At 16, the figure skater competed at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, leaping over favorites Michelle Kwan and Irina Slutskaya to take the gold medal with an impeccably poised long program (which, at the time, was also the most technically difficult program to ever win an Olympic gold medal). But Chin, who now works as a figure skating coach, was still the first in a line of Asian Americans that would eventually dominate the American field, now one of the most non-white contingents for Team USA in the Winter Olympics.Sarah Hughes ’09 is no stranger to defying expectations. An Asian American sense of otherness persisted, most exemplified by MSNBC's infamous "American beats out Kwan" headline. She left behind a figure skating world that still had few people who liked her. Chin soon signed a seven-figure deal with Holiday on Ice and enrolled at UCLA. In 1988, the year Chin's star was supposed to rise around the world, she reached the end of the line. Facing significantly long odds to make the 1988 Olympics, Chin announced her retirement from competitive figure skating at 20 years old. Championships and failed to qualify for the World Championships. In 1987, a physically limited Chin finished fourth in the U.S. You always try to make everything so pretty and graceful and easy and joyful, and a lot of times it’s not.”
“Sometimes it was when I was skating well, too.
“It wasn’t only when I was skating bad,” she said. She didn't just win, though she swept the competition, placing first in all three categories. That development continued the next year, when Chin became the first Asian American to win the senior title at the U.S. Then, 1988 was penciled in as the year she would become a household name. She shattered expectations by finishing fourth at the age of 16. When the 1984 Olympics in Sarajevo rolled around, Chin was perched as the future of American skating. Chin's ability can be felt even now, as Nagasu compared her own historic triple axel to Chin's, calling the latter " absolutely gorgeous." As a teenager, she could be seen landing a triple axel in practice, a half-decade before Japan's Midori Ito became the first woman to land the jump in competition. It was further excited when she captured bronze in 1983 and silver in 1984. The skating world was excited to see her arrival. Chin was a clear prodigy, winning the 1981 World Junior Championships and placing fifth in her first trip to the senior national championship in 1982.
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