Nathan Chen won't defend skating gold at 2026 Winter Olympics

Nathan Chen, who won the gold medal in men's figure skating in the 2022 Winter Olympics, will not defend his title in Italy in 2026.

He confirmed to the Los Angeles Times in an article published Friday that while he has not officially retired from skating, it's time to move on.

"I just want to open doors to kind of see what's the best sort of approach for me," Chen told the Times. "And frankly, at this point in time in my life, I've already accomplished enough in skating that I'm quite satisfied with my career."

The reigning Olympic champion has not skated competitively since Feb. 10, 2022, when he landed five clean quadruple jumps to become the seventh U.S. man -- and first since 2010 -- to win a figure skating singles gold medal. He also won gold in the team event for the United States.

Chen, 26, won three world championships and six U.S. titles.

Chen, raised in Salt Lake City, enrolled at Yale in 2018 and took a leave of absence to train for the Beijing Games. Later in 2022, he returned to Yale and received his degree in statistics and data science. While in school, he worked in the research lab at Yale School of Medicine and received a research grant from the American Heart Association.

He told the Times he plans to attend medical school and pursue a career in cardiology or oncology and their relationship to genetics.

He has kept his feet in skating over the past few years, appearing in exhibitions and being a leader at skating camps for youths.

With Chen out of the games at Milano Cortina, 20-year-old American Ilia Malinin becomes the favorite to win the gold medal at the Winter Games. He is the back-to-back world champion.

At the U.S. International Classic in Lake Placid, N.Y., in September 2022, Malinin landed the first clean, fully rotated quadruple Axel in figure skating competition history.