NY Times · Feb 16, 2022
‘I Just Feel the Best When I Wear Them’
Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesBEIJING — As soon as Karen Chen skates onto the ice, the dreaded feeling returns.
Her coach could be pounding on the wall of the rink to get her excited. Her family and friends could be screaming encouragement from the stands. The fans could be cheering her name.
Yet in that spotlight, standing there waiting for the music to begin, as she will in Thursday’s free skate of the Beijing Games, she still feels so very vulnerable.
“It’s only me, my body and my mind, and it just hits me that, ugh, I’m doing this by myself,” said Chen, a two-time Olympian and the 2017 U.S. national champion. “That can be so scary.”