Team USA's Nathan Chen continues his domination of men's figure skating with Beijing Games gold

Beijing — Nathan Chen remembers making the long drive with his mother from his home in Salt Lake City to Rafael Artyunyun's training base in Southern California. He had started just a few years earlier, using his sister's skates and sleeping in the car to follow his Olympic dreams.

Ten years later, Chen sat alongside Artyunyun on Thursday morning as his scores were read and that dream was finally realized.

With a nearly perfect free skate on the heels of a record-setting short program, the 22-year-old Yale student walked away with the gold medal at the Beijing Games Thursday. He became the first American figure skating champion since Evan Lysacek in 2010 and capped one of the most dominant four-year runs in the history of the sport.