Nathan Chen, Yale student, swaps books for boots at Skate America

By Nick ZaccardiOct 18, 2018, 12:43 PM EDT

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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.

The U.S. champions in every discipline are in action at Skate America in Everett, Wash., to kick off the Grand Prix season.

Chen is the only Olympic or world medalist in the men’s field, making him a clear favorite even though Arutunian has only seen his star pupil in person for one weekend since he matriculated.

MORE: Skate America TV, stream schedule

“But I Skype, and he sends me some videos [of his training],” Arutunian said by phone Tuesday (the busy Chen has not done media interviews while focusing at Yale). “But I mean he decided to study, and I think we’ll figure out if something will not work well for him. Maybe he will change something, but for now we have what we have.

“You don’t feel like you can discuss longer than 10, five minutes, it’s difficult. We’ll see how he can handle that.”

Chen can ease into the season at Skate America and his second Grand Prix in France next month, both during breaks from classes.

He has almost another two months before he would face Olympic gold and silver medalists Yuzuru Hanyu and Shoma Uno of Japan, potentially at December’s Grand Prix Final in a preview of March’s world championships in Saitama, Japan.

Chen actually returned to competition two weeks ago at the Japan Open, a free skate-only event treated by many more as an exhibition. Arutunian was there as Chen fell three times in one program for the first time in his senior career.

“Japan Open, it’s kind of show, but when it comes to competition, it’s different,” Arutunian said, adding that Chen told him he was dealing with a cold for two weeks going into Japan, but that he’s not sick anymore.

NBC Sports analysts Tara Lipinski (1998 Olympic champion) and Johnny Weir (two-time Olympian) could not recall any recent skaters near Chen’s level who attempted the elite university-skating double with long-distance coaching.

“I did go to a college for about a week and said, I couldn’t do it all,” Weir said. “I just knew my limits.”

As longtime Olympic reporter Phil Hersh noted, Paul Wylie studied at Harvard from 1986-91 and competed in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics (with a silver in Albertville), taking two semesters off and spending three summers in school. Chen consulted with Wylie before moving to New Haven.

Weir’s college try was at the beginning of his senior international career, before he won three national titles and made it to the 2006 and 2010 Olympics.

“To be on the opposite coast from his usual training home, in school and carrying a full course load, it seems like a lot to me,” Weir said. “However, Nathan Chen showed last season and in seasons prior that his technical abilities keep him at such a high level that there is room for him to give a little wiggle and to have a season where he’s just adjusting to having school and skating together and learn his system.”

Lipinski was not too concerned about the falls in Japan, noting Chen’s bounce back in PyeongChang.

“When you’re at a level and you’re a skater like Nathan, Nathan knows technically what he needs to do,” she said. “He’s not learning a variety of new jumps. He has that under his belt. It’s more so having the comfort of your coach, having someone there helping you when it comes to a new program, helping you set out your plan for the next four years, building your confidence. It may affect him in that way, not having that extra support he’s used to, that he’s had for so long, that has worked so well for him.”

As a reminder, you can watch the ISU Grand Prix Series live and on-demand with the ‘Figure Skating Pass’ on NBC Sports Gold. GO HERE to sign up for access to every ISU Grand Prix and championship event, as well as domestic U.S. Figure Skating events throughout the season…NBC Sports Gold gives subscribers an unprecedented level of access on more platforms and devices than ever before.

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Football takes significant step in Olympic push

By OlympicTalkMar 29, 2023, 2:18 PM EDT

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Football took another step toward possible Olympic inclusion with the IOC executive board proposing that the sport’s international federation — the IFAF — be granted full IOC recognition at a meeting in October.

IOC recognition does not equate to eventual Olympic inclusion, but it is a necessary early marker if a sport is to join the Olympics down the line. The IOC gave the IFAF provisional recognition in 2013.

Specific measures are required for IOC recognition, including having an anti-doping policy compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency and having 50 affiliated national federations from at least three continents. The IFAF has 74 national federations over five continents with almost 4.8 million registered athletes, according to the IOC.

