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Watch Nathan Chen Win 2022 Olympic Gold Ice Skating to Elton John Hits

Nathan Chen at 2022 Beijing Olympics

"Congratulations Nathan Chen for winning Gold skating to Rocket Man in the free skate finals in Beijing," John tweeted after the win.

MikelleStreet
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Team USA has another gold at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

On Thursday night in Beijing, Team USA competed in the men's free skate at the Olympics. The team was going into the night in a good position: Out skater Jason Brown had performed his personal best in international competition for the short program, and Nathan Chen set a world record with his short program with a score of 113.97.

The two returned for the free skate, where Brown again scored a personal best with an emotional performance to music from Schindler's List. Chen put on what some have called a "figure skating master class" to a medley of Elton John songs, including "Rocket Man." The 22-year-old, who is known as the "quad king" for his quadruple jumps, is now the first American since 2010 to win a men's figure skating gold medal.

In the program, he landed five quad jumps.

"Congratulations Nathan Chen for winning Gold skating to Rocket Man in the free skate finals in Beijing," John tweeted after the win.

In addition to "Rocket Man," the medley included "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Benny and the Jets."

Chen is the seventh American to win gold in men's singles.

In July of last year, Chen apologized for remarks he made calling figure skating calling it a "homosexual-dominated sport."

"I recently did an interview where I was asked if people ever ask me why I don't play hockey because of the connotation that skating is quote-unquote feminine and hockey is quote-unquote masculine," he said in a video posted to Twitter. "I gave an ignorant response to the question, and I want to apologize for that. In that moment I had the opportunity to shut down the perception that there is such a thing as a masculine or feminine sport and to shed light that these perceptions have created an environment that make it unsafe, stigmatizing, and even career-ending for athletes to come out."

"Skating is an art form as much as it is a sport," he continued. "And the beauty in that is that there is room for individual expression, and that's something that should be celebrated. But instead of saying something meaningful I blurted out statements that aren't even true, used language that's harmful to the LGBTQIA+ community and to women and minorities and centered the response around myself."

At the Olympics, out male figure skaters are a recent phenom. In 2018, Adam Rippon, Jorik Hendrickx, Eric Radford, and Gus Kenworthy made history becoming the first out gay men to compete at the Winter Olympics. Rippon, Hendrickx, and Radford are all figure skaters.

MikelleStreet
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Mikelle Street

Mikelle Street is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial across The Advocate, Out, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.
Mikelle Street is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial across The Advocate, Out, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.