Thoughts from the Hughes sisters, Olympians and Ivy League grads, on challenges and rewards Nathan Chen would have as skater and student at Yale

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Thoughts from the Hughes sisters, Olympians and Ivy League grads, on challenges and rewards Nathan Chen would have as skater and student at Yale

Sarah Hughes, the 2002 Olympic women's singles champion, was the last prominent U.S. figure skater to attend Yale.

Her younger sister, Emily, who finished seventh in singles at the 2006 Winter Olympics, went on to Harvard.

The big difference was Sarah’s competitive career had ended before she entered Yale, while Emily kept competing during her first three years at Harvard.

With 2018 men's singles world champion and Olympian Nathan Chen having been admitted to the Yale Class of 2022 and trying to decide whether he will matriculate for the 2018 fall semester, I asked Emily, 29, now a senior manager at Johnson & Johnson, for her thoughts on the demands of remaining a competitive skater while attending a university like Harvard or Yale and asked Sarah, 32, who is to graduate in May from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, for general observations on her Yale experience and the challenges Chen may face in New Haven.

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Accepted by Yale, world champion Nathan Chen faces big decisions

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Accepted by Yale, world champion Nathan Chen faces big decisions

Talk about your happy coincidences and good omens.

Nathan Chen swings through Hartford with Stars on Ice on Sunday, April 22, before the tour has four nights off.

Bulldog Days, the three-day information session for newly admitted Yale students, begins April 23 in New Haven -- just 40 miles away from the Connecticut capital.

So Chen will be in the right place at the right time to speak to the right people at Yale about how -- and if -- he can begin his college career with the 2018 fall semester and simultaneously continue as a competitive figure skater.

"Going to Yale next fall is the goal right now," Chen said via telephone Tuesday morning from Fort Myers, Florida, where he is rehearsing for the Stars on Ice opening show Friday night. "I am going to Bulldog Days, where I will talk about everything and try to figure things out."

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Breathtaking Olympic performances highlighted figure skating season

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Breathtaking Olympic performances highlighted figure skating season

Some random observations on the competitive figure skating season that ended last week at the World Championships in Milan:

1.  The enduring memory will be of the overall excellence at the 2018 Olympics – the best skating in all four disciplines at the 11 Winter Games I have covered.

The full flowering of the quad revolution led to boggling feats in the men’s event, where Japan’s peerless Yuzuru Hanyu won a second straight Olympic title with a balance between athleticism and art unmatched by any man during the 14-seasons the IJS has been used at global championships.

Russians Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva were flawlessly stunning in taking gold and silver, respectively, in the women’s event, and Canada’s Kaetlyn Osmond won bronze with her huge jumps, expressiveness and sense of choreographic purpose erasing one relatively minor mistake.

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Figure skating worlds in Olympic year? I say no

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Figure skating worlds in Olympic year? I say no

With the 2018 World Figure Skating Championships set to begin this week in Milan, Italy, icenetwork contributors Lynn Rutherford and Philip Hersh weigh the pros and cons of having the world championships take place during an Olympic season.

Why the World Championships in the Olympic year should be eliminated

*They are a massive anti-climax. Other sports get that. Of the 15 Winter Olympic sports, only hockey, curling and speed skating still have world championships in the Olympic year -- but long track speed skating does not have World Single Distance, its global championship that follows the Olympic format. Hockey's format includes more and different teams and a different pool of athletes (NHL players whose teams are out of playoffs.)

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Bouquets, brickbats (and some of both): a 2018 Olympic figure skating scorecard

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Bouquets, brickbats (and some of both): a 2018 Olympic figure skating scorecard

Lynn Rutherford and I checked in with our winners and losers from the figure skating competition at the recently completed 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

Some of my winners:

Eteri Tutberidze

Although early records are incomplete, the coach of Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva is almost certainly the first person to be by the boards for both the gold and silver medalists in an Olympic singles event.

Skate Canada

The best possible realistic scenario for the Canadians was two gold and two bronze medals, and that is exactly what their skaters won -- and they were on the podium in four of the five events. No other country medaled in more than two.

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