Review of "One Jump at a Time"

 As one who only watches figure skating during the Olympics, I had known the name Nathan Chen only because he won the gold medal in the last Winter Olympics games in 2022.  So, I was curious to see how his memoir would read and it was pretty good.  Here is my review. 

Title/Author:

“One Jump at a Time: My Story” by Nathan Chen

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: The best way to describe Nathan Chen’s journey to the Olympic gold medal in men’s figure skating is if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.  That is exactly what he did to achieve a goal he had since he first set foot on ice as a toddler in Salt Lake City, when that city hosted the Winter Olympics, 20 years before Chen won his gold.  All of the ups and downs in his road to gold is told in this memoir.

It doesn’t follow the typical memoir in that there is very little of Chen’s personal life described by him.  Yes, he talks about family and his upbringing. This is especially true as his mother was one of his coaches, both for training and for emotional support.  But overall, the book is about his skating and his training.  He talks a lot about his various coaches and other people involved.  This includes Vera Wang, who agreed to design his costumes.

For the range of emotions in the book, there are certainly lows as well as the highs – and both came during the Olympics.  After a disastrous short program in the 2018 Olympics, he considered leaving because there was no way he would gain enough points to be in contention for a medal. But then he put on a great show in the free skate and gained more confidence as he prepared for the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.

However, the COVID pandemic did put a major detour into Chen’s plans, and here is where the book, and Chen, turns to a little too much negativity.  This is mainly because, by Chen’s own admission, he was very concerned about being infected with COVID and that would affect his training and school schedule (he was taking classes at Yale while training for the Beijing Olympics) as well as during the Games themselves.  It’s understandable but at times a felt to be a little too much while reading it.

It is helpful for a reader to understand the different technical aspects and descriptions of the jumps and movements of figure skating. His discussion on the programs and various movements suggested by coaches are very detailed and technical.  Not being too familiar with some of the jumps, such as the difference between a lutz and a Salchow, I had to look up some of these.  That can be both good and frustrating – the latter because of needing to put the book aside to look up terms, but good in that a reader who isn’t familiar with the sport will learn a lot.

Overall, fans of the Winter Olympics and figure skating will really enjoy this book and even if not, it is a good way to learn more about this sport that many watch only once every four year.

Link: Amazon.com: One Jump at a Time: My Story: 9780063280526: Chen, Nathan: Books