Vincent Zhou
Appearances
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Anne Marie Anderson on How to Build Your Front Row | EP 587
I just remember the feeling of stepping on the ice and not knowing what I was doing there. And that's a really scary feeling because when you've been passion struck your whole life and all of a sudden you step into the familiar arena, but you feel nothing. You feel nothing. It's terrifying. It feels like you question everything. You don't know what's happening. You don't know why it's happening.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Anne Marie Anderson on How to Build Your Front Row | EP 587
You realize it's probably up here, but you start trying to find physical reasons to turn it around because that's something you can tangibly change in the moment. But at the end of the day, that's the wrong reason. So you end up seeding more doubt and more doubt into your mind. It's just a negative spiral.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's devastating. Skating is a small world. Skating is a small world and those kids were the future. I've been on the ice with a few of them. I'm very close with some of their best friends, very close with some of their parents. After the news broke, I was reading up on them and I saw that some of them
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I'm not trying to make this all about me by any means, but I saw that some of them followed me on social media and that completely broke my heart because I know what it's like to be in their shoes, to be young and ambitious, to look up to people, to dream of making the Olympic team, to dream of being like them one day. And in a moment, all of that is gone and there's nothing you can do about it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It almost doesn't feel real. That just... broke my heart. I remember the parents of Maxim Nalmov, Evgenia and Vadim. They were so kind, so supportive when we competed together. They were so sweet. And I'm close with a couple of Maxim's best friends and spoken to them a little. And it's just heartbreaking, man.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Well, it's interesting because you always see the impacts of things that happen at the top level trickling down, inspiring younger skaters. And then a few years later, you see the younger skater coming up. And it was like, wow, that's crazy. I knew those names from years ago when they were still developing and I knew they were good. Who knew they would be this good?
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I've experienced that feeling many times over and it just sucks knowing that now there's just a gap there. They were coming back from the developmental camp at the US Figure Skating Championships and that camp is one of the most exciting things for people on the developmental team of their lives. I was just talking to some people from U.S. Figure Skating earlier.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I remember my first time at my own developmental camps when I was still up and coming. That was like honestly, almost even more exciting than going to the Olympics for the first time. It just represented everything that I'd ever dreamed of. And that's where these kids were at. That's where these kids were at. And the loss has just shaken us so deeply.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But we have come together, the whole community. Everyone has coalesced very quickly, too. World Figure Skating Championships are going to be in Boston in about two weeks from now, less than two weeks from now. And we're going to come together again there to remember them and everyone else who was on the flight. I would love to hear about how you were impacted too.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I understand you had a friend on board as well.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I can definitely relate to that. Even in individual sports, non-team based sports, the community you build is so strong because everyone faces challenges together and that unites you. It unites the way you think about things, the way you approach challenges. It builds respect for each other's character. So I'm sure he was a man of incredible character and integrity. And I'm sorry for your loss.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I think that environment is so important. You can have all the right ingredients in a person to build greatness, but if they're in the wrong environment, it's never gonna catalyze. The chemical reaction is never gonna take off. You gotta have the right environment.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And I think that for me, moving to Southern California, being able to train under a world-class coach, switching from physical school to online school, basically allowing me to dedicate ample time and resources and allowing my life to start converging around maximizing my performance on the ice every day, I think that's all it took because the rest of the baseline ingredients were already there.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Grit, curiosity, willingness to experiment, willingness to learn. willingness to go at it over and over again. My coach didn't have to tell me to work harder. She had to tell me to stop. I remember getting yelled at so many times because I was doing too much.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And she was afraid that I would hurt myself, not only from doing too many reps of things that I already knew how to do, but also from trying new stuff, harder stuff. Actually, I have a funny story about that later on in my career when in the middle, around the middle of my career, when I was learning quadruple jumps, which are jumps with four rotations in the air.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
