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Vincent Zhou still lights up when speaking about his time at the International Skating Union (ISU) World Figure Skating Championships 2019, a competition he will not soon forget.
One year after placing sixth at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 and 14th at the 2018 World Championships, Zhou broke through at what he calls "one of the best competitions of my life" and claimed the bronze medal at the 2019 event held in Saitama, Japan.
Performing two of his favorite programs of his career, everything came together for the then-18-year-old in Saitama. In fourth after the short program, his free skate score of 186.99 points bumped him up to podium position behind fellow American Nathan Chen and Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu.
The crowd helped as well.
"Everyone loves competing in Japan; the audience is so fantastic there and the support is unreal," Zhou explained. "It was in the Saitama Super Arena, and there were four levels of seating with every single seat sold out. It was just a surreal experience being there."
Most importantly for Zhou, he avenged both his skating technique and his name.
As he recalls, the perception through that entire season was that all of his jumps were under-rotated. And after earning bronze at the ISU Four Continents Figure Skating Championships 2019 in February of that season and then proclaiming in a press conference that he hoped to medal at World Championships, he was faced with social media comments that "laughed at me and said I couldn't do it."
"For that whole year to culminate in a medal was just a dream come true," Zhou said. "The best part of it was not only did I win against myself – my inner demons, so to speak – but I also won against all the people who said that I couldn't medal at Worlds."
After the 2020 World Championships were canceled at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhou has had to wait two years to again prove himself on the world stage – and he hopes to do so in a big way as he enters the Ericsson Globe this week in Stockholm, Sweden.
With five quadruple jumps planned in his free skate, Zhou is holding nothing back.
"That's not easy at all, and you have to make sacrifices in other areas of your skating to be able to do five quads, so that's a delicate balance we're trying to mitigate, and learning as we go," Zhou said earlier this month.
He has only attempted five quads in a program once before in his career, more than three years ago at the 2018 Winter Games, where he cleanly landed three of them.
Zhou has a similar program layout planned for the men's free skate on Saturday: quadruple Lutz-triple toe loop, quadruple flip, quadruple Salchow, triple Axel, quadruple Lutz-double toe loop, quadruple toe loop, triple Axel-Euler-triple Salchow. Both Lutzes will be performed with his arms raised above his head, which Zhou says is mentally more difficult.
He medaled at the 2019 World Championships with three quads in his free skate and is excited to see what he can do this year if he is able to pull off all five.
"Honestly, I don't want to say I'm more or less prepared, but I do know that I'm ready to take on the challenge, and I'm also willing to challenge myself because I know that if I want to medal at the Olympics then I'm going to have to push myself by doing more difficult stuff like this," Zhou said.
Looking back, Zhou said he can see clear improvement in his skating skills over the past two years, specifically when it comes to achieving better flow entering jumps and having better lines. He has also worked on his spins since the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
"Thought I had pretty decent spins going into nationals [U.S. Championships], but I ended up getting Level 2 in my short, so wanted to clear that up and work on my spins," he explained.
Head coach Christy Krall and Becky Bradley, sister of 2011 U.S. champion Ryan Bradley, have spearheaded the effort to improve his spins.
"My spins have become a lot more consistent outside of the programs," Zhou said. "It's pretty much spot on every time and I know the focus points that I need in the short program."
He also noted that emphasizing spins so much in practice, especially outside the programs, will help when it comes to his free skate. Attempting five clean quads causes Zhou to lose some of the time and mental focus he would typically have for the other elements in his program, so he now feels comfortable being able to recover his spins if something goes awry in the free.
Zhou's goals for the 2021 World Championships include a spot on the podium, surpassing a 300-point total (especially after taking the silver at the 2021 U.S. Championships with 291.38 points) and setting himself up well for the Olympics.
"I really believe that I have what it takes to medal at the Olympics, but as a first step it would be great to solidify my spot on the podium with the top guys earlier than that," Zhou said.
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Ashley Cain-Gribble and Timothy LeDuc and the rest of Team USA at the World Championships from March 22-28, 2021, on NBC, NBCSN, and Peacock Premium.
