Nathan Chen won’t be adding any sprinkles of stardust to his Olympic medals at next week’s Figure Skating World Championships.
Chen, the Salt Lake City figure skater who won gold in the men’s competition, pulled out of the event because of a nagging injury. U.S. Figure Skating made the announcement Wednesday morning.
“I am disappointed to have to withdraw from Worlds,” Chen said in a press statement. “I have been training for this competition since returning from Beijing. I have a nagging injury that I’ve been dealing with, and I don’t want to risk further injury by practicing and competing next week.”
Neither Chen nor U.S. Figure Skating specified what the injury is.
In addition to his gold medal, Chen also won a silver medal in the team skate competition. That medal could still turn gold depending on the results of an investigation into a positive doping test returned in December by Russian 15-year-old Kamila Valieva. The test result was revealed the day after she helped that team win Olympic gold.
In Beijing, the 22-year-old Chen said he didn’t have any major accomplishments left to achieve in figure skating. Still, at the event in Montpellier, France, he would have been vying for his fourth straight world championships title — a feat achieved by just six men in the event’s history.
After the world championships, Chen said expects to take some time off of skating while resuming his studies at Yale, possibly pursuing a career in medicine.
Chen will be replaced on the world championships roster by Camden Pulkinen of Arizona. Pulkinen placed fifth at the national championships in January and will be making his world championship debut. The other men representing Team USA include Olympian Vincent Zhou as well as Ilia Malinin, who placed third at nationals.
Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama and Shomo Uno, who earned the Olympic silver and bronze medals, respectively, are also expected to compete.
The world championships runs March 21-27 and also includes women’s, pairs and ice dancing competition.
This story will be updated as information becomes available.
