Nathan Chen and Mariah Bell’s Instagram Had Winter Olympic Fans Wiping Away Tears
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Nathan Chen returned to the Winter Olympics competing better than ever but he hasn’t forgotten where his dreams began.
After coming close to a medal four years ago in Pyeongchang, the 22-year-old Utah native shattered a world record in Beijing on his first night on the ice, earning a historic 113.97 points in the men’s figure skating short program. On Wednesday, he is going after gold in the men's free skate. But before coming back to the world’s biggest stage, Nathan took a moment to reminisce about his early days. As it turns out, the two-time Olympic medalist shares cherished memories with fellow figure skater and U.S. women’s national champion Mariah Bell.
On January 10, Nathan went down memory lane and shared a heartwarming photo of himself and Mariah from back in the day. In the Instagram picture, the two appear to be at a U.S. figure skating event cheering on their team.
“Literally started from the bottom and now us champs and olympic team members!!!” he captioned it.
Upon seeing the throwback snap, Mariah instantly replied back, “😍😍😍.” The 25-year-old figure skater also reposted the picture on her own Instagram account. “😍👏 circa 11 years ago!!” she added in the caption.
Fellow Olympians were moved by Nathan’s Instagram post and flooded his comments section with heart emojis and kind messages. “Why does this make me want to cry,” former U.S. figure skater Adam Rippon wrote. “This is wholesome ❤️,” Canadian pair skater Kirsten Moore-Towers added. “Awww!” retired U.S. figure skater Polina Edmunds commented. “Let’s goooo 🔥🔥🔥🔥,” U.S. pair skater Alexa Knierim commented. “So cool!!!” U.S. Olympic bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor quipped.
Fans of Nathan and Mariah also chimed in with sweet words for the duo. “Stop this is so cute 😭,” one fan added. “Omg started as babies and now all grown up and Olympic team members!! 😍💖”
Though a gold medal is within Nathan’s reach, he is still taking things one moment at a time. “You can never really count out any of these athletes,” he said, per the New York Post. “The competition’s not one program. Whatever happens in the short program is not indicative of what will happen in the free program.”
That said, Nathan did take a second to embrace what it felt like to finally have a win. “At the last Olympics, both of the short programs didn’t go the way I wanted,” he said to the outlet. “To finally get an opportunity to skate the programs I wanted feels really good.”
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