Karen Chen, 18, first caught the world's eye three years ago after winning bronze at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 2015. She's continued that momentum ever since, earning a gold medal and a record-breaking short program score of 72.82 at the 2017 U.S. Championships. Despite skating to a disappointing 12th place during the 2017 Four Continents Championships, Chen helped qualify Team USA three spots for the 2018 Olympics when she earned fourth place at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championship. Read on to learn more about the talented figure skater, who's hoping to get the chance to snag one of those three spots, and represent the U.S. in PyeongChang, South Korea.
1. Karen began skating at 4 years old, but she didn't get serious about the sport until she was 6. (You know, while the rest of us were still coloring outside of the lines.) She has a younger brother named Jeffrey, and he's also a competitive skater. "Figure skating really helped me find out who I am," she told NBC. "It was a way to express myself."
2. Her parents are Taiwanese, and immigrated to the United States in 1995, a few years before Karen was born. She speaks fluent Mandarin. “I spent a lot of my childhood in Taiwan and am close to my grandparents who are there. I’m so thankful for that,” Karen Chen told Team USA. “I’m really proud of my heritage and where I came from. I am proud of who I am and what that represents.”
3. Karen has been homeschooled since the seventh grade, to accommodate her intense training schedule. "When I was still in school I'd have to wake up at 4 a.m. and go to skate, and then go to school," Chen told Cosmopolitan.com, "and then change the car on the way back to the rink afterwards!" Now, she says, her daily schedule still features 4+ hours of skating (as well as off-ice prep) but is a lot more "reasonable."
4. She's 4-foot-10 — smaller than most of her other teammates.
5. She wears a jade rabbit necklace to every competition — and off the ice too. According to NBC, the rabbit, which represents her zodiac animal, was given to her by her mom for protection after she suffered a foot injury at 9 years old. She also told U.S. Figure Skating that she always puts on her left skate, then her right, and ties them.
6. Karen calls herself the "quiet assassin" when she's on the ice. "For me, when I said ‘quiet assassin,’ that just meant, yeah, sure, I’m quiet. But when I’m out there on the ice by myself, I’m fearless, and I’m not scared to attack whatever I’m going to do," she told NBC.
7. And says her biggest competition is herself. "I think for sure it is competition [between the Team USA skaters] but we all respect one another," Chen told Cosmopolitan.com. "But my biggest competition is probably myself. Because when I take the ice, really, I'm by myself. I have my goals and I know I can achieve them."
8. Her mentor is Kristi Yamaguchi, a former figure skater and Olympic champion. "I felt it right away," Yamaguchi told The Mercury News, describing when she first met a then-12-year-old Karen. "There was something special in her and unending potential there. You think, 'Wow this can really happen.'"
9. Kristi and Karen have another good luck pre-competition tradition together. Karen had Kristi sign her boot for good luck when they first met. Now Karen requests that Yamaguchi sign her right skate before every competition. "I’ve always looked up to her not just as a skater but as a person and how she is so giving and caring," Karen said of Kristi to The Mercury News.
10. She wants to get into the medical field after skating. The injuries she's sustained and the help she's gotten from the medical community while skating, Karen told U.S. Figure Skating, has inspired her to go into the field.
11. Karen paints in her spare time. She likes all "artsy and crafty things," she told U.S. Figure Skating, and has been painting since she was 7; she says it helps her relax and take her mind of skating. She also enjoys journaling, she told The Chicago Sun-Times.
12. She wrote a book about her journey to becoming a champion figure skater. It's called Finding The Edge: My Life On Ice. “I am so excited to be able to share my story with my fans and with fellow skaters,” Karen said in a press release. “I wanted to show people that if you work hard, never give up, and believe in yourself, you can achieve success."
Additional reporting by Eileen Reslen.
To learn more, visit teamusa.org. The Winter Olympics will air live, starting Feb 8th.