page_title: Nathan Chen
section_title: 2018–2019 season
hierarchical_section_title: Nathan Chen / Skating career / 2018–2019 season
caption_attribution_description: Nathan Chen during the men's singles free skating at the Internationaux de France de Patinage 2018.
context_page_description: Nathan Chen is an American figure skater who competes in the men's singles discipline. He is a two-time World champion, a 2018 Winter Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, the 2017 Four Continents champion, three-time Grand Prix Final champion, and four-time U.S. national champion. Chen is the first skater to have landed five types of quadruple jumps in competitions: toe loop, Salchow, loop, flip and Lutz.
  On the junior level, Chen is the 2015–16 Junior Grand Prix Final champion, 2013–14 Junior Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, and 2014 World Junior bronze medalist.
context_section_description: Chen starts his college at Yale this season. In an in-depth Olympic Channel Facebook Live interview with 2014 Olympic Champion Meryl Davis, Chen expanded on his school, skating, future plans, life, and other interesting topics. Chen: “I love skating. I love competing. I love training. I love to be around all my fellow skaters. But at the end of the day I am not going to be skating for all the rest of my life. There will be a moment I’ll have to take a step away from skating and focus on something else. I think right now I am attempting to do both just so I can bridge that gap, so when I am deciding my time in skating is up I can start the second half of my life…”
  Chen's assignments for the 2018-19 Grand Prix series are Skate America and Internationaux de France. Fortunately for Chen, Skate America took place during the Yale October recess and Internationaux de France fell during the Thanksgiving recess. The 2018–19 Grand Prix Final begun the day before Yale's pre-finals reading period starts. And the 2019 World Championships, in Japan, were during Yale's spring break.
  At Skate America in Everett, Washington in October, Chen skated to the music of "Caravan" (choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne) in the short program and "Land of All" (choreographed by Samuel Chouinard and Marie-France Dubreuil) in the free skate. He won both segments of the competition and repeats as men's champion of Skate America.
  In an interview with ISU about his programs, Chen said: "The short program (Caravan) is a lot of fun." “She (Bourne) wants me to dance to the music so that other people are excited to dance as well.” “I originally chose the piece (Land of All) for the long because I needed something that contrasted the short,” Chen noted. "The music is the soundtrack to a movie called “Desierto” and it is about immigration into the US. Obviously, I don’t want to make my programs about this or anything political but, at the same time, just because it has that deep and darker meaning requires me to add another layer to my skating,” he explained.
  At Internationaux de France in Grenoble in November, Chen fell on his quad flip in the short program and placed third behind Jason Brown and Alexander Samarin entering the free skate. Chen landed three quadruple jumps (4F, 4T and 4T+3T) in the free skate and won the competition with a total score of 271.58. He has now won five consecutive Grand Prix gold medals.
  By winning both Skate America and Internationaux de France Chen has qualified to compete in 2018–19 Grand Prix Final to be held in Vancouver, Canada.
  At the 2018–19 Grand Prix Final in early December, Chen competed with the other five qualifiers, Shoma Uno, Michal Březina, Sergei Voronov, Cha Jun-hwan and Keegan Messing (Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu qualified but withdrew due to injury). Chen had mistakes in both his short and long programs - a missed combination jump in the short program and a fall in the long program, but won both segments of the competition and collected his second GPF title.
  The gold medal marks Chen the fourth man after Evgeni Plushenko, Patrick Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu to win consecutive Grand Prix Finals since the event's debut in 1995, and the second man after Evgeni Plushenko to win every one of his Grand Prix competitions in two consecutive seasons.
  At the 2019 U.S. Championships in Detroit, Chen performed two near flawless programs for the first time of the season and won his third consecutive national title. He scored 113.42 for a two-quad short program (official NBC Sports Video on YouTube) and 228.80 for a four-quad free skate (official NBC Sports Video on YouTube) for a total of 342.22 points. Chen became the first man to win three straight national titles since Johnny Weir in 2004–2006. He said  “I’m happy with what I did, and hopefully I can do that in other competitions, The first few jumps are a little like a checklist, and once I get done with that, I can focus on the music and the audience. Nationals is no joke. You can’t discount any of these other skaters who are here. I’m really proud of myself with all of the 
caption: Chen at the 2018 Internationaux de France
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