Vincent Zhou bounced back from his COVID-shortened Olympics to take the bronze at the World Figure Skating championship in Montpellier, France Saturday.
USA Today reports he came back for a storybook ending despite feeling the depths of despair returning to the ice.
He had to withdraw from the men’s figure skating competition at the Olympics shortly after helping Team USA win the silver in the team event.
“Eleven, 12 days ago, I woke up in this bottomless pit. I called my agent, coaches and some important people and told them I thought my whole career was a failure and for nothing,” USA Today quoted him as saying in his news conference. “I thought I couldn’t do it. The one thing that got me here was the feeling inside that I didn’t want to live with the regret that I didn’t try. It was the only thing that kept me invested in my journey of getting on the plane and to the rink and taking it day by day.”
With Olympic gold medalist Nathan Chen out with an injury, Shoma Uno and Yuma Kagiyama, both from Japan won gold and silver.
Nothing, however, could take away from Zhou’s return. He rose from sixth place in the short program to finish with a total score of 277.38.
“I feel very, very proud of myself,” Zhou said to NBC. “I couldn’t do anything in training leading up to this.”
“I was mentally in a very bad place,” the Washington Post reported Zhou said. “I couldn’t do anything. But I got myself on the plane, I got myself together, I took it one practice at a time and now I’ve put out two strong performances, and I’m so proud of myself.”
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