Chen Lu

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chen Lu
Personal Information
Country : Federation	China : CHN
Status	Olympic Ineligible (Professional)
Olympic Games
3rd Place	1994: Lillehammer, NOR, 1998: Nagano, JPN
World Championships
1st Place	1995
2nd Place	1996

Chen Lu (Simplified Chinese: 陈露; Traditional Chinese: 陳露; pinyin: Chén Lù; born 24 November 1976 in Changchun, China) is a Chinese figure skater, also known as "Butterfly on Ice" by her fans. Her mother was a table tennis player and her father was an ice hockey coach. She was coached by Mingzhu Li until 1997. After winning her first world medal, she briefly worked with Frank Carroll, Carlo Fassi and Christy Ness.

Contents 1 Amateur career 1.1 Early success 1.2 World Championships success 1.3 Struggles 1.4 Comeback and retirement 2 Professional life 3 Career Highlights 4 Competitive History 5 See also 6 External links 7 Navigation

[edit] Amateur career

Chen 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.

[edit] Early success

As a young skater in the early 90's, Chen demonstrated both athletic and artistic potential. In fact, 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. For example, 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 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 and was ranked 11th after the opening phase of the competition). In the longer free skate, she landed six triple jumps, again more than any of the skaters that finished ahead of her. Also, Chen's performance was remarkable in that she was the only top 6 skater that did not fall on a jump.

Her success at the Olympics established her as medal contender. Subsequently, she won bronze medals at the 92 and 93 World Championships, the first two won by a Chinese figure skater. 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 94. 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.

[edit] World Championships success

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. (See the table below). Her program featured 5 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).

[edit] Struggles

Chen struggled after her win at the World Championships. 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.

Chen skated inconsistently during the 1995-1996 season. Although she finished 1st or 2nd at the three Champion's Series events she entered in the fall of 1995, she did struggle. For example, at the competition in France, she finished 7th in the technical program and 1st in the free skate. At the NHK Trophy in Japan, she struggled with her jumps during both phases of the event. The low point of her season came at the Champion's Series Final, where she led going into the free skate but dropped to 4th overall after struggling with her jumps in the free program. Kwan and Slutskaya finished 1st and 2nd, respectively, at the event. In contrast, she won the 1996 Winter Asian Games, a prestigious competition that occurs every four years before the World Championships. Therefore, some doubted that Chen could repeat as World Champion.

Nevertheless, at the 1996 World Championships, Chen skated very well--better than she had skated all season--but she finished 2nd overall to Michelle Kwan. Both skated well and both garnered two perfect marks of 6.0 for Presentation, but Kwan had the edge on the technical scores and won by a final tally of 6 judges to 3 (In other words, 6 judges placed Michelle Kwan ahead of Lu Chen; three placed Chen ahead of Kwan). (See the three tables below). It remains a widely discussed result, but a possible explanation for Kwan's higher technical scores is that she landed 7 triple jumps to Chen's 6 and featured harder and more varied spins.

Chen posted the worst results of her career during the 1996-1997 season. She struggled with injuries and had conflicts with both her long-time coach and her skating federation. She withdrew from competitions in the fall of 1996, citing injury and was ill-prepared for the 1997 World Championships. There, she finished only 25th and did not qualify for the final free skate. Nor did her finish qualify China for the ladies' figure skating competition at the 1998 Olympic Games.

Thus, in the summer of 1997, Chen, working with a new coach named Hongyun Liu, had to qualify for the Olympics. She did this by winning an event in Vienna and by finishing 4th and 3rd at events in France and Japan, respectively. Still, she had not regained the form that had won her the World title and did not qualify for the Grand Prix Final (formerly known as the Champion's Series Final), which was an important pre-Olympic event. Further, there were many competitors that could potentially medal at the Olympics and there were significant doubts that Chen could repeat as a medalist.

[edit] Comeback and retirement

At the Olympics, Chen announced her intention to retire from amateur skating after the Games. Thus her performances took on a special significance both as a comeback and as a farewell. She performed well to "Adios Nonino" in her technical program and to "Butterfly Lovers" in the free skate. Again, she incorporated elements of her Chinese culture into her routine.

