--- title: Olympic Skater Adam Rippon on His Breakout Skating Program description: Not shy about sharing his thoughts, Rippon described what was going through his head during his Olympic debut canonical: https://time.com/5144016/olympics-2018-adam-rippon-figure-skating/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-12T09:03:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T19:14:29.348Z article:section: Sports og:title: What Adam Rippon Was Thinking During His Olympic Debut og:description: "This is the moment i've been waiting for my entire life" og:url: https://time.com/5144016/olympics-2018-adam-rippon-figure-skating/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddda83774b203ee3/69892719e76ad237b1630fc6/gettyimages-917118340.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Figure Skating - Winter Olympics Day 3 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Adam Rippon Was Thinking During His Olympic Debut twitter:description: "This is the moment i've been waiting for my entire life" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddda83774b203ee3/69892719e76ad237b1630fc6/gettyimages-917118340.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Adam Rippon Was Thinking During His Olympic Debut  by [Alice Park / Gangneung](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park / Gangneung Senior Correspondent Feb 12, 2018 9:03 AM UTC  Adam Rippon of the U.S. competes in the Figure Skating Team Event Men's Single Free Skating on day three of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games on Feb. 12, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea. Adam Rippon of the U.S. competes in the Figure Skating Team Event Men's Single Free Skating on day three of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games on Feb. 12, 2018 in Gangneung, South Korea.Richard Heathcote—Getty Images  by [Alice Park / Gangneung](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park / Gangneung Senior Correspondent Feb 12, 2018 9:03 AM UTC Left off the team in both 2010 and 2014 after fifth and eighth place finishes at the Olympic trials, respectively, Adam Rippon is _excited_ to finally be an Olympian. So excited, in fact, that he keeps reminding his Olympic Village [roommate](http://time.com/5143814/mirai-nagasu-triple-axel-olympics-2018/) Mirai Nagasu — about every 10 minutes, by his estimation — that they are finally Olympians. “He says, Can you believe what’s happening?” says Nagasu. “We’re here at the Olympics together. And I go, okay, let’s get ready to compete now.” He and Nagasu, who finished third at Olympic trials but was bypassed for another skater for the 2014 Olympic team, had [breakout performances](http://time.com/5138220/team-usa-2018-winter-olympic-medals/) at the team skating event on Monday in the Gangneung Ice Arena. Nagasu made history after she landed a triple axel, becoming the first U.S. woman to [complete the jump](http://time.com/5143981/mirai-nagasu-olympic-team-figure-skating/) in an Olympic competition, while Rippon’s powerful free skate to Coldplay quickly made him the top trending Twitter topic after his scores put him in third place. Before he took the ice — and even during his program — Rippon admitted that he did quite a bit of talking to himself. --- > “” --- As he closed in on the end of the program, Rippon says, “I was saying to myself, baby you better keep it together. I was going into my last spin and I remember I looked at one of the judges, I pushed forward and said \[to myself\] you were never known for your jumps so you better spin the hell out of this last spin.” > [](https://twitter.com/NBCOlympics/status/962887138579709952) He did, and the rest is history, which is fine with Rippon. “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for my entire life. Now I am actually an Olympian. They have footage, they can pull it up. Let the record show that Adam Rippon is an Olympian,” he says. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5144016/olympics-2018-adam-rippon-figure-skating/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5144016/olympics-2018-adam-rippon-figure-skating/"},"headline":"What Adam Rippon Was Thinking During His Olympic Debut","datePublished":"2018-02-12T09:03:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:14:29.348Z","description":"Not shy about sharing his thoughts, Rippon described what was going through his head during his Olympic debut","url":"https://time.com/5144016/olympics-2018-adam-rippon-figure-skating/","keywords":["2018 Pyeongchang Olympics","Winter Olympics","onetime","overnight"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddda83774b203ee3/69892719e76ad237b1630fc6/gettyimages-917118340.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park / Gangneung"}],"articleSection":"Sports","