Nathan Chen on brink of elite club of US Olympic champions

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Scott Hamilton and Brian Boitano have been waiting more than a decade for someone to join them in one of the most exclusive clubs in American figure skating: Olympic champions.

The wait could be down to a day.

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With one clean performance in Thursday's free skate, Nathan Chen will finish a four-year journey of redemption by winning his elusive Olympic gold medal at the Beijing Games. In doing so, he will become the seventh American men's skater to step atop the podium and the first since Evan Lysacek at the 2010 Vancouver Games.

"With his lead after his record-breaking short program, he doesn't even need to do what he normally does in his long program," said Hamilton, the 1984 Sarajevo gold medalist. "But I'm hoping and depending on the fact that he will. He has to be himself in the free program, not worrying about anyone else in the competition."

The reality for Chen? There isn't much competition, and there hasn't been for a while.

The 22-year-old Yale student has lost just once, last year at Skate America, since a poor short program at the Pyeongchang Games dashed his medal chances there. Chen has won three straight world titles since, his sixth national championship last month and, as if offended by that lone defeat, came back the next week to win Skate Canada.

Nathan Chen, of the United States, competes during the men's singles short program team event in the figure skating competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing.  (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

It was on the brilliantly white ice of Capital Indoor Stadium, though, where Chen delivered the performance of his life.

On Tuesday