The best athletes of all time are so awe-inspiring that their greatness can feel predestined. It’s unfathomable to think of Michael Jordan, Serena Williams or Michael Phelps not discovering their transcendent talents, though there is a sense that the discipline that helped them ascend to the top of their sports would have led them to success in some other industry. But whether through happenstance or divine intervention, these phenoms found their calling and fulfilled a seemingly preordained destiny.



The same could be augured about Nathan Chen, a remarkably gifted figure skater from Salt Lake City who is poised to make history at the Winter Olympics this month in Pyeongchang. He is quiet and unassuming, in many ways a typical 18-year-old, whose slight, 5ft 6in frame belies the explosive power contained within – power that’s unleashed each time he completes one of his dizzying quadruple jumps. He wouldn’t warrant a second glance if you passed him on the street, but the moment he skates onto the ice, he is impossible to ignore.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chen landed five clean quadruple jumps for the first time all year at last month’s US nationals – toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip and Lutz – clearing the field by more than 40 points to defend his title.

Yet Chen, who is the youngest of five children born to Chinese immigrants, could have just as easily been overlooked. Had he been from somewhere other than Salt Lake City, he may never have found himself in a “Learn to Skate” program at age three in a rink built for the 2002 Olympics. He witnessed the excitement of those Games firsthand, with his sisters skating in the opening ceremony. His first coach Stephanee Grosscup, the director of skating at the Salt Lake City sports complex who also was part of the choreography team for the 2002 ceremonies, had many new enrollees in her beginners’ class because of the “wave of enthusiasm” following the Olympics, but she said Chen stood out from the pack.

“I remember thinking to myself, I’m having a brush with greatness,” Grosscup told the Guardian. “It’s a little bit cosmic. It just seems like he was destined to do it.”

At first, Chen believed his own destiny was to play hockey like his older brothers, which is why his mother, Hetty Wang, signed him up for skating lessons. Equipped with a pair of oversized white figure skates that previously belonged to one of his older sisters, Chen exhibited exceptional balance immediately and separated himself from the rest of the teetering toddlers that Grosscup was teaching. Wang was already inquiring about private lessons for her son after that first class. Even the modest Chen himself admits that he was “pretty natural from the start.”

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But all of his preternatural abilities would be wasted were it not for the work ethic that his parents instilled in him. It’s the reason that he also excelled at hockey, gymnastics, piano, and ballet as a child before he decided to make skating his sole focus. His hockey and gymnastics coaches both wanted Chen to choose their sports instead, according to Grosscup. Those extracurricular activities, which could have sidetracked him from his cosmic destiny, shaped him into the well-rounded skater he is today.

His arsenal of artistry and athleticism earned him a spot on his first Olympic team this year. It was a feat Chen prophesied at age 10 after winning the novice title at the 2010 US Championships, where NBC’s on-air reporter Andrea Joyce asked him when he expected to compete at the Olympics. He replied with 2018, which looking back might seem like a boastful promise – a slugger calling his shot before stepping up to the plate – but Chen recently clarified that it was simply a matter of logistics. He knew he would be age-eligible for these Games. Although he always dreamed of competing at the Olympics, he only recently started to believe it could happen.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chen trains on Wednesday at Gangneung Ice Arena ahead of the team competition, which begins Friday afternoon in South Korea. Photograph: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

“The realization that I could make this [Olympic] team didn’t come until last season,” he said.

After cutting his 2015-16 season short to undergo left hip surgery, Chen, who now trains under coach Rafael Arutunian in Southern California, spent nearly six months off the ice ahead of last season, his first on the senior level. He reached a handful of podiums at international competitions before making history at the 2017 US Championships, where he triumphed by becoming the first skater to land five quadruple jumps in a single program. The ‘Quad King’, as Chen is nicknamed, defended his crown last month and enters the Games undefeated this season.

Chen’s trajectory appears to be pointing him toward the top of the Olympic medal stand, exceeding even his own precocious prediction. A few competitors could stand in his way – chief among them is reigning Olympic and world champion Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan, though he’s returning from a right foot injury that sidelined him for much of this season. But if the American skates cleanly, which he said is his only goal for the Games, he will be tough to beat.

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When Chen competes in Pyeongchang, starting with the team event on Friday ahead of next week’s men’s singles competition, audiences will have the opportunity to witness a teenager push the limits of his craft. After seeing one of his gravity-defying quads, it’s hard to imagine an alternate timeline in which the skater decided on a different sport. We could be talking about his vertiginous vaults or deadly slapshot right now. The only reason we aren’t is because Chen controls his own destiny. At nationals last month, with the Olympics looming, he said, “It’s been a fun journey since 2002. This is exactly where I wanted to be. … I put the work in to get myself to where I am now.”

It may have been fate that first led him to the ice, but it’s Chen’s discipline and determination in the decade and a half since that could pay off in gold.



