Team USA’s Nathan Chen and Alysa Liu each had successful Olympics in their own way, in part thanks to the love and support from their family and friends.
22 might be Nathan Chen's lucky number: The 22-year-old, competing at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, won gold in the men’s figure skating competition by a margin of 22 points (22.55, to be exact).
After putting a fifth-place finish from four years ago out of his mind, Chen rebounded to open his Olympic competition with a clean skate in the short program to aid in Team USA’s eventual silver medal in the team event.
Days later, Chen, whose otherworldly talent has forced writers around the world to search the thesaurus for new adjectives, skated his short program again. Set to “La Boheme” by Charles Aznavour, it featured a quadruple flip, triple Axel, and a quadruple Lutz-triple toe loop combination in the second half for a 10-percent bonus. He punctuated his personal-best and world record 113.97-point performance with an admittedly out-of-character fist-pump at center ice.
“Looking back, I almost never do stuff like that,” he said. “It’s indicative of how I felt in that moment: very happy.”
In the free skate, Chen, skating last, pulled off five remarkable quads. He opened his Rocketman medley with a quad flip-triple toe combination, another quad flip, a quad Salchow, a quad Lutz, and in the second half for a bonus, a quad toe loop-Euler-single flip combination, triple Axel, and a triple Lutz-triple toe loop score 218.62 points for an overall 332.60 points.
He seemed to enjoy that performance more than he ever had (despite the pesky single flip that was meant to be a triple). Even Elton John noticed, tweeting his congratulations to the gold medalist.
“Halfway through my footwork, I was like, ‘you should probably smile a little more,’” Chen said. “Once that started happening, I was kind of grooving a little bit more and enjoying the program. Of course, after you’re done with the jumps, it’s quite a relief and you can start enjoying the footwork.”
The success means he now owns an Olympic medal of every color, is the seventh U.S. man to claim Olympic gold, and currently owns the highest scores ever recorded in the short program, free skate, and total overall score. It’s the most impressive medal haul any U.S. figure skater has achieved in one Olympic appearance.
Chen is the first to admit, “it would not have been possible without all the people supporting me, and I was happy to be able to share this moment with [coach] Rafael [Arutunian].”
Arutunian has coached Chen in California since he was 11 years old, when Chen’s mother Hetty Wang would make the drive from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Lake Arrowhead, California, in their Toyota Prius. Expenses for a hotel were out of the question, leading to occasionally sleeping in the car. The Prius eventually amassed 350,000 miles.
On the Today show shortly after receiving his gold medal, Chen referred to the car as “our trusty little Prius,” and said of his mother, “without her support, I never would have made it to where I am now.”
(The Team Toyota athlete upgraded his wheels recently to a Supra he nicknamed “Bolt” after his brother’s dog.)
His family, who were together to watch Chen’s performance in 2018, gathered virtually for an online watch party, according to his sister's social media accounts. They also had a group chat going throughout the Games to stay in touch.
Mariah Bell, Chen’s training mate in California, was with Chen before the free skate where she helped him stay lose and focus on anything but the task at hand. TeamUSA.org reported they tossed around a football while chatting backstage and also that Bell claims to have the better spiral.
There was an outpouring of congratulations and support, including from Chen’s favorite NBA team, the Utah Jazz, and Yale University, where he will return in the fall for his junior year.
The Olympics are complete, but the season isn’t over. The World Championships in Montpellier, France, are in March. Beyond that, neither Chen nor Liu has committed to another Olympics in four years.
Liu made her Olympic debut this February and placed seventh in a women’s event overshadowed by elements outside of her control. She said in interviews at the Games that it was nearly impossible to bring her down; after all, she was at the Olympics with her friends.
Her stated goal pre-competition was to “enjoy everything,” she said, “so I have good memories.”
Besides spending time practicing, Liu also spent time with friends from Team USA and around the world roaming around the Olympic Village, checking out the shops in the mall, and eating in the cafeteria. Any time Liu spoke to the media, she was effusive about her friends’ performances and how happy she was that they all were performing well.
In her short program, set to “Gypsy Dance II” from Don Quixote, she was in eighth after executing a double Axel, a triple flip and a triple Lutz-triple toe loop combination.
The only blip in Liu’s violin free skate was a downgraded triple Axel attempt, but otherwise she performed a clean program. Liu moved up a placement to seventh overall and in post-skate interviews, could not have been happier for her own performance and the performances of her friends, including Yelim Kim (South Korea), Wakaba Higuchi (Japan), Young You (South Korea), Mana Kawabe (Japan), Loena Hendrickx (Belgium), Ekaterina Kurakova (Poland) and Team USA’s Mariah Bell. Bell even snuck out from the green room to hug Liu before she received her free skate scores in the kiss and cry.
“I’m so happy with two clean programs,” she said. “It’s better than I ever thought I would do at the Olympics. I’m really happy about it. My friends, they all did really well. I’m really happy for them too.”
But it was the gala performance that truly embodied Liu’s experience at these Games. She was unexpectedly invited to the gala, the for-fun exhibition event that follows most major competitions. There was one hiccup in that plan: She did not have a routine prepared.
The figure skating community rallied around their adopted little sister. Liu, despite being a two-time U.S. champion, is 16 years old and the youngest member of Team USA at the Olympics in any sport.
Liu’s hair and makeup were done by Team USA ice dancers Madison Chock and Madison Hubbell, respectively, and she borrowed the rhythm dance dress worn by Olivia Smart of Spain. Her program, set to music from K-pop girl group ITZY, was choreographed by Team USA ice dancer Jean-Luc Baker.
On Instagram, she said it was “my favorite gala program I’ve ever done,” she wrote. “This is such a great way to end the Olympics! I couldn’t be happier.”
