BEIJING – The journey between the Capital Indoor Stadium here and Genting Snow Park would take at least a couple hours, but they felt closely connected Thursday in the vast footprint of the 2022 Beijing Games.
For snowboarder Chloe Kim and figure skater Nathan Chen – two first-generation Asian-Americans, two brilliant young performers, two Ivy League students – it was a day to celebrate Team USA’s strength and star power. During an Olympics that has already shown us how difficult it can be to conjure a winning performance under immense pressure, a pair of American stalwarts rose to the occasion and blew away the competition to win gold medals.