.03. He won his third consecutive world title with a cumulative score of 320.88, and became the first man since Patrick Chan (2011–13) and the first American since Scott Hamilton (1982–84) to win three world titles in a row. In a post-competition interview, Chen said he felt he had grown since the 2018 Winter Olympics when he was in 17th place after the short program: "I think having had that experience now going into this competition, it definitely helps me retain some resiliency, I think. And I think that definitely, you know, thankfully came into play today." Chen finished his season at the 2021 World Team Trophy in Osaka, where he placed first in both segments and Team USA finished second overall.

2021–2022 season: Olympic gold medal Chen began the Olympic season at 2021 Skate America, where he placed fourth in the short program. He fell on his first quadruple jump and a poor landing on the second quadruple jump left him unable to execute the required two-jump combination. He placed second in the free skate despite doubling two of his six planned quads, finishing in third place overall behind Vincent Zhou and Shoma Uno. Speaking about the end of his undefeated run since the 2018 World Championships, Chen said: "it's not devastating. It was inevitably going to end as a winning streak at some point in time, and I am really proud of these guys up here". Chen recovered a week later at 2021 Skate Canada International, where he won both segments to win the competition with a 47.63-point margin over silver medalist Jason Brown. Chen's results secured him a place in the 2021–22 Grand Prix Final. which was subsequently canceled due to restrictions prompted by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. At the end of November, Chen engaged Massimo Scali to help finalize the presentation of his Olympic programs. After initially skating to Benjamin Clementine's "Eternity" and a Mozart medley, he had decided to return to his "La Bohème" short program and Rocketman free skate from 2019–20 but was unable to work with choreographer Marie-France Dubreull in person due to the ongoing pandemic. At the 2022 U.S. Championships, Chen won his sixth consecutive U.S. title, a feat only achieved by Dick Button 70 years earlier from 1946 to 1952. Chen scored 115.39, a new national record, in the short program, and 212.62 in the free skate for a combined total score of 328.01.

A month later, at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Chen was the U.S. entry in the men's short program in the Olympic team event in which he had poorly performed four years earlier. He skated clean and placed first with a new personal best of 111.71, securing ten points for Team USA. He said, "t feels great to have a short program I actually skated well, at an Olympic experience". The U.S. team initially won the silver medal, which was to be Chen's second Olympic medal; however, following a positive doping test of Russia's gold medalist Kamila Valieva, the team members were not awarded their medals, pending an investigation. In January 2024, the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced the final results, disqualifying Valieva. Six months later, in July 2024, the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed appeals by the Russian Olympic Committee, and the U.S. team was awarded the gold medals in a ceremony at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris on August 7, 2024. Two days after the team event, Chen set a world record in the men's short program with a score of 113.97, breaking the previous record of 111.82 set by Yuzuru Hanyu in 2020. Chen won an Olympic gold with a free skate score of 218.63 that included five quads, finishing with a combined total score of 332.60. His free-skate costume, which Chen's long-time collaborator New-York-based fashion designer Vera Wang designed, is now part of the permanent collections in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. After the Olympics, Chen withdrew from the 2022 World Championships due to injury.

2022–Present: Hiatus Chen stepped away from competition at the end of the 2021–22 season to finish college. Although he has never formally retired from skating, Chen announced on August 8, 2025, that he would not compete at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.

Show-skating career and coaching alt=A photograph of Nathan Chen skating during an exhibition under colourful lights.

Chen started performing in ice shows from an early age and at five years old, he made appearances in televised shows such as "Holiday On Ice: Las Vegas Style" (2004), and at seven years old in "Supermen On Ice" (2006). After winning his first novice title, he was invited to skate in shows all over the world, including China in 2010, and Malaysia in 2012. He performed in the annual "Sun Valley on Ice" summer shows in Idaho since his early childhood and made several appearances in Harvard University's show "An Evening with Champions".

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Competitive highlights