Chen Lu

Chen Lu (, born 24 November 1976) is a Chinese former figure skater.

Chen was born in Changchun, China in 1976, the daughter of an ice hockey coach and a table tennis player.

She was one of the most decorated figure skaters of the 1990s winning two Olympic medals, four World medals, and nine national titles.

Her success brought attention to Chinese figure skating and spurred more Chinese success.

As a young skater in the early 1990s, Chen demonstrated both athletic and artistic potential.

She often out-jumped many of her contemporaries and the world's top figure skaters, including Kristi Yamaguchi, Midori Ito, Tonya Harding, Surya Bonaly, and Nancy Kerrigan.

She landed seven triple jumps, including a triple toeloop/triple toeloop combination at the 1991 World Championships held in Munich, Germany.

During the free skating portion of the event, she landed more triple jumps than the top 5 finishers.

This generated excitement about her prospects at a time when triple jumps were beginning to dominate women's figure skating, while Chen's artistic talents were praised by such American commentators as Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic.

Chen produced strong results during the 1991–1992 Olympic season.

In the fall of 1991, she became the first Chinese figure skater to compete in the United States when she finished 4th at the Skate America competition held in Oakland, California.

This event also included Kristi Yamaguchi and Tonya Harding, the world's top two skaters at the time.

After winning the bronze medal at the 1992 World Junior Figure Skating Championships, she shocked the skating world with a 6th-place finish at the Olympics.

Chen was one of only a few skaters who attempted a triple Lutz combination in the technical program.

Although she landed the difficult combination, she had problems executing other required elements, such as falling out of a double flip and having off-centered spins.

Subsequently, she won bronze medals at the 1992 and 1993 World Championships, the first two won by a Chinese figure skater.

She is the 1994 and 1998 Olympic bronze medalist and the 1995 World Champion.

Chen won the first ever Olympic medal in figure skating for China.

In 1994, she became the first Chinese figure skater to medal at the Olympic games, winning the bronze medal for a performance that included five triple jumps skated to the soundtrack from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind by Joe Hisaishi.

These successes were somewhat overshadowed by the Kerrigan/Harding controversy surrounding the Olympics and by the meteoric rise of another young skater, Oksana Baiul.

After the 1994 Olympics, Nancy Kerrigan and Oksana Baiul (the Olympic silver and gold medalists, respectively) retired from amateur competition and Chen became the favorite to win the World title in 1994.

However, a stress fracture injury kept her out of the competition and jeopardized her career.

She made a successful comeback by winning the 1994 NHK Trophy in Japan, landing six triples, including two triple Lutzes.

This program actually had a higher technical difficulty at the 1994 NHK Trophy as she doubled out the second triple Lutz at the World Championships.

Her free skating program was choreographed by Toller Cranston, combined Chinese and Western movement and music styles, and produced striking visual imagery.

Both the beginning and ending sections of the program emphasized glide and graceful positions, which were classical skating idioms, and more complex positions that relied on twisted and angled shapes.

The middle section continued the motif of twists and angles, and adopted more Chinese music and movements.

As figure skating writer and historian Ellyn Kestnbaum put it, Chen combined Eastern and Western images, freely moving between elegance and earthiness.

Chen's arm and back movement also exhibited mature polish and matureness.

Chen struggled after her win at the World Championships.

Chen reached the pinnacle of her career in 1995 when she became the World Champion (another first for a Chinese skater) over Surya Bonaly of France and younger competitors from the U.S. Her program featured five triple jumps and was skated to the music from the motion picture, The Last Emperor.

Sandra Bezic, a choreographer and television commentator, said that "With this program [Chen] says she wants to combine her Asian heritage with a sport that has been originated in the West."

(Taken from NBC's broadcast of the event).

She had inconsistent results during the 1995–1996 season and, thereafter, never regained her top form.

Further, she faced younger and more athletic competitors, such as American Michelle Kwan and Russian Irina Slutskaya.

She was ranked 11th after the opening phase of the competition.

In the free skate, she landed six triple jumps (five different triples and two triple Lutzes), again more than any of the skaters that finished ahead of her.

Many felt she was undermarked (for instance, British Eurosport commentators Chris Howarth and Simon Reed).

Chen was the only top 6 skater who did not fall on a jump.

Her success at the Olympics established her as a medal contender.