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Chen’s redemption can be a reminder of what sport means to the remainder of us as nicely. Whether or not competitors ends in a blowout or a squeaker, on a playground or on Olympic ice, its magnificence is that it’s by no means a zero-sum recreation. There can all the time be a rematch, that “let’s play once more tomorrow” second that allows the defeated to transcend their loss and discover, if not gold, redemption.
The Olympics, after all, derive a major a part of their famous drama from making everybody wait 4 years — and typically longer — for this type of restoration.
For many of us mere mortals who can not, as Chen did Thursday, land 5 quadruple jumps (or any type of bounce, for that matter), sport feels straightforward as a result of that is the way it seems — suppose how typically we use phrases like “easy” to explain one thing as loopy as a triple axel — when the celebs do what they’re speculated to do.
However the stark distinction among the many Group USA’s gold rush in the previous few days — Chloe Kim’s assured but emotional protection of her Olympic title on the halfpipe, Jacobellis’s long-awaited reclamation of Olympic glory, and Chen lastly making issues proper after they’d gone so very unsuitable — present simply how extraordinary a feat it’s to win.
Chen, whose record-setting brief program in Beijing was a far cry from the frustration that went down in PyeongChang 4 years in the past, has spent the final 4 years constructing the legendary file that introduced him again to Olympics. He gained nationwide championships annually (bringing his complete since 2017 to 6) and three straight world championship titles, with just one loss — to US teammate Vincent Zhou, who introduced his personal withdrawal from particular person competitors in Beijing on Instagram after a constructive Covid check, an utter intestine punch to his followers.
Regardless of this sheer dominance, Chen couldn’t liberate himself from the shadow of his fifth-place end in 2018, a second that demonstrated how there’s by no means a positive factor in sport, and check out as anybody may, no quantity of cheering, finger-crossing or fortunate shirts could make issues go the best way we would like, or the best way we predict it ought to go.
The years of Chen’s skating dominance have additionally been a time when athletes are taking extra management over what redemption means — or whether or not it is even crucial. In Tokyo final summer time, Simone Biles known as the impediment that stood between her and the prediction of an unprecedented haul of gold “the twisties” — a phrase gymnasts use for the lack to keep up secure consciousness of the place their our bodies are in area as they carry out gravity-defying abilities.
It was that type of Olympic second, the one Shiffrin is having, that outlined Chen for 4 years. Not his magnificent comeback in 2018 within the free skate, which catapulted him from close to the underside to fifth place, nor the titles he has racked up since have been capable of erase that disastrous brief program, inextricable from how we noticed him and, maybe, how he noticed himself.
Till now.
As soon as on the bottom in Beijing, Chen left as little to likelihood as humanly doable, from his coaching to his Covid-19 precautions, hardly ever seen with out his N-95 masks, together with on the follow ice, and avoiding the crew field final week throughout the crew competitors after his half was executed.
And with the gold medal lastly round his neck, he erased his PyeongChang brief program fiasco not as soon as however twice in Beijing, with the toughest quad on the ice — the quad Lutz — in full drive.
For the primary time in 4 years, the gold medal did not simply really feel prefer it was inside attain. It felt, as he moved throughout the ice in his flaming crimson, orange and purple shirt, Elton John’s lyrics — “I believe it will be an extended, very long time” — propelling his leaping mixtures and producing a widespread grin on his face as he powered via his fiery step sequences — like a foregone conclusion, logging numbers that did not simply imply he gained.
He crushed it, creating a niche within the rating between the gold and silver medals that made it appear like two completely different occasions had taken place.
But as Chen returns residence with a gold medal, the picture of Shiffrin sitting on the mountain, skis off, her head cradled by her fingers as she contemplated what went unsuitable and absolutely doubted what lies forward, stays.
With a doable three occasions left to ski, she reminds us that redemption nonetheless looms giant for some, together with the very best of the easiest. What comes subsequent might be as much as her alone, nevertheless it will not diminish the stature she’s already earned as a champion — and it is clear that in years to come back, athletes will proceed to rewrite the narrative of redemption on their very own phrases.
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