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Post by Admin on Nov 6, 2017 19:48:48 GMT
Karen Chen | SKATING October 2017
Take a peek at Karen Chen's training routine as she gets ready to compete for a spot on the US team.
In a high-risk move, the reigning U.S. champion has abandoned a “Carmen”-themed long program two weeks before her Grand Prix season begins at Skate Canada.
“I trashed it,” Chen told this news organization Tuesday.
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Post by Admin on Nov 8, 2017 19:32:43 GMT
 It’s Chen’s third free-skate program heading into the all-important Olympic season where most of her competitors have been polishing their routines since summer. Chen, 18, is preparing for the U.S. Olympic trials the first week of January at SAP Center in San Jose. “It’s out of nowhere,” Chen said of the move. “Carmen wasn’t doing it for me. It wasn’t the Olympic program I wanted. I wanted something I feel great skating to.” Chen said Georges Bizet’s “Carmen” is the “complete opposite of what I am.” She has turned to music from a 1978 film “Slow Dancing in the Big City” about an aging reporter who falls for a pretty but ailing ballerina. The program will make its debut at Skate Canada in 10 days.  Chen, who created her short program “El Tango de Roxanne” by Jose Feliciano, now has choreographed the free skate. Veteran choreographer Mark Pillay had scripted the “Carmen” program but didn’t have time for a massive makeover. The changes began last summer when another choreographer created a long program to the opera “Tosca.” “I trashed it after a week,” said Chen, who also is scheduled to perform at Skate America on Nov. 24-26 in Lake Placid, New York. |
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Post by Admin on Feb 6, 2018 19:04:54 GMT
Meet Karen Chen: One Goal at a Time   |
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Post by Admin on Feb 8, 2018 18:53:43 GMT
18-year-old Karen Chen, known as the ‘quiet assassin’ for her stealth and stature, will represent U.S. women’s figure skating at the 2018 Winter Olympics.  |
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Post by Admin on Feb 7, 2022 0:53:12 GMT
On Saturday night Karen Chen will hit the ice to represent Team USA in the women's short program portion of the team figure skating event. Just a couple nights prior, Nathan Chen put in a stellar score for the team in the men's short skate. Two great American Olympians, sharing a last name, raises the natural question? Are they at all related? (We saw a version of this question come up during the Summer Olympics too, as it happens.) http://instagram.com/p/CZeg5wOLsjX We'll save you any further suspense: Nope! No relation. None whatsoever. Nathan Chen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and he spent his youth there, graduating from West High School in Salt Lake City. His parents are from China, and he has spoken of how being in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics has revived memories of childhood trips to China. "I remember going to the Beijing Zoo. So, like every time when we're driving from the (Olympic) Village here, I see the Beijing Zoo and am like, ‘Oh, I was here when I was 10,'" he told Reuters this week. "So, it's kind of cool to be able to see that. Also just hear stories from my mom growing up in Beijing and being like, ‘Wow, you know, I'm here.'" Karen Chen, meanwhile, is from Northern California, sharing a hometown of Fremont in the San Francisco Bay Area with former Olympic champion Kristi Yamaguchi, who has been an important mentor for her. A crucial difference in the backgrounds of Karen Chen and Nathan Cen is that Karen Chen's parents are from Taiwan, which has a complicated relationship with the Chinese mainland. Taiwan, an island about 100 miles from mainland China, is autonomous and recognized as an independent nation by several countries, but the Chinese government maintains a claim on it as a historical territory of China. The U.S. has historically had a close relationship with Taiwan, but it is an unofficial one thanks to a 1979 treaty that saw the U.S. first formally recognize the communist government in Beijing. That treaty, according to the State Department, acknowledges "the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China." |
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