Nathan Chen on rivalry with Hanyu, his coach's first visit to Yale and his future plans

Nathan Chen on rivalry with Hanyu, his coach's first visit to Yale and his future plans

When Nathan Chen enrolled at Yale in the fall of 2018, his California-based coach, Rafael Arutunian, was concerned about Chen being able to keep up his level of skating with essentially a phone and FaceTime coaching arrangement.

Since then, the Yale sophomore has won all nine of his competitions, including a world title, two Grand Prix Final titles and a third and fourth straight U.S. title. His performances to beat two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan at last season’s World Championships and at this season’s Grand Prix Final were both simply brilliant and also the best of Chen’s career.

With the 2020 World Championships beginning March 18, NBCSports.com/figure-skating recently spoke via telephone with Chen, 20, about Arutunian’s acceptance of the coast-to-coast separation, the rivalry with Hanyu, and Chen’s plans for next season.

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Ten years later, Queen Yuna’s iconic crown glitters with transcendent brilliance

Ten years later, Queen Yuna’s iconic crown glitters with transcendent brilliance

How could a 19-year-old woman achieve perfection while bearing an entire nation’s hopes and the baggage of its past, while 50 million South Koreans stood on her shoulders as she tried to stay upright while doing triple jumps on a slippery surface with knife-thin blades?

That is what Yuna Kim did 10 years ago on this date, lifting spirits in her homeland and elevating herself into a singular place in Olympic history by winning the women’s figure skating title at the 2010 Winter Games.

How? Even Kim still marvels over that, as she said in an email interview done this month through her management company. Even now, the moment confounds her, brings back the nervousness she had in Vancouver and, as it did then, makes her teary-eyed because she feels overwhelmed.

“I always wonder how I did it, and every time I watch, it doesn’t seem real,” she said.

She had not only won South Korea’s first Olympic figure skating gold medal but had beaten an exceptionally talented Japanese rival for it, a fact of no small consequence given the complicated history of relations between Japan and South Korea for five centuries. Sports competitions between the two countries had always been freighted with nationalistic implications.

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Can U.S. pair Calalang and Johnson repeat their shining moment?

Can U.S. pair Calalang and Johnson repeat their shining moment?

Recent results would dissuade anyone from getting carried away over what seems a breakthrough performance by a U.S. pair.

Such performances have happened off-and-on in the past few decades, but not since 2011 has a U.S. pair finished in the top six at the World Championships. And not since 1996 has a U.S. pair won a world medal in a non-Olympic year. (Post-Olympic fields at worlds generally are watered down by the absence of the new Olympic medalists.) And not since 2002 has a U.S. pair won a world medal in any year. And only once (2015) since 2007 has a U.S. pair made it to the Grand Prix Final.

Even with those historical caveats, there is reason to be hopeful about Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson.

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By the numbers: why a different system for team selection would help U.S. Figure Skating

By the numbers:  why a different system for team selection would help U.S. Figure Skating

Two years ago, when there was uproar over who got the final men’s figure skating spot on the 2018 U.S. Olympic team, I wrote that the selection process is too opaque to prevent questions and angry reactions.

There has been some tinkering with the process since, but it still lacks the clarity people need to fully grasp the rationale behind U.S. Figure Skating’s selections for major events, including the final spot in both men’s singles and pairs for the 2020 world championship team.

Why was Vincent Zhou, fourth at the 2020 nationals, picked in men’s singles over Tomoki Hiwatashi, who was third?  Why were Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc, fourth at the 2020 nationals, picked in pairs over Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson, who were second with a dazzling free skate?

There are reasonable and defensible answers to both questions (I will get to that later) but the process – based on the notion of a “body of work” - remains murky. 

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At Grand Prix Final, Nathan Chen's brilliance nearly defied description - again

At Grand Prix Final, Nathan Chen's brilliance nearly defied description - again

What Nathan Chen did in winning the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships was something I never had seen before and wasn’t sure if I would ever see again.

That explains the headline on my nbcsports.com story about Chen’s victory: “By any measure, Nathan Chen’s performance at Worlds matches standard for transcendent greatness”

So it’s no wonder I was left goggle-eyed at what the 20-year-old Chen did in Saturday’s free skate at the Grand Prix Final in Turin, Italy.

It was even better than what Chen had done some six months ago at the worlds in Japan.

Not only did Chen decisively beat his rival, two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, for a second straight time in a major event, Chen did it on a day when the competitiveness of both figure skaters also was transcendent.

That led me to embark breathlessly on a tweet storm that is the best way to describe all of the brilliance Chen displayed to win a third straight Grand Prix Final title - and the first victory in when he had competed in the event against Hanyu, who missed the last two with injuries.

The tweets cover it all. Here they are:

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