Nathan Chen

"I love working w/ ice dance coaches for choreography. [With Marie-France Dubreuil in Montreal], I get to spend time with the best of the best ice dancers... see how they train, how they use their edges. It really elevates my skating."

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Rafael Arutyunyan: Of course, we will strive to all quad jumps in the program, including axel. How quickly will turn out to realize this intention depends on a large number of circumstances: state of health, physical readiness. But we are working in this direction. Of course, the work is complicated by the fact that most of the season Chen trains on his own because he studies at Yale. But I’m pleased with its current shape.

We have certain material that relate to new and quite difficult transitions in the program. We want to show them in Las Vegas in competitions or at least at the official training or warm-up. Trainings at such events are also part of the competition, as they take place with a large crowd of people and are quite serious stress for an athlete.

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(On the Grand Prix season)

“The Grand Prix season I consider to be the start of the regular season. We are all trying to qualify for the Grand Prix Final,” Chen stated. “I think all the skaters prioritize the Grand Prix season as a really great opportunity to continue learning, to continue growing. To put our new programs out there, to basically get better.”

(On how he maintains his fitness)

“I work with a trainer at the U.S. Olympic Committee. He has been helping me with recovery off the ice,” Chen commented. “I work in the gym a couple of days a week. It changes up depending upon if it is offseason, preseason or regular season. In terms of legitimate recovery methods, there are a lot of different resources that I have — physical therapy, massage therapy, general stretching.

“I’m a huge fan of Normatec and Hyper-Ice, massage technology, contraction technology.”

(On how he remains motivated)

“The sport continues to evolve. These guys I’m competing against the past few years continue to get better, continue to try new things, and I don’t want to fall behind,” Chen noted. “I think all of the skaters right now are extremely competitive people, not even necessarily on the ice, but just in general. Their personalities, their characters, are very competitive. It’s really good to have that drive from the other skaters, which helps you push yourself.”

(On balancing school and skating)

“It’s a little tough. It’s a lot more work than it was last year,” Chen said. “The classes involve a lot more of my attention. Right now, I’m trying to find that balance again between school and skating.”

(On working with choreographer Marie-France Dubreuil for his free skate to “Rocketman”)

“I love working with ice dance coaches for choreography,” Chen remarked. “I feel like they really understand the artistic side of skating. They really understand edge quality. They really understand all the different nuances of performance.”

Chen said he especially enjoyed training with ice dancers while he was in Montreal working with Dubreuil.

“Being able to spend time with the best of the best ice dancers, like Gabriella Papadakis, Guillaume Cizeron, Jean-Luc Baker, Kaitlin Hawayek. All of these amazing skaters,” Chen stated. “It’s really nice to see how they train, how they use their edges, how they perform, how they do all of these different things. Which I think really elevates my skating.”

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Mamamiia said:

4LZ3T？
https://twitter.com/shoshpd/status/1184915219572649989?s=19

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The Orleans Arena crowd gave a warm reception to the home favourite, particularly for the final segment of the program, where Chen skates to a re-versioned 'Benny and the Jets'.

Speaking after practice, Chen told the media he was enjoying incorporating hip-hop moves into his choreography. "I haven’t really seen much of this," said Chen. "It wasn’t something that no one has ever done but rarely do you see it within… I guess within the top six guys you probably won’t see that very often. I figured it would be kind of interesting to breach into it.

"When Marie (France Dubreuil, choreographer) kind of pitched it to me I thought it was a little risky, I just didn’t know how people would respond to it but even in Japan, I got a pretty good response, so hopefully it will continue growing as the season goes on.

"We don’t want to stick to one demographic in terms of the fanbase and the audience. It would be nice to incorporate everything. So it’s cool to be able to see…all the guys competing at different competitions have completely different styles so every program is new, every program is unique, fresh."

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