Palo Alto's Vincent Zhou Makes U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Team

PALO ALTO, CA — Palo Alto’s Vincent Zhou will be headed to Beijing to represent the United States in figure skating in the 2022 Winter Olympics.

This will be Zhou’s second Olympic games. The 21-year-old also made the team in 2018 as a teenager, finishing sixth in Pyeongchang and also making history as the first skater to land a quadruple Lutz jump in the short program.

Zhou placed second in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Nashville over the weekend, behind Nathan Chen. Chen, Zhou and Jason Brown will represent the U.S. in Beijing.

Zhou finished with a career-best score of 112.78, advancing out of a loaded field.

“That was a pretty incredible competition,” Zhou said, according to the Washington Post. “From my perspective, to skate like I did and score 112 and not being in first place really shows the depth of talent that the U.S. men’s field has.”

Zhou trains in Colorado, but was born in San Jose and raised in Palo Alto. He told NBCOlympics that the competitive nature of the Bay Area contributed to his success.

“Due to the high Asian population in California's Bay Area, competition in academics is very fierce,” Zhou said. “Only the highly competitive, hardworking, diligent, committed people make it. That played a huge part in me understanding the standards my family has for academics and whatever I decided to pursue in terms of sport.”

The Winter Olympics begin on Feb. 4.