do this race that just happened to be a place where other
people were trying to qualify for the Olympics.”
Somehow, Jackson produced the best skate of her life to
that point. Jackson began canceling her nonspeedskating
plans: She couldn’t go to the Roller Derby World Cup in
Manchester, England, in late January, because it would
conf lict with her travel to the Olympics. Not much else
changed, though. Shimabukuro, trying to keep expecta-
tions reasonable, told her, essentially, Congratulations, but
you’re still not that good. “She was very realistic,” he says.
“She just wanted to take the opportunity to get better.”
Jackson does not remember her race in PyeongChang.
“That’s still kind of a blur to me,” she says. It was the next
season, when she was racking up top-10 finishes in World
Cup races—despite being, she says, “I don’t wanna say ter-
rible, but basically a terrible skater”—that gave her a sense
FOR 43 MONTHS,
Nathan Chen was
unbeatable. After a
disappointing fifth-place
finish in PyeongChang due
to uncharacteristic nerves
that led to errors in his
short program, Chen went
on a 14-event win streak.
He started with the 2018
world championships—
where he beat Olympic
silver medalist Shoma Uno
of Japan by a staggering
47.63 points—and went on
to bag two more world titles.
But a shaky third-place
finish at Skate America in
October ended his reign and
sparked uncertainty.Was the 22-year-old, a
rising junior at Yale, already
feeling the pressure of the
Olympics? Was he wrong
to return to “Nemesis” by
Benjamin Clementine, the
same music he used at the
2018 Games? A week later,
Chen silenced the doubters
at Skate Canada, where
he outscored countryman
Jason Brown, the runner-up,
by nearly 48 points. He’s
yet to specify the music
he’ll use in Beijing but still
enters as a heavy favorite,
having beaten the ’18 gold
medalist, Yuzuru Hanyu of
Japan, three times since
PyeongChang. —T.D.NATHAN
CHEN
FIGURE SKATINGof how good she could be. She was hanging in there with
the best in the world while still learning. “It was like, How
long is it gonna take me to get to the top?” she says. “Because
that’s where I want to be, and that’s where I know I can
be. So it’s just a matter of, How long is it going to take me?”
That drive comes naturally to Jackson. She graduated
from Florida in 2015 with a degree in materials science
and engineering, then picked up an associate’s degree in
computer science and is earning another associate’s in
kinesiology. She took a year off from classes to prepare for
the Olympics with Shimabukuro in Salt Lake City, because
when she’s in school, coursework is her top priority.
“She went to the University of Florida, and she never
went to a football game. Like, what?” says Antoine Jackson,
Erin’s cousin, laughing. “I would say she’s a pretty big nerd.”
Someday when she’s “done skating in circles,” Erin saysJO
OS
EP(^) MA
RT
INS
ON
/IN
TE
RN
ATI
ON
AL
(^) SK
AT
ING
(^) UN
ION
/GE
TT
Y (^) IM
AG
ES
BEIJING WINTER OLYMPICS