Nathan Chen remembers watching Ilia Malinin early in his career. The two had been training under their long-time coach, Rafael Arutyunyan, and they would periodically share the ice, giving Chen a little glimpse at the future of American skating.

“This was at a time when he wasn’t even doing any quads,” Chen recalled earlier this year, just before Malinin captured his second consecutive world championship in dominant fashion in Boston. “You could see that he wasn’t going to be far off.”

Chen went on to win Olympic gold in Beijing four years ago, capping his performance with a near-flawless free skate inside a mostly empty arena during the COVID-19 pandemic. When he stepped away from the sport shortly thereafter, Malinin was ready to step into the spotlight — and the 20-year-old jumping ph

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