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Nathan Chen Has Taken the Quad to a New Level. Is It Good for Figure Skating?

Related Topics: Figure skating, Salchow jump

SAN JOSE, Calif. — No men’s figure skater seems better positioned to win a gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics than Nathan Chen, the 18-year-old jumping prodigy from the United States. Or better positioned to thrust a word into the lexicon of the casual fan: “quad.”

The word will be repeated often this week at the United States championships here, and next month at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The jump in which a skater spins four revolutions in the air, known in the sport as a quad, has been performed in competition for two decades.