The NFL has helped lead the push for flag football to be added for the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Flag football had medal events for men and women at last year’s World Games, a multi-sport competition including Olympic and non-Olympic sports, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Football is one of nine sports that have been reported to be in the running to be proposed by LA 2028 to the IOC to be added for the 2028 Games only. LA 2028 has not announced which, if any sports, it plans to propose.

Under rules instituted before the Tokyo Games, Olympic hosts have successfully proposed to the IOC adding sports solely for their edition of the Games.

For Tokyo, baseball-softball, karate, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were added. For Paris, skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing were approved again, and breaking will make its Olympic debut. Those sports were added four years out from the Games.

For 2028, the other sports reportedly in the running for proposal are baseball and softball, breaking, cricket, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsports and squash.

All of the other eight sports reportedly in the running for 2028 proposal already have a federation with full IOC recognition (if one counts the international motorcycle racing federation for motorsports).

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Helen Maroulis stars in wrestling documentary, with help from Chris Pratt

By Nick ZaccardiMar 29, 2023, 10:05 AM EDT

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One of the remarkable recent Olympic comeback stories is the subject of a film that will be shown nationwide in theaters for one day only on Thursday.

“Helen | Believe” is a documentary about Helen Maroulis, the first U.S. Olympic women’s wrestling champion. It is produced by Religion of Sports, the venture founded by Gotham Chopra, Michael Strahan and Tom Brady. Showing details are here.

After taking gold at the 2016 Rio Games, Maroulis briefly retired in 2019 during a two-year stretch in which she dealt with concussions and post-traumatic stress disorder. The film focuses on that period and her successful bid to return and qualify for the Tokyo Games, where she took bronze.

In a poignant moment in the film, Maroulis described her “rock bottom” — being hospitalized for suicidal ideations.

In an interview, Maroulis said she was first approached about the project in 2018, the same year she had her first life-changing concussion that January. A wrestling partner’s mother was connected to director Dylan Mulick.

Maroulis agreed to the film in part to help spread mental health awareness in sports. Later, she cried while watching the 2020 HBO film, “The Weight of Gold,” on the mental health challenges that other Olympians faced, because it resonated with her so much.

“When you’re going through something, it sometimes gives you an anchor of hope to know that someone’s been through it before, and they’ve overcome it,” she said.

Maroulis’ comeback story hit a crossroads at the Olympic trials in April 2021, where the winner of a best-of-three finals series in each weight class made Team USA.

Maroulis won the opening match against Jenna Burkert, but then lost the second match. Statistically, a wrestler who loses the second match in a best-of-three series usually loses the third. But Maroulis pinned Burkert just 22 seconds into the rubber match to clinch the Olympic spot.

Shen then revealed that she tore an MCL two weeks earlier.

“They told me I would have to be in a brace for six weeks,” she said then. “I said, ‘I don’t have that. I have two and a half.’”

Maroulis said she later asked the director what would have happened if she didn’t make the team for Tokyo. She was told the film still have been done.

“He had mentioned this isn’t about a sports story or sports comeback story,” Maroulis said. “This is about a human story. And we’re using wrestling as the vehicle to tell this story of overcoming and healing and rediscovering oneself.”

Maroulis said she was told that, during filming, the project was pitched to the production company of actor Chris Pratt, who wrestled in high school in Washington. Pratt signed on as a producer.

“Wrestling has made an impact on his life, and so he wants to support these kinds of stories,” said Maroulis, who appeared at last month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival with Pratt.

Pratt said he knew about Maroulis before learning about the film, which he said “needed a little help to get it over the finish line,” according to a public relations company promoting the film.

The film also highlights the rest of the six-woman U.S. Olympic wrestling team in Tokyo. Four of the six won a medal, including Tamyra Mensah-Stock‘s gold.

“I was excited to be part of, not just (Maroulis’) incredible story, but also helping to further advance wrestling and, in particular, female wrestling,” Pratt said, according to responses provided by the PR company from submitted questions. “To me, the most compelling part of Helen’s story is the example of what life looks like after a person wins a gold medal. The inevitable comedown, the trauma around her injuries, the PTSD, the drive to continue that is what makes her who she is.”

Maroulis, who now trains in Arizona, hopes to qualify for this year’s world championships and next year’s Olympics.

“I try to treat every Games as my last,” she said. “Now I’m leaning toward being done [after 2024], but never say never.”

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