Nathan Chen

Nathan Wei Chen (born May 5, 1999) is an American figure skater. He is the 2022 Olympic champion, a three-time World champion (2018, 2019, 2021), the 2017 Four Continents champion, a three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2017, 2018, 2019), a ten-time Grand Prix medalist (8 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze), the 2022 Olympic gold medalist in the team event, the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, and a six-time U.S. national champion (2017–22). At the junior level, Chen is the 2015–16 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, 2013–14 Junior Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, 2014 World Junior bronze medalist, and a six-time Junior Grand Prix medalist (5 gold, 1 silver). He became the youngest skater to win a U.S. Championship at the novice level in 2010, at age ten, a title he successfully defended the following season.

Chen, who has been referred to as one of the greatest men's figure skaters of all time by various news outlets, holds the highest winning percentage in competitions in the modern era with a more-than-three-year winning streak from 2018 to 2021. Chen is renowned for performing some of the most technically challenging programs in the world and is acclaimed for surpassing the expected athletic standards in the sport. He is known as the "Quad King" for his mastery of quadruple jumps. Chen is the first skater to have successfully landed each of the five reverse take-off quadruple jumps (Lutz, flip, loop, Salchow, and toeloop) in competition with a positive grade of execution. He has broken world and national records, and is the current world record holder for men in the short program and combined total score, and former world record holder in the free skate under the ISU Judging System. He currently holds the highest total scores of three major ISU competitions: the Olympics, the Four Continent Championships, and the Grand Prix Final. Chen is the first Asian American man to win U.S., world, and Olympic titles in single skating. At age 17, Chen became the youngest U.S. champion since Dick Button (1946), and in 2022 became the first man to win six consecutive U.S. titles since Button (1946–52). When Chen won the 2018 World Championships, he became the youngest World Champion since Evgeni Plushenko (2001). In 2021, he became the first U.S. man to win three consecutive world titles since Scott Hamilton (1982–1984). He is the first and only single figure skater to win both team and singles gold medals in the same Olympic games (2022).

After his gold medal-winning performance at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Chen was named Most Valuable Skater at the 2023 edition of the International Skating Union's ISU Skating Awards and earned a nomination for a Laureus World Sports Award. In 2022, he appeared in Time magazine's list of the 100 most-influential people in the world and was announced as one of Harper's Bazaar's Icons. Chen was included in Forbes's 2020 30 under 30 Sports list. Chen has written two books: his memoir One Jump at a Time: My Story and the children's book Wei Skates On.