Nathan Chen is nearly two months into a new, unique training situation — 3,000 miles from his coach while taking freshman classes at Yale. How has it been?
“Very difficult,” for Rafael Arutunian, his 61-year-old Southern California-based coach said. “I knew it would be difficult.”
Chen headlines this weekend’s Skate America, his first full competition since winning last season’s world title by the largest margin in history.
That came after the quadruple jump king placed 17th in the Olympic short program, then topped the free skate in PyeongChang (trying six quadruple jumps, landing five clean) for fifth place overall.