With upcoming season in doubt, Jason Brown maintains focus on '22 Olympics

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With upcoming season in doubt, Jason Brown maintains focus on '22 Olympics

For Jason Brown, the last figure skating season began and ended with some unexpected challenges.

On Aug. 22, 2019, the day he arrived for U.S. Figure Skating’s pre-season Champs Camp in Irvine, Calif., Brown was a backseat passenger in a vehicle involved in an accident. He sustained a concussion that compromised his training for several weeks and forced him to withdraw from what was to have been his season debut competition.

On March 16, 2020, the day Brown was to fly from his training base in Toronto to the World Championships in Montreal, he went the other direction, driving home to his family’s home in the Chicago suburbs because the world meet had been cancelled five days earlier over Covid-19 health concerns. His most successful competitive season, with silver medals at nationals, the Four Continents Championships and Skate America, left him feeling both fulfilled and unfinished.

Now Brown, 25, is back in Toronto (finally getting there June 23 brought another unexpected challenge). He is undergoing a Canadian government-mandated 14-day self-quarantine before a planned July 8 return to the ice at the Cricket Club to prepare for a season that may not take place.

We caught up with Brown, the 2014 Olympic team event bronze medalist, by phone at the end of last week for a wide-ranging conversation:

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With 2020 worlds definitively gone, skaters like Jason Brown try to stay on peak while off ice in uncertain times

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With 2020 worlds definitively gone, skaters like Jason Brown try to stay on peak while off ice in uncertain times

Thursday’s unsurprising news that the 2020 World Figure Skating Championships were definitively cancelled had minimal impact on Rafael Arutunian.

The impact of having little else definitive about figure skating’s future schedule is what Arutunian struggles to deal with.

“We knew this is what would be done with worlds,” said Arutunian, coach of two-time reigning world champion Nathan Chen. “What happens now with next season?”

The International Skating Union’s governing council hopes to provide some clarity about that after it meets again by conference call April 28. Even then, though, most of its answers will have to be prefaced by a literal or understood “if,” since there remains little certainty about the further development of the coronavirus pandemic and its consequent effect on the world of sport.

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Jason Brown on finding his self-worth, skating to "Schindler's List" and his transformed technique

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Jason Brown on finding his self-worth, skating to "Schindler's List" and his transformed technique

This interview with Jason Brown was done a week before the 2020 World Figure Skating Championships were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic. It was planned as an advance story for the event but had not been published before Wednesday’s cancellation announcement.

Because nearly all my questions addressed general rather than worlds-specific areas, I thought figure skating fans still would like to read it. I have edited some things to reflect the changed situation.

First, though, this statement Brown sent me by text soon after the cancellation was announced.

“I’m disappointed not to have the opportunity to compete at worlds. At the same time, I recognize this situation is way bigger than me or figure skating, and I’m 100% in support of doing everything we can to protect each other and our communities.”

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Nathan Chen, down for the count after flu, amazes coach to win fourth U.S. title

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Nathan Chen, down for the count after flu, amazes coach to win fourth U.S. title

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Rafael Arutunian showed me a photo on his phone of Nathan Chen sleeping on the floor in a dressing room at Great Park Ice Arena when he was supposed to be practicing earlier this month.

Arutunian said he could have taken the same picture on eight days in the 2 1/2 weeks they spent together at his Irvine, Calif., training base during Chen’s semester break from Yale.

Arutunian would see the flu-ridden and feverish Chen curled up asleep, turn off the light, leave the room and wait until Chen woke up before trying to have him do any training.

In the past, Arutunian said, Chen could train through sickness. This time it was futile.

“He couldn’t move,” Arutunian said.

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Greensboro a time capsule for Jason Brown's skating career

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Greensboro a time capsule for Jason Brown's skating career

GREENSBORO, N.C. – For Jason Brown, coming to a national championships in Greensboro for the third time in 10 seasons meant opening a time capsule of fond memories and recalling how different his ambitions have been at each.

In 2011, Brown was 16, making his senior debut, second youngest in a field of 22. He delivered a breakthrough free skate, bringing the crowd to its feet, moving from 11th after the short program to seventh overall, leading his coach at the time, Kori Ade, to proclaim, with seeming hubris, that Brown’s goal would be to make the 2014 Olympic team.

Which, in fact, he did.

His goals going into the 2011 nationals free skate had been more modest than to begin establishing himself as an Olympic team contender. Brown simply wanted to make the 2011 U.S. team for the Junior World Championships, which he did, and get on TV, which he didn’t, much to his bemusement.

“I told all my friends I was going to be on TV because I was in one of the final two groups. But they showed just nine of the 12, and I was one of the other three,” he recalled, with a laugh, just before boarding a Thursday flight in Toronto on his way to North Carolina.

Four years later, after his 2014 Riverdance free skate had become a viral sensation and he had won an Olympic bronze in the team event, Brown returned to Greensboro aiming for the U.S. title. That changed mindset told him how far he had come.

And he won what remains his only national title, as his artistry, elegant blade flow and striking spins no longer were enough in an era when his lack of success with quadruple jumps became an insurmountable and ever-growing disadvantage against rivals landing multiple quads.

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