America’s Youngest Olympian Landed the Hardest Figure Skating Jump of All
While the world was celebrating Mirai Nagau's historic triple axel, another American athlete competing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics glided into the history books right alongside her.
Seventeen-year-old Vincent Zhou tackled the single hardest jump in the sport of figure skating, the quadruple lutz, during his short program routine on Thursday night, and he became the first person to ever land it in the history of the Olympics.
HISTORY.
Vincent Zhou, the youngest member of Team USA, lands the first quad Lutz at the #WinterOlympics. https://t.co/cyopV7k12F pic.twitter.com/EUx1R66te1— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 16, 2018
Zhou decided not to play things safe with his routine by performing what Deadspin reports is the most technically demanding short program routine of any of the men's athletes. Even though he had bobbles, he still managed to end up in 12th place, ahead of U.S. champion Nathan Chen.
Zhou has another shot Friday night at raising his score with the free program, where he will be performing to songs from Moulin Rouge (a popular choice at this Olympics). With Chen behind him and fellow American and rapid one-liner machine Adam Rippon in front of him, he'll have a shot at representing the U.S. once again.
RELATED: Figure Skater Mirai Nagasu Made Olympic History by Landing a Triple Axel
Even though he's already made history at the Olympics before hitting age 18, figure skating isn't the only thing that Zhou excels in. As his Instagram shows, he's an avid poet.
A post shared by Vincent Zhou (@govincentzhou) on Nov 18, 2017 at 3:49pm PST
Save some talent for the rest of us, would you Vincent?
