“When everything seems to be going against you remember that an airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” Henry Ford
Ice skater Nathan Chen won his first Olympic Gold medal in Beijing last evening. He skated a flawless performance, featuring five quadruple jumps, to dominate his competition. Nicknamed the “Quad-King,” Chen’s long and short programs also received the highest component scores (which measures of artistry such as skating skills, performance, and musicality) from the international judges. In so doing, he rebounded from a disappointing 2018 performance to become the seventh American to win the Gold, the first in 30 years.
A six-time World Champion, the 22-year-old Yale student has lost just once, last year at Skate America, since a poor short program at the 2018 Olympics ruined his medal chances, finishing fifth. Back in 2018, Chen fell on the first jump of his short program, then stumbled on the second and third, to finish fifth overall. Last night, he left nothing to chance. Landing jump after jump to crush the competition.
So, why is that important? Nathan Chen a first-generation American, one of five children born to Zhidong Chen and Hetty Wang. They immigrated from Tianjin, China, to the United States in 1988 on Zhidong’s student visa. His father had obtained his medical degree in China and earned a doctorate from the University of Utah; his mother could not speak English when they arrived. She now works as a medical interpreter for Mandarin Chinese.
“They tend not to talk too much about their struggles, but it must have been so difficult, coming to a new country, not speaking the language, not having much money, not having any friends,” Nathan has been quoted as saying. “My parents always enforced the idea of never giving up on all my siblings and me, and I think that’s something that will stick with me my whole life.”
Following his Olympic success, Chen plans to return to his studies at Yale, with plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and study medicine.
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