Although she had struggled throughout, she was able to complete the two programs well enough to compete for a medal. Her main competitors were Russians Maria Butyrskaya and Irina Slutskaya. Like Chen, they skated well, but had mistakes. The final placements were very close and far from unanimous. Chen beat Irina Slutskaya by the tally of 6 judges to 3 and beat Maria Butyrskaya 5 judges to 4. Interestingly, most of the judges ranked Chen in 4th place, away from the medal. But because the 3rd place votes (called "ordinals") were split unevenly between Chen, Butyrskaya, and Slutskaya, Chen managed to win the bronze medal for the second time. (See the two tables below). Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan finished in 1st and 2nd place, respectively.

Afterwards, her performance was regarded as one of the great comebacks of the Olympic games and is memorable for the emotion she displayed during and after her free skate. Notably, Chen bowed to her coaches following her free skating performance, as she was leaving competition ice for the last time, in gratitude for their training.

[edit] Professional life

She retired from amateur competition after the Olympics and turned professional. She toured with Stars on Ice for two seasons and competed at many professional and professional-amateur competitions. The Chinese Federation asked Lu Chen to skate at the 9th Chinese National Games in 2001, so she could help younger skaters improve their elegance. She ended up winning. This national competition occurs every four years and is different from the Chinese National Figure Skating Championships that occurs every year.

In July 2005 she married Russian Denis Petrov, 1992 Winter Olympics pair skating silver medalist. On June 28, 2006, they welcomed a son, Nikita. Chen is now chief director of the Chen Lu International Skating Club based at World Ice Arena, an upscale mall rink in Shenzhen, China. She has also done choreography for skaters. She likes the job very much and hopes to train more skating athletes for the city and China.

On January 17th, 2006, Lu Chen was one of celebrity torchbearers in the Torino 2006 Torch Relay by carrying the Flame in Venice, Italy.

On February 1st, 2007 Lu Chen skated to "Butterfly Lovers" for the opening ceremony at the 6th Asian Winter Games. Chen had won the competition nearly ten years ago. It was her first time performing since 2002. She landed a double salchow and a single axel. Chen will also be a guest-commentator during the 6th Asian Winter Games for figure skating.

[edit] Career Highlights

• First Chinese figure skater to medal and win the World Championships
• First Chinese figure skater to medal at an Olympics
• First Chinese figure skater to medal at two consecutive Olympics
• Has more world medals then any other female Chinese figure skater
• First Chinese Women to land a triple lutz, triple flip, triple loop and triple/triple combination (Triple Toe-Triple Toe) in international competition

[edit] Competitive History

Event/Season	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	2001
Chinese Championships	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	1st	-
World Championships	-	12th	3rd	3rd	WD	1st	2nd	25th	-	-
Winter Olympics	-	-	6th	-	3rd	-	-	-	3rd	-
World Junior Championships	-	3rd	3rd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
NHK Trophy	-	3rd	-	-	1st	1st	-	3rd	-	-
Skate America	-	4th	3rd	-	-	2nd	WD	-	-	-
Skate Canada International	-	-	-	1st	-	-	-	-	-	-
Trophee de France	-	-	-	-	-	2nd	WD	4th	-	-
Champion Series Final	-	-	-	-	-	4th	-	-	-	-
Chinese National Games	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1st
Asian Winter Games	-	-	-	-	-	-	1st	-	-	-
Karl Schäfer Memorial	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1st	-	-
Piruetten	-	-	-	-	3rd	-	-	-	-	-

[edit] See also

• Figure skating
• World Figure Skating Championships
• Figure skating at the Olympics
• Figure skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics
• Figure skating at the 1994 Winter Olympics
• Figure skating at the 1998 Winter Olympics

[edit] External links

• skate.org A Lu Chen Fan Page
• a depository of videos for Lu Chen (the website is written in Simplified Chinese, and the commentators in the videos spoke in English.)

[edit] Navigation