Nathan Chen Wins Fourth Consecutive Title at U.S. Championships

When Nathan Chen was younger, he would occasionally cross paths with U.S. figure skating legend, Olympic champion, two-time World champion and four-time U.S. champion Brian Boitano.

When the two would see each other at shows – and if Chen found himself with an injury or dealing with another skating crisis – he would ask Boitano for his wisdom.

"He gave me some advice about mentally preparing yourself, sort of visualizing the program, every element of it," Chen said. "And that's stuff that I've carried on through my career, and it's definitely been very instrumental in how I prepare myself for competitions."

At the 2020 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Chen etched his name into the U.S. Figure Skating history books alongside Boitano, winning his fourth consecutive U.S. title.

It's a feat not achieved since Boitano won four straight from 1985-88.

"It's a huge deal for me to be able to take the next step to not necessarily becoming one of these legends, but sort of trying to follow in their footsteps," Chen said. "These guys have done amazing things, well beyond what I've already accomplished, and it's amazing to have that inspiration in front of you, and have something to look forward to. Just trying to see as far as I can take myself. I don't know whether I'll be able to match all the things they did. Scott (Hamilton), Brian (Boitano), Dick (Button), a couple more. But it's truly amazing to be able to follow in their footsteps in this way."

Chen scored 216.04 points for his free skate to music from the Rocketman soundtrack, giving him 330.17 points overall.

"Needless to say, I'm really thrilled with the results," Chen said. "I was happy I was able to get to this event, happy I was able to skate as much as I wanted to. I was able to stay pretty much consistent throughout the week, and was able to perform pretty well today."

Undefeated since the 2018 World Championships, Chen won Skate America, Internationaux de France and the ISU Grand Prix Final in 2019. Next month, he will be attempting to win his third consecutive World title.

The winning streak is something that Chen is proud of, but something he says he tries not to think about.

"No one's perfect," Chen said. "Even if you're undefeated for a large amount of time, at the next competition, you never know what's going to happen. And I think if I start focusing on results, it'll probably be the end of it. I have to prepare myself for the possibility of it ending, but it is what it is. All of these guys work extremely hard. They all deserve to be No. 1 every single time we compete. So if someone else wins, so be it. I'll just try to work hard to try to get myself into a better position to win the next competition.

"The streak is awesome, and I'm happy I've been able to do that, but it really is not the most important thing in my career."

It's a career that has slowly reached an echelon all its own. Chen will one day be in Boitano's position, inspiring the next generation of superstars as one of U.S. Figure Skating's greats.

But for now, he's still trying to grapple with his position among them.

"It's amazing to me," Chen said. "I never really went into U.S. Championships trying to match what they've done. They're legends. They're the greats. They're people that are untouchable. But to be able to trail after them, and have something to look forward to or try to reach for, is really inspirational, and I'm really honored to be in this position."

Jason Brown earned the silver medal, scoring 191.89 points for his free skate set to music from the Schindler's List soundtrack for an overall total of 292.88 points.

"I'm really excited and happy about how today went," Brown said. "I've been training really, really hard and consistently, and I was really happy to finally get those programs out this season. And I hope that it's just the beginning for me."

This season, Brown won silver at Skate America and finished fifth at NHK Trophy before winning the Golden Spin of Zagreb.

With the silver medal, Brown earned his best U.S. Championships finish since he won the 2015 title.

"I think I've worked so hard the last 18 months, really after the 2018 U.S. Championships, to really put myself out there again and figure out what went wrong and how I can grow from that experience," Brown said. "And we kind of deconstructed my skating a bit with my new team, and we're building myself back up.

"I think it's probably the best skating that I've done. I think I have a long way to go as far as the technical aspect, as well as the skating skills that we're continuing to work on every day. But as far as feeling strong and feeling confident, 100 percent, I really, really felt things coming together."

Tomoki Hiwatashi took bronze in his best finish at a U.S. Championships to date. His free skate to "Petrushka" by Igor Stravinsky earned 183.87 points, giving him an overall total of 278.08.

This season, Hiwatashi finished fifth at Internationaux de France and 10th at NHK Trophy. The reigning World Junior champion finished fourth at the championship level last year, following 12th- and 15th-place finishes.

"For this long program, I actually wasn't that worried about it," Hiwatashi said. "It's just the short program that I was really worried about, because I didn't perform the way I wanted to during those two Grand Prixes. I really had to do well in the short program yesterday. And for this long program, I think I was able to perform even better or the same as the ones I did at the Grand Prixes. There is still a lot to work on, but I think I did what I can for today, and I'm just really happy that I got through it."

Vincent Zhou rounded out the podium with the pewter medal, scoring 180.41 points for his free skate to music from the Cloud Atlas soundtrack for a total of 275.23 points.

Zhou has two U.S. silver medals to his name from 2017 and 2019, as well as bronze from 2018. He withdrew from his fall Grand Prix assignments to focus on school, and took more than two months completely off from training.

"That was a huge personal victory for me," Zhou said. "Obviously it was about as good as I could have possibly done at the moment. I have more in my tank for the future, but for me, just overcoming everything that I've been through in the second half of last year is a huge, huge personal victory. It's really special to be able to go out there and do that."

Previously in Greensboro, Alysa Liu claimed her second consecutive ladies' title, while Mariah Bell took silver, Bradie Tennell earned bronze and Karen Chen took pewter.

In ice dance, Madison Chock and Evan Bates earned their second career ice dance title, ahead of Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, who took silver, Kaitlin Hawayek and Jean-Luc Baker, who earned bronze, and pewter medalists Christina Carreira and Anthony Ponomarenko.

In pairs, Alexa Knierim and Chris Knierim won their third career U.S. title. Jessica Calalang and Brian Johnson won silver, while Tarah Kayne and Danny O'Shea took bronze and Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc won pewter.