Nathan Chen Packs His Bags for New Haven

Ever since Nathan Chen, who won the World title by nearly 50 points last season, announced he would matriculate at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, this fall, questions have abounded: How effective will training with longtime coach Rafael Arutunian, based almost 3,000 miles away in Southern California, be when it's limited to competition weeks, holidays and Skype? With a full slate of classes, can he train enough to maintain his quadruple jumps? Will his academic and competition schedules collide?

"It's still a work in progress, obviously," Chen, 19, said during Champs Camp. "I'll be moving to New Haven on Thursday (Aug. 23). Fortunately, I have a lot of people helping me; Yale staff and U.S. Figure Skating are combining forces to help me out."

Here's a bit more about Chen's plans so far:

Fan Zone: Where do you plan to train?

NC: I have a fair amount of ice time already set up on campus and off campus. (On campus) is obviously in New Haven and the other rink is about 30 minutes out. That's the skating situation.

The class schedule has come out, but the actual classes I will take has not (been finalized). Once I get to campus, I will talk to counselors. For freshmen, a lot of the classes are 101 intro classes. There are a lot of students trying to take them, and since there are around 30 students in each class, that means not every single student will be able to take the classes they want. So, there will be a lottery system. Hopefully I'll get the classes I want, and get out of the classes at 1 or 2 p.m. and spend the rest of day at the rink.

(Note: as first reported by Phil Hersh, much of Chen's possible competitive schedule this season works well with the Yale 2018/2019 academic calendar: his Grand Prix events, Skate America and Internationaux de France, are held during recesses; the Grand Prix Final coincides with Yale's pre-finals reading period; and the 2019 World Figure Skating Championships will be held during Yale's spring break.)

Fan Zone: Are you still planning a pre-med track?

NC: I do want to do pre-med, which requires a lot of science, but I'm still undecided about my major. I'm thinking maybe statistics, because sciences require a lot of lab time, and lab time then coincides with skating time, and that means there will be a conflict of interest there. I will figure out the best approach for me, something that challenges me but still allows me to keep skating.

Fan Zone: You recently got back from Japan, where you performed in Mao Asada's The Ice, and you were also part of Stars on Ice this spring. With all of this performing, how is training going?

NC: I have been doing a decent amount of traveling to Japan, and obviously Stars on Ice took a big chunk of time. But outside of that, training is going pretty well. I've been able to spend a lot of time with Raf (Arutunian), which is awesome. I wanted to build a pretty solid base before going to Connecticut, so I can build off of that instead of trying to regain everything I lost over the summer. I don't think I lost much. I still have all of my quads, and that gives me the option of choosing what quads to do at competitions.

Fan Zone: Talk about your competitive programs, which you performed in The Ice.

NC: The short is to "Caravan," a pretty popular song performed by Boston Brass. It's a different twist to "Caravan," it has a lot of drum-line feel to it, it's kind of cool. The free, to "Land of All" by Woodkid, kind of goes along (artistically) with what I did last year. The short is really different. It's a lot more jazzy and fun, which is great because I can interact with the audience. The long is moodier, but that helps me build character and movement.

I'll be working more with my choreographers Shae-Lynn Bourne (short program) and Marie-France Dubreuil (free skate) on cleaning up and making sure the programs are set. Obviously the new +5, -5 rule (extending the judges' GOE range to -5 to +5) and the quad rule (no repeating more than one quad) have taken place already, so the programs will be changed a little bit, but I don't think anything super drastic will come out of it. I'll be doing Japan Open (on Oct. 6), which is awesome. It's a little bit of a test run of the free skate, it's not super-serious, and it will let me get the program out there.

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