Jeffrey Chen


Jeffrey Chen is an American ice dancer. With his skating partner, Katarina Wolfkostin, he is the 2020 U.S. junior national silver medalist and the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics bronze medalist.

Personal life

Jeffrey Chen was born in Fremont, California on July 21, 2002 to Taiwanese parents, Hsiu-Hui Tseng and Chih-Hsiu Chen. He is the younger brother of 2017 U.S. national ladies' champion and 2018 Winter Olympian Karen Chen. Chen enjoys hip-hop dance, gaming, and photography. He has a pet sun conure named Mango.

Career

Early career

Chen began skating in 2010, after following his older sister Karen onto the ice. He competed in singles until the 2014–15 season and was the 2014 U.S. national juvenile pewter medalist. As a singles skater, Chen trained in Riverside, California alongside his sister under Tammy Gambill.
Chen switched to ice dance and teamed up with Layla Karnes in the 2015–16 season. Together, they were the 2016 U.S. national juvenile ice dance champions and the 2017 U.S. national intermediate silver medalists. Chen changed coaches and began training with Marina Zoueva prior to the next season; he competed with Gianna Buckley during the 2017–18 season, winning the 2018 U.S. national novice silver medal. He then skated two months with Anna Lavrova during the 2018–19 season, but the partnership ended before the 2019 U.S. Championships.

2019–2020 season

Chen began skating with Katarina Wolfkostin in 2019 and moved to train with her coaches, Igor Shpilband and Pasquale Camerlengo, in Novi, Michigan. They placed fifth in their international debut at 2019 JGP France. Wolfkostin / Chen improved to fourth at 2019 JGP Russia, after placing second in the free dance. They won the inaugural U.S. Ice Dance Final to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Championships. Wolfkostin / Chen won their first international medal at the 2019 Golden Spin of Zagreb, earning the silver medal behind Arina Ushakova / Maxim Nekrasov of Russia.
Wolfkostin / Chen were named as the sole ice dance entrant on the U.S. team for the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. They were fifth after the rhythm dance, before placing third in the free dance, to win the bronze medal overall behind Russians Irina Khavronina / Dario Cirisano and Sofia Tyutyunina / Alexander Shustitsky. Their medal was the first won by Team USA at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics. Wolfkostin / Chen were drawn as part of Team Determination for the team event, alongside singles skaters Cha Young-hyun of South Korea and Nella Pelkonen of Finland and pairs skaters Brooke McIntosh / Brandon Toste of Canada. They placed fourth in the free dance segment to help Team Determination finish fourth, after losing the tie-breaker.
Wolfkostin / Chen placed fourth in the rhythm dance and second in the free dance to win the silver medal at the 2020 U.S. Championships, behind Avonley Nguyen / Vadym Kolesnik. Assigned to compete at their first World Junior Championships, they placed seventh.

Programs

With Wolfkostin

Competitive highlights

JGP: Junior Grand Prix. Pewter medals awarded only at U.S. national, sectional, and regional events.

With Wolfkostin

With Lavrova

With Buckley

With Karnes

Men's singles

Detailed results

With Wolfkostin

Junior results