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 on Thursday 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 was soaking in the experience of competing at the Olympics, win or lose.
And with that new appreciation, and also a well deserved rush of joy, Chen won. He was the last skater to perform in the free skate, and the entire Olympic arena seemed to hold its breath as he performed to an Elton John medley. Cheers erupted each time he landed a quadruple jump. Applause broke out with every triple jump.
At the end of it all, Chen ended his routine at mid-ice, smiling and elated, because he had done it. Finally, he had become the Olympic champion. His jet-fueled jumps and a performance that raised goose bumps gave him the victory over three Japanese rivals who finished just behind him.
His overall score of 332.60 soared over his competitors. Yuma Kagiyama of Japan won the silver medal, with 310.05 points, and Shoma Uno, another Japanese skater who won silver at the 2018 Games, won the bronze.
Yuzuru Hanyu, the two-time Olympic champion, was fourth, with 283.21 points, though both his short program and free skate were marred with errors.
With the victory, 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, clawing his way back to that spot after finishing 17th in the short program, Chen fulfilled the outside expectation that he would win the Olympic gold medal.
He came into the free skate with confidence after winning the short program with authority, nearly 6 points ahead of the second-place skater, Kagiyama. He hadn’t just won it, though — he had 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, Hanyu, one of Chen’s main rivals, was far behind him. 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 his attempt of the quadruple axel, a jump never landed in competition.
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 self-belief, he has lost only once since the 2018 world championships.
Here in Beijing, he remained right at the top.
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