Sochi Olympian Jason Brown is the latest figure skater to switch coaches and join Brian Orser‘s training group in Toronto.
Brown, who was ninth in Sochi and missed the PyeongChang Olympic team after placing sixth at January’s nationals, had been coached by Kori Ade since age 5.
“Words can’t ever fully capture the love and appreciation that I feel towards Kori and her team and all that we accomplished together,” Brown said in a U.S. Figure Skating press release. “Kori has and will continue to be a major influence on me as a skater and a person.”
“[Ade] is like my second mom,” Brown said in 2011, according to Goldenskate.com.
Brown made the 2014 Olympic team at age 19, the youngest U.S. Olympic male singles skater since 1976. He followed that with a national title in 2015, making him then the youngest U.S. champ since 2004, and a fourth-place finish at the world championships.
Then Brown suffered back and leg injuries the next two seasons. In that time, Nathan Chen and Vincent Zhou emerged, armed with quadruple jumps, leading a new generation of U.S. men’s skating. Brown has never landed a clean, fully rotated quad in competition.
Orser, a 1984 and 1988 Olympic silver medalist for Canada, coached Yuna Kim to gold in 2010 and Yuzuru Hanyu at the last two Olympics. He also coached Spaniard Javier Fernandez to 2015 and 2016 World titles and bronze in PyeongChang.
Olympic silver medalist Yevgenia Medvedeva of Russia and, according to reports, two-time world bronze medalist Jin Boyang of China also left their coaches for Orser this offseason.
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