By the numbers, Nathan Chen’s jumps add up to a new dimension of skating

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By the numbers, Nathan Chen’s jumps add up to a new dimension of skating

Having basically exhausted the English language’s supply of superlatives to describe Nathan Chen’s skating over the past three seasons, I woke up Sunday morning looking for other ways to find context for what seemed his almost certain fifth straight U.S. title.

Without more than a gut feeling, which was intensified by his commanding execution Saturday of the most technically difficult short program he had done since 2018, I had a sense that Chen has had a remarkable success rate for several years in programs packed with the toughest array of jumps anyone ever has tried in the sport.

So, with the help of the data mining genius behind the invaluable web site skatingscores.com (who prefers anonymity), I set off to dredge through old scoring protocols to see whether statistical evidence supported my intuition about how consistently good Chen’s jumping has been during an unbeaten streak in 12 individual live competitions that began with the 2018 World Championships.

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In making history with fifth straight U.S. title, Nathan Chen competes against his own singular past

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In making history with fifth straight U.S. title, Nathan Chen competes against his own singular past

The trouble with being Nathan Chen is, nearly all the time, you are being judged against your past brilliance.

Unless the redoubtable two-time reigning Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan is in the competition, that is.

But the two have met just twice since the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, with Chen winning both, and pandemic-born uncertainty over the fate of the 2021 World Championships, currently scheduled for late March in Stockholm, and perhaps even next season’s events makes it is impossible to know when the next Chen-Hanyu showdown will take place.

Chen has simply been so extraordinary for so long and has dominated U.S. men’s skating so thoroughly since 2017 that it is getting too easy (and unfair) to take him for granted and forget he commandingly won a historic fifth straight U.S. title Sunday in Las Vegas because he did it with a less-than-jaw-dropping free skate.

A modest (by only his own standards) winning score of 322.28 still left Chen more than 30 points ahead of runner-up Vincent Zhou (291.38), a national medalist for the fourth time, this one after a one-year absence from the podium. Jason Brown, the 2015 U.S. champion was third (276.92), his sixth medal at nationals.

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With brilliant skating by the top three, Nathan Chen still leaves no room at the top

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With brilliant skating by the top three, Nathan Chen still leaves no room at the top

When a skater has been as dominant as Nathan Chen has for three seasons, it is not surprising many others look at him as untouchable.

That feeling is even shared by a skater like Vincent Zhou, the reigning world bronze medalist and, like Chen, a 2018 Olympian.

“I have come to the realization that pretty much everyone – and also myself, inadvertently – puts whoever is at the top on a pedestal, and anyone not on that pedestal has no chance of winning,” Zhou said.

“Obviously, Nathan is an amazing skater. But I want to be the best I can and if that means I can win, that’s great.”

In Saturday’s short program at the U.S. Championships, when the top three finishers all skated brilliantly, Zhou came as close as he ever has to making room for himself at the top next to a Chen at the top of his game.

“I was aware of what he did,” said Chen, who skated more than an hour later. “Vincent is extremely talented, and I know he is going to throw it down every time he skates. I’m thrilled I was able to skate the way that I did.”

It was hard to remember another competition in which three men skated short programs as well as Chen, Zhou and Jason Brown. One can only imagine what the crowd reaction would have been had they not been compelled to compete in an empty Las Vegas arena out of COVID-19 safety concerns.

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Gracie Gold’s progress stalled again after poor short program at U.S. Championships

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Gracie Gold’s progress stalled again after poor short program at U.S. Championships

With her characteristic and often searing honesty, Gracie Gold had minced no words in evaluating her dismayingly poor performances at Skate America in October.

“Terrible today and yesterday,” Gold said after finishing dead last of 12 competitors in both the short program and free skate, with the lowest free skate and overall scores of her eight years in senior competition.

“We have to salvage what we can from the wreckage,” she said. “I’m a little worse off than I thought.”

And the two-time U.S. champion had to reassemble herself in barely a month for what became a virtual qualifying competition to earn a place for this week’s U.S. Championships.

She made it to nationals but wound up feeling the same way after Thursday’s short program as she had at Skate America.

“It was pretty terrible. There’s not much else to say,” Gold said.

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Nathan Chen digs into advanced statistics textbook while writing his own such numbers in U.S. skating record book

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Nathan Chen digs into advanced statistics textbook while writing his own such numbers in U.S. skating record book

The wonk in Nathan Chen has ensured that even while he is taking time off from attending college, he isn’t taking time off from studying.

Chen, a rising junior at Yale, decided last fall was as good a time as any to begin a leave of absence from school to prepare for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics because his classes would have been remote even if he had been in New Haven, Connecticut.

But he got friends to send him the textbooks he will eventually be using in chemistry and advanced statistics courses for a little light reading.

“Nothing super serious,” he said during a Zoom interview last week. “Just trying to get through a chapter a day.”

After two seasons of questions about whether he could remain among the world’s leading skaters with a full course load at a university 3,000 miles from his coach (the answer was an emphatic, “yes”), Chen came to realize that the balance between school and skating helped him with both.

On the skating side, Chen’s results speak for themselves as he seeks a fifth straight title at the U.S. Championships in Las Vegas, with the men’s short program Saturday and free skate Sunday.

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