At the time there were only two other people in the world doing quadruple LUTs and I knew I had it in me to try it, to do it successfully. I wanted to prove my theory correct, but I know that I knew that my coach would probably disapprove. So I waited until one afternoon when she was gone golfing. And then I tried it on an afternoon session and I landed it on my third try.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And for reference, it takes people years to learn a single axle, which is one and a half rotations. It usually takes years, even I would say months for even the most talented skaters to learn triples. So landing the quadruple lots on my third try on the first day was a testament to how I... scientifically approached, how I scientifically approached my jumps.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And that was like an exclamation mark on my belief, my belief that all this sacrifice, all this passion is going to pay off. I knew it was going to pay off. I knew it was going to turn into something great. And I was determined to make that happen.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Well, this is how I recount it, right? The only reason I'm the first one to land a quad Lutz in Olympic history and not someone else is because my starting order was earlier because my world ranking was lower because that was actually my first year competing as a senior internationally.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So I hadn't accumulated world ranking points yet that moved my starting position earlier than other skaters in the competition who are also doing the quad Lutz and also did it successfully in the short program. I think it's just, you call it luck or whatever, that I ended up taking that title.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But I think the true story of the Quad Lutz has to go back a few years when I and a couple others around the world were actually starting to try it. Because you see, at the time, people didn't really think Quad Lutz was a thing. It was like... I don't know. It's like humans have always had the capability of innovating certain things earlier in time.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's just that nobody was really aware of it, so they didn't do it. But they technically had the ability to, right? That's how I see it. And that doesn't make it any less impressive, because if anything, I think overcoming a mental barrier is even more difficult than overcoming a physical barrier. So for me, I'd always had this idea that Lutz was like the cool jump. It was the cool jump to do.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And basically in skating, there's six types of jumps and the axle is a bit of a special case. So we'll. rule that out for now, excluding the axle, the Lutz is the hardest jump, the highest scoring jump. So I'd always had a special thing for a Lutz. I used to do it hundreds of times as a kid to the point where I got better at triple Lutz's than any other triple.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And before I had learned my quadruple lots, I learned a couple of other quadruples. So I was like, if I can do those other quadruples and my lots is better than those jumps, then I should be able to theoretically do a quad lots even more easily than my other quads. So, so that's what I was saying earlier about wanting to test my theory, but not being allowed to, cuz it was too out of the box.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So, like I said, I waited until my coach was gone golfing and then, and then I tried it and I was right. And that was the moment when I realized before that, that I was already a member of Team USA. I was up and coming. I knew that my career had potential to go somewhere, but that was the moment where I told myself that I could change history.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And I started trying it in competition shortly after I landed it at a local competition. I landed it at first international competition in China. 2017, I was throwing it on practices even a year before that at international competitions. And then 2018 just happened to be the competition with the most spotlights on it and that special Olympic title attached to it. That's the way I see it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But I think it's, I think it, that kind of that mindset of not caring what other people think is impossible, um, has taken me really far and hopefully will continue to, because it's a very applicable mindset to many things, not just a club.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's always just been this willingness to experiment. It's hard to do it justice in words, but I can see it just even by looking at other skaters. The reigning world champion, Ilya Malinin, I saw that willingness to experiment in him years ago. years ago. And now he was the first person to ever land a quad axle. Now he's doing things that even I could only dream of.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Part of me is like almost smug in a way because I'm like, I saw that coming years ago. Like I told you, it's the same with Yuzuru Hanyu, who's 2014 and 2018 Olympic champion, one of the most legendary figure skaters in history. Back in 2012, 2013, when I saw him break out onto the junior stage for the first time, I knew he had something special because I could see he wore it on his sleeve.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I could see his grit in the way that he got up from his falls. I was like, that guy has something special. And I looked up to him very early on. I knew he had something special. And then he went on to become one of the greatest of all time. I can't really describe it perfectly, but I can sense it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's just like this unspoken way of approaching things that shows that you don't believe in the impossible.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I think it was not having the opportunity to even try. Not having the opportunity to even try. Yeah. After it happened, I felt almost like someone I loved had died. Something that always been with me my whole life. The singular thing that drove me for 21 years. was the idea that I might stand on an Olympic podium one day.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And the day before I had the chance to make it happen, after years of dedicating my entire life to preparing for that one moment, it was just taken out of my hands. And that was like losing a long time companion or a loved one almost. I was almost entered like a grieving process after. Of course, the first bit was just like disbelief and trying to adjust.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I just remember the feeling of stepping on the ice and not knowing what I was doing there. And that's a really scary feeling because when you've been passion struck your whole life and all of a sudden you step into the familiar arena, but you feel nothing. You feel nothing. It's terrifying. It feels like you question everything. You don't know what's happening. You don't know why it's happening.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I remember, so it was the night before the short program that I got the news. And the same night sent me off to isolation in some hotel 45 minutes away from the village. And I got into this room and my whole body and my mind was just like,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
screaming at me like you're not supposed to be here you're not supposed to be here it's like mind body disconnect almost and i still had i still had my alarm set for 3 40 a.m the next morning because that's when i was going to wake up for the morning warm-up and i turned my alarm off i turned my alarm off it's one of the saddest things i've ever done i turned my alarm off and then the next morning with no alarm i woke up at 3 40 a.m sharp i jolted awake
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
My body was like fired up. I was ready to do it. I was ready to like make my dream come true. And then I was like, and then I looked at the ceiling and I looked at the window shades and I was like, this is wrong. I'm not where I think I am. I'm not where I should be. And yeah, I'll never forget that feeling. It was just one of the, one of the worst things I've ever felt.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I think everyone's situation is unique and. I guess also that being said, I don't think it's fair to necessarily compare.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
losses you know what i mean i read a little bit about your background and the things that you've experienced and i'm absolutely sure they were just as difficult for you i think everyone's perspective is and relative frame of how they experience those things is equally valid so i wouldn't necessarily say what i went through was harder or more difficult or more emotional or anything
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But to answer your question, for people who may be going through something similar, I would say try to have something else that drives you in the background. When you lose all sense of direction, you need something new to keep you grounded, something new to keep your head anchored. Because it's like being lost at sea and even having the tiniest light in the distance.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It is going to help you understand relatively where you are. And even though you may not have the strength to start swimming at the moment, at least you'll know where you are. At least you'll know where you are. And I think that's really important.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's a combination of everything. Every time some update came, I ended up mentally reliving everything all over again. Did lots of advocacy on the situation. I was quite outspoken about the need for justice to be served. And I wrote quite a few lengthy Instagram posts and media releases on it, and every time I relived the journey, relived every moment.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And when it all finally came to a close, that absolutely felt like closure. It finally felt like I could start looking beyond what happened and trying to pivot to thinking about how can we prevent this from happening again? How can we prevent this from happening again? Because without proper consequences, history will repeat itself. History will repeat itself.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
you realize it's probably up here, but you start trying to find physical reasons to turn it around because that's something you can tangibly change in the moment. But at the end of the day, that's the wrong reason. So you end up seeding more doubt and more doubt into your mind. It's just a negative spiral.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And so I want to make sure that no athlete who has spent their entire lives working for even a chance at making the Olympic team or whatever team and fulfilling their dream has to have that taken away from them because of people who, because the results are decided before the competition even happens.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's a slap in the face to clean sport, to fair competition, to the pillars that the Olympics were founded on sportsmanship, brotherhood, integrity, sisterhood, brotherhood, sisterhood, integrity, and all the virtues of clean sport.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
We didn't know we were flying out to Paris until I think the date was August 7th. And we were going to fly out. We were going to fly out August 12th. Hastily packed my bags and went. It was pretty funny. At the start of the internship, I was doing a summer internship in New York at the time. At the start of the internship in June, I had told my boss, hey, there might be...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
a chance that i have to finish early to go to the the 2024 paris olympics but i don't know i'll keep you updated when i know and the whole summer i was just waiting to tell him i was just waiting to tell him like like the good news hey i gotta leave early I was finally able to tell him a couple of days before.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I think that's a great way to put it. And also the gold medal doesn't even feel like a gold medal for the event that it came from. It feels symbolic of the journey. It feels like a symbolic bookend to just all the crazy things that happened. We talked about the sacrifice that my parents made, the injuries, the times that we gave up.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
everything all the impossible to predict twists and turns it feels like just a bookend on all of that and i think it's almost like a a feel-good disney movie ending or something vincent throughout your career you've had incredible coaches and mentors like we've talked about who've helped shape you not just as an athlete but as a leader and a role model and now
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
First of all, thanks for the introduction and the kind words, Kirk. I don't know if I can top what you talked about, but you built ICL and so far the results have been incredible. I'm honored to be a part of it, honored to help in any way I can. And you're right, absolutely. I love being able to give back and pass on the things that I've learned and experienced to anyone who might benefit from it.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
When I first heard about ICL, I looked it up and I was like, wow, this is incredible. This looks like everything I could have wanted when I was a kid. And I was looking for resources to help balance a rigorous training environment with rigorous academic needs. And so the more I get to learn about it, the more I have respect for everyone involved.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And it's just incredible to see when I look at the students in ICL, I don't see students. I just see like shadows of my younger self. I see people who John, we already talked about this, like seeing myself in the younger generations. I see kids who are ambitious and motivated and love what they do and are hungry. It's like Steve Jobs' famous speech, stay hungry, stay hungry.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
It's like they want to, they're curious, they want to learn, they want to take in all the sources of inspiration and information that they can. And that's something that you can't really teach. That's something that you just...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
have to have you have to embody and that's the sort of character that kirk that you're talking about i think and that carries not just into skating but into everything throughout academics throughout your sport throughout your professional pursuits and i think that's also how we remember the greatest of all time it's not just excellence in one thing, it's legacy.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Legacy is built through character and mindset and impact in multiple areas. And I think it's just so incredible that ICL has the vision and the right people to do this for kids all over the country. Like I said, really honored to be able to contribute in some way to the vision.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Hey John, thanks so much for having me and pleased to be on this podcast. Can't wait to have a great conversation, talk about what drives us and hopefully we'll have some interesting conversation that will be really useful to everyone listening.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Some of the hardest times that some of the hardest times of my life were in large part because I had no community to fall back on. When I had knee surgery at 12 years old, I was
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
isolated in a room with my leg on this stupid movement machine for a couple months just unable to do anything unable to skate unable to walk normally unable to go up and down the stairs without sitting down on my butt and didn't have friends to talk to didn't have family to talk to And it was one of the most lonely experiences of my life.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And I only wish that I had a community like ICL students do. And that's, again, why I said, I think it's so incredible that you got people with the right vision and the ability to make this happen for those kids. It's invaluable to them. It's invaluable to them. And again, so much respect for, to you, Kirk, for building this and making
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
being able to impact these kids' lives in the way that you have and will continue to.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I was a really competitive kid. I had to win at everything. If you put me at the starting line of a race, I would cry if I didn't reach the finish line first. If you put me on a soccer field, I would try my dang hardest to score all the goals against the boys who were twice as old and twice as large as me.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Kirk, I want to go back to something you talked about real quickly, which is like the anxious generation and the digital exposure that's making everyone somehow feel more lonely. How can that be, right? It's supposed to be that digital social media and digital access broadens our connections, right? Why is this generation getting more lonely? And I think it is this.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
me on the ice i'm gonna try and skate the fastest i had a lot of energy my parents couldn't contain me at home i was bouncing off the walls so they put me into a lot of sports and figure skating happened to be one of them that stuck with me a long time and i sure am glad it did but The first exposure was actually through a birthday party.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
When I was 12, I had surgery for the first time. I... Well, the first and only time, knock on wood. And I was shut in that room for months. I ended up turning to a lot of different outlets to try and make contact with someone. I just wanted to talk to someone. And I ended up finding online education forums and various things like that. And a lot of those communities
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
ended up feeling like home for a long time because I literally had nowhere else to turn. But the problem was with things like social media, online forums, online communities, Yes, there may be like-minded people. Yes, there may be people you consider your friends, even close friends.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But at the end of the day, when it's time to close your screen and turn to the real world, you will be let down over and over again because they will not be there standing in front of you. When you're alone at night, struggling to sleep and craving some sort of
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
somebody to talk to they won't be there they won't be there it's an escape and it can feel like home for a moment but when you look out the window none of it is real and i think icl is so incredible in bridging that gap because when even when you bring in
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
speakers virtually to talk about something it's still real to the kids it they can open their eyes go to practice the next morning and what the speaker said is still real it's still in front of them and i think that's the big difference right is with a community like this
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Those kids aren't going to be let down over and over again when they close, when they turn off their screens and open their eyes. And I think that's, I think that's the right way to do this. That's the right way to leverage digital technology and connectivity. So I just wanted to say that because I was thinking when you were talking and I had this realization, like, yeah, that's it. So.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I had a lot of fun at the local ice rink, outdoor ice rink. There was this bubble machine that would blow bubbles. It was all whimsical and there'd be jolly music playing. And I just remember racing with my friend Alper from elementary school and trying so hard to win. Next thing, my mom signed me up for group lessons and off I went.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
That's the first time I've been asked that question. And it's a very difficult question because how can you compare, right? And there's also a present bias in thinking about, because the recency of the experience also determines how well you remember the intricacies of what made it difficult.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So I think one of the most difficult transitions was going from my 2019 world championships where I won my first world medal to And I was on top of the world. I was continuing my upward trajectory from the 2018 Olympics to doing a semester at Brown.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
The story is that I applied to Brown to begin in 2019, even though I wasn't planning on retiring from skating yet, because my standardized test scores were about to expire. Jokes, they removed the standardized test requirement the following year, but I didn't know that would happen.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So I applied then, and my plan was to request three years of deferral so that I could fully focus on skating through the 2022 Olympics and then start. But Brown gave me two and a half years. Other schools gave me three, but I liked Brown so much that I took their offer anyway. And I knew that I just had to get this semester done.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
The earlier, the better, because closer to the 2022 Olympics would mean more disruption. So in fall 2019, I did a semester on campus. And I went to online school from the middle of fifth grade through high school graduation.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
with the exception of junior year and then after graduation i took two more gap years to focus on the 2018 olympics so i'd spent a long time away from a physical classroom environment and i didn't have i wasn't so lucky as to have something like icl around me so my experience was probably very different. I did not belong whatsoever. I had to learn to be a beginner again, almost.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
You get so used to being a master at your craft that your mind almost forgets the pathways that it takes, that it has to utilize to learn from scratch all over again. And that's one of the challenges I faced coming into the semester at Brown. But on top of that, I was still trying to train and compete at the same time. So it was constantly flipping the switch back and forth.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And unfortunately, Brown's athletic department was not particularly supportive of my training needs. So I ended up trying to commute to Boston five days a week to train. And I was going to Boston from Providence during rush hour in the morning. and in rush hour in the afternoon coming back. So normally it's a 45 minute to one hour commute.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I was spending up to two hours each way, up to four hours on the road each day, five days a week while trying to take classes and train full time for at the top level. So very quickly I burnt out. I just remember the feeling of stepping on the ice and not knowing what I was doing there.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And that's a really scary feeling because when you've been passion struck your whole life and all of a sudden you step into the familiar arena, but you feel nothing. You feel nothing. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. It feels like you question everything. You don't know what's happening. You don't know why it's happening.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
You realize it's probably up here, but you start trying to find physical reasons to turn it around because that's something you can tangibly change in the moment is like your effort or your technique or something like that. But at the end of the day, that's the wrong reason. So you end up seeding more doubt and more doubt into your mind. And it's just a negative spiral.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Long story short, that semester was extremely difficult. I withdrew from all my competitions. I quit skating and I had almost convinced myself that I might as well give up on the 2022 Olympic dream and just start my academic journey full time. I was fully prepared to come back to tell Brown I'm not doing the two and a half year deferral. I'm just coming back full time the following semester.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Fortunately, Brown does a thing called Thanksgiving break. And during Thanksgiving break, some people who are very dear to me asked me to visit them up in Toronto, Canada. And I flew out to see them just to talk with them. And they convinced me that I needed a fresh start. I needed to move somewhere new. I need to move somewhere new after the semester ended that would give me a chance to just
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
start over and for the right reasons to skate for myself. to skate in an expectation-free environment because they knew that if I stepped foot in an old environment, I would immediately face the same pressures and the same idea that I had to immediately return to my old self, the state that I was at before. And they were right.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Being free of that was a complete game changer for me because they did convince me. I ended up moving to Toronto after the semester ended and that was I had been off the ice for months. When I got on the ice again, I couldn't even, I could hardly do a clean triple jump. And Nationals was in two weeks, and I wasn't even sure if I was going to compete at Nationals.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But I knew that Olympic qualification and just in terms of your whole journey as a skater, you really can't afford to be missing big competitions like that. Because not only does it impact world ranking, it impacts your whole standing in the landscape. That was in the back of my head. What was in the front of my head was that grit that's always been there.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
That when it comes down to it, that you can't give up. If you have the chance to try, you have to try. You cannot let the opportunity slip away. I've always believed in that. And that's resulted in some of the most incredible turnarounds in my career. And that was one of those moments because I believed that going to nationals was the right move, no matter how poorly I did.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And I was fully prepared to get a score that I won't even say because it's so embarrassingly low. And then the practices happened. And the day before the short program, I suddenly landed a clean quadruple for the first time again in months. And then the next morning in practice, things were clicking again. I was feeling like Vincent Cho again.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And the competition came and I don't know how, but I skated two clean programs with two quadruples and just everything that I had set out to do that didn't even seem possible just two weeks earlier and came away with a medal and a result that... I would not have thought possible even a couple of days before that was named to the world team.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And yeah, even though that was probably one of, ironically, that was, that was one of my lowest podium finishes at a senior competition yet in the U S yet it felt one of my biggest wins. And at the end of the day, that's what I took away from it. It was one of my biggest personal victories and,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Yeah. So when you talk about grit, that's grit, passion. Those are the most important things because when everything's going smoothly, you said earlier, Kirk, it's not always going to be a hockey stick. That's true. When things are going smoothly, it's going to feel like it's a hockey stick. If you zoom in the camera, sometimes it's going to look like a hockey stick.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
When it's easy, like when everything's going smoothly, it's easy to be great. It's easy to be passionate. It's easy to have grit.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But the moment adversity arrives, the moment some variable changes, the moment an injury comes knocking at your door, the moment some factor out of your control changes and you got to deal with it, what happens that the rough patches are what grit and passion get you through because somebody without grit and passion, they'll just turn around and head home.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So that's why it's almost a backhanded compliment when people say you're so talented because that implies that you just had it all and you never had to deal with the rough patches. That's so not true.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So just want to reemphasize, I cannot overemphasize the importance of grit and passion because when things aren't looking up, when it's looking unlikely that you're going to achieve your goal or make the next target, that's what's going to get you through. And you're going to look back and... be so grateful that you did keep your head down and keep going.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
So that's what makes all the difference at the end of the day. Well said.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Yeah, yeah. And that's why people say the victories, the medals, the titles, whatever, It's representative of the journey it encapsulates everything that went into it it's not just. I came to this competition and I did well for. I did my job for four minutes, it's, I did my job for two decades. Awesome.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Well, every jump lands backwards. So you learn that very early on. If you land forward, there's a huge toe pick there that typically tends to stop your stop your motion. If you land on it, landing forward would probably result in some really unfortunate accidents. We learn very on usually the hard way not to land forwards.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Take care, Vincent. See you soon. Thanks, John. Take care.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I still can't come up with the perfect answer to that question. But what I do know is that from the start, figure skating felt like it had a very tangible learning curve that kept me motivated. It kept me motivated and kept me reaching for the next big thing. When I was eight years old, I was still doing a couple other activities. I was playing piano, I was playing soccer, and I was swimming.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And swimming, I didn't spend enough time on it. So it didn't occupy as much head space. And I think I was able to dismiss it more easily. Soccer, I did spend quite a bit of time on, but I was just too small in size compared to the other boys in my league. And I couldn't keep up with them. I couldn't run as fast. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't out jostle them on the field.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
I was good at scoring goals because I had innate grit But, but soccer didn't end up being the channel through which that grit manifested that ended up being skating because from a young age, skating requires long early hours and lots of dedication. And I think that just cemented it from very early on. So yeah.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
When my mom sat me down in the office to ask me the question of which one do you want to choose? She basically said, Vincent, you're starting middle school. You won't have time anymore to do all these things. You have to pick one. And eight year old me was sitting in my office in big office chair, like tiny. I was just spinning around and around.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And my mom asked me the question and I stopped, sat straight up and said, my heart is with skating. And from that moment on, we just went all out.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Oh, absolutely. I watched pretty much every single video of skating I could get my hands on. If you showed me a clip of someone doing a jump, I could probably tell you the exact... I could tell you the skater, the competition, the program, the music name, the score they got for the program. I could probably tell you everything. I think my memory is a little...
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
faded now from all of that but i had a lot of inspirations the biggest ones were probably brian boitano 1988 olympic champion there was the infamous battle of the bryans at that olympics uh also evan lysacek 2010 olympic champion patrick chan who was multiple time world champion uh first skater to break 300 points in a domestic competition uh
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
incredible skater yuzuru hanyu who it's funny because a lot of these skaters i grew up idolizing and then a couple years later before i knew it i was competing in on the same sheet of ice system against them and that that's such an incredible feeling it's almost surreal it's wow like we made that happen like those people were untouchable at one point
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
That's such a great question. I think that the later on it became in my skating career, the more I realized I had to start coming into my own image as a skater. It's a wonderful thing when you're young, ambitious, and have a long way to go to have idols and try to emulate them. But as you mature along your athletic career, you need to develop your own style
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
like, person number two, you want to be known as your name, number one. And so I started to realize, like, I should stop trying to necessarily emulate them move for move style for style. But there's still great qualities in their skating that I can draw inspiration from. And of course their character, their image, them as a person, there's still so much to respect and revere there.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
But in terms of, in terms of having like a technique or skating, like style kind of idol, I think that kind of fades as your career goes on. Yeah.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
And there's a reason they say you're standing on the shoulders of giants and not like... occupying the same space as a giant and trying to stretch upwards to them. If the metaphor makes sense.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Absolutely. And I think this is larger than just parents, figure skating parents that have to do things for their kids. I think part of it is also cultural, where it's a lot of immigrant parents who come to the US with nothing but the clothes on their backs, just like my parents did in 1992.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
They pass on this idea to their kids that we gave up everything to give you a chance at success in this new land. and got to make something out of that. Got to stay humble and work really hard and try to make something out of this life we gave you.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
There's always been that element of sacrifice and respect for that sacrifice in the background, but at the same time, and at the same time, it's also true that figure skating demands a massive sacrifice and, uh,
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
when i was eight years old and i said my heart is with skating my mom quit her job she quit her career she was a software engineer in the bay area had multiple software patents very hard worker very good at what she did and she quit her career to support my skating the craziest thing to me is when it happens Like when she did it, I wasn't even good at skating yet.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
All that was there for her to work off of was, I mentioned I had having that grit, that competitiveness. That was it. That was it. I had nothing to show for it yet. And my mom took that and always believed in me. She always believed in me. And there were many difficult moments together. Many times we very nearly gave up. Many times we did give up.
Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Vincent Zhou on How to Make Your Gold Medal Dreams a Reality | 588
Many times where I saw that her belief began to waver. And it's just been a crazy journey, but it started with my mom believing in me. If she hadn't made that sacrifice to leave her career so that I could move away from home to train 400 miles away in an entirely new world, just to sacrifice everything for a sliver of a dream, I wouldn't be here talking to you today. It's insane.