Nathan Chen exclusive - The Olympic champion on his new relationship with skating: ‘It’s just for me’

At lunchtime a couple days each week, Nathan Chen heads to Yale’s ice rink, known as “The Whale” for its unique shape, to spend time skating.

He often toys with new choreography and says he’s unbothered by the five or six other skaters – an Olympic champion sharing ice with fellow enthusiasts: “Skating is more intimate now,” he says. “It's just for me.”

The Beijing 2022 gold medallist in figure skating, Chen, 24, spent hours toiling in that very rink (and across the U.S. in southern California with coach Rafael Arutunian) on his way to triumph at last year’s Winter Games.

It’s a life he’s content with keeping in the past – for now.

“At the end of the day, to push through adversity and challenges, it has to come from inside,” Chen tells Olympics.com about what a comeback to competition would take for him. “It has to be something that you're really passionate about and really driven for. It can't be external factors.”

“At this point in time, I'm so wrapped up in academics that I haven't really given it too much thought,” Chen says, the statistics and data science major with one remaining semester of university.

“If I get to a position where I feel like that [internal drive] again is the motivator, then I'm more than happy to step back into that world,” he said, before adding: “But I'm really happy with where I am right now.”

Nathan Chen: On what a comeback would entail

On a Friday morning in early November, Chen is on a glowing red stage in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood for an event with Omega, sitting alongside Olympic legend Allyson Felix, reigning 100m and 200m world champion Noah Lyles and the Paralympic star, Oksana Masters.

They’re discussing the singular drive it takes to be an Olympian: “It has to become your identity,” Chen says to an audience of a couple hundred. “Every decision you make.”

It’s the kind of the commitment the two-time Olympian (Chen was fifth in 2018) knows intimately, and one he doesn’t take lightly should he choose to make a run at Milano Cortina 2026: “I'm not really planning on stepping in and putting in the amount of hours and training time in the near future,” he says later backstage.

“I think you as a person [have to] be like, ‘This is who I am, this is my identity, this is my passion...’ then you'll be able to see results,” he adds. “If I'm just chasing medals or certain external criteria, I don't think I'd be very successful. I don't think I'd be able to push myself past hardship if that's the motivator.”

Part of that hardship are the injuries that Chen carried through much of the latter part of his career, particularly his hip ahead of Beijing 2022.

“I haven’t gotten surgery, but I’m happy because I’m not really in pain now,” he says of his left hip. “I don't feel as though I have to get surgery, but if I get to a point where I really do consider wanting to come back, I would consider [surgery].”

'I'm very happy right now'

Chen says winning Olympic gold was “something I dreamed about for a very long time,” but also that it “hasn’t changed my life too much to be honest:” “It’s allowed me to step into another light and figure out what’s next for me,” he says.

“It’s a great place to be, actually. I’m very happy right now.”

With a semester remaining in undergrad, there are already plans for a post-bac (he’s been accepted to a program that starts next June) to complete his pre-med requirements.

While his focus was once on quadruple Lutzes and Level 4 step sequences, Chen is now immersed in cardiology lab work, getting manuscripts out and presenting at science conferences.

“We’re exploring a phenomenon called CHIP, clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential,” Chen says of his research work. “CHIP particularly pertains to stem cells that are in your bone marrow, and we’re... tracking and analysing these variants using deep learning [tools] to identify the variants to better understand like, ‘What are the impacts of heart failure?’”

An unexpected throughline from skating to academics has been the team aspect: Chen thrived with a group of people around him on the ice, and much the same has proved true in the classroom.

“I’m really lucky to have this whole team aspect,” Chen explains. “My PI [Principal Investigator; a PhD faculty member who oversees the work and direction of a research lab] is a fantastic cardio-oncologist who does both clinical and research. It’s really cool to interface with such a broad field of science... [and see] how her research in the bench translates to bedside [patients].

“To be able to see the dichotomy is really awesome.”

• Olympics.com exclusive: Chen adds 'author' to his CV (Nov. 2022)
• Nathan Chen reflects on 'unreal' gold medal (Feb. 2022)

Nathan Chen on Uno Shoma & Ilia Malinin

Still, Chen says, he’s watched a bit of this season’s Grand Prix Series with “a bittersweet” feeling: “It's really fun to be able to watch from the sidelines, but to then also say like, ‘Oh, you know, like I could also be there...’ it’s bittersweet, yeah.”

There have been a fistful of exhibition skating shows and events like the Omega one in New York, and Chen – as he did when he was competing – wholly enjoys the creative process, recently working with a friend to create choreography around melodic house music.

“I'll go to the rink to work on new choreography just for myself,” he says. “I enjoy being on the ice. I like skating to new music.”

He has watched as peer Uno Shoma has won two world titles in the last two seasons, with teenager Ilia Malinin – who has used much of the Chen playbook – nipping at his skate boots.

“It’s this battle of experience versus the fresh newcomer,” he says. “I’m excited to see how it continues progressing.”

In the meantime, there are his lunchtime skates at The Whale.

“When I find myself at the rink, it's because I want to be at the rink,” a reflective Chen says. “It's because I want to, not because I'm there to train and put in the hours. It's more just like, you know, I enjoy being out there.”