With a digicam trailing his each transfer, Nathan Chen glides throughout the ice on the identical coaching middle that fueled his Olympic desires. 4 years after profitable Olympic gold, Chen remains to be the image of energy and artistry as he picks up pace to spherical a flip and circles an arm round his head.
“Is that this a comeback?” Jean-Luc Baker, a 2022 Olympic ice dancer, playfully asks.
The reigning Olympic champion has not skated competitively since Feb. 10, 2022, when Chen landed 5 clear quadruple jumps to change into the seventh U.S. man to win a determine skating singles gold medal.
He doesn’t intend to vary that quickly.
Six months earlier than the Milano Cortina Olympics, Chen confirmed he won’t defend his Olympic title. The 2-time Olympic gold medalist hasn’t formally retired, however is able to embark on a brand new profession in drugs.
“I simply wish to open doorways to form of see what’s the very best kind of strategy for me,” Chen advised The Occasions. “And albeit, at this cut-off date in my life, I’ve already achieved sufficient in skating that I’m fairly glad with my profession.”
A six-time nationwide champion and three-time world champion, Chen put an exclamation level on his profession with a dominant efficiency in Beijing. He set the world document within the quick program. He conquered demons from a 2018 catastrophe wherein he completed fifth to win his first particular person Olympic medal. He grew to become the primary singles skater in Olympic historical past with two gold medals in the identical Video games after serving to the US to a victory within the workforce competitors.
Then Chen slipped seamlessly again into life as a pupil, ending his bachelor’s diploma at Yale, the place he began earlier than the Video games. He started making use of to medical colleges whereas serving to launch Your True Step, a sequence of skating seminars with Baker, who positioned eleventh within the 2022 Olympic ice dance competitors with companion Kaitlin Hawayek, and choreographer Sam Chouinard. After giving instruction on and off the ice to roughly two dozen younger athletes, the primary query Chen acquired Friday throughout a post-camp Q&A was about which medical faculty he was going to attend.
Whichever one needs him, Chen responded with a chuckle.
Chen, who mentioned taking the medical school admission take a look at was much more nerve-wracking than competing on the Olympics, is excited about cardiology or oncology, particularly associated to genetics. He’s inquisitive about cardiothoracic surgical procedure, however anxious concerning the potential work-life stability sacrifices.
The priority isn’t that Chen is scared to dedicate himself utterly to a specific job. He simply needs his subsequent undertaking to be as fulfilling as skating was.
“The premise of being a health care provider, I believe, is to assist individuals,” Chen mentioned. “I believe that’s one thing that I didn’t essentially really feel as an athlete, that I felt was a bit of bit missing, and I get a bit of little bit of that sense doing YTS.”
The skating camps, which started in 2024, have introduced Chen and Baker to rinks in Irvine, Boston, Detroit and Seattle. They got here up with the thought whereas attending a pre-Olympic camp in 2022 so the longtime associates might stay shut to one another and to the game. Baker, 31, knew the Beijing Video games would probably be his final Olympics. Chen wasn’t positive on the time.
Nathan Chen listens to the nationwide anthem whereas standing on the highest step of the rostrum after profitable gold in males’s determine skating on the 2022 Beijing Olympic Video games.
(Jae C. Hong / Related Press)
Nonetheless solely 26, Chen could possibly be getting into his bodily prime. The game has remained open to older opponents as approach has progressed. However the window of alternative to realistically win is small, Chen acknowledged, as athletes push the boundaries towards jumps that had been as soon as unimaginable.
Main as much as the 2022 Olympics, Chen dabbled with a quadruple axel throughout follow, however stopped coaching it because the Video games approached. Whereas he got here near touchdown it, he was snug understanding nobody else had the daring leap but.
Solely seven months after these Video games, Ilia Malinin landed the world’s first quadruple axel in competitors at 17 years outdated. Now the favourite for Olympic gold in 2026, the 20-year-old American has gained consecutive world championships.
Whereas Malinin, who additionally trains at Irvine’s Nice Park Ice with Chen’s former coach Rafael Arutyunyan, landed six quadruple jumps on the 2025 world championships, Chen watched from afar.
The occasion passed off in Boston, the place Chen was finishing a post-baccalaureate program. As a substitute of feeling like he was lacking out, Chen was relieved he didn’t must really feel the stress of competitors.
He’s content material to get pleasure from what could possibly be a golden period of U.S. skating from the sideline. America claimed three of 4 world championships in 2025, essentially the most ever for the nation in a single world championship. Alysa Liu made an inconceivable return from a two-year hiatus to change into the primary U.S. girl to win the world championship since 2006. Madison Chock and Evan Bates gained their third consecutive ice dance world title. Malinin, often called “the Quad God,” grew to become the primary American man to win back-to-back singles world championships since Chen, who gained three.
Chen, the one-time “Quad King,” is completely satisfied to go his crown.
