Nathan Chen last competed at January’s U.S. Championships, where he won his third consecutive national title.
He put together two of the best performances of his career at nationals, though he has yet to do a clean short program internationally this season. Whether Chen is able to defend his 2018 world title in Saitama, Japan from March 18-24 will likely depend on hitting his short program.
As the old skating adage says, you can’t win a competition based on a short program, but you can lose it.
Unlike some of the other competitors he’ll face in the field, Chen, a Yale University freshman spending his spring break at the world championships, is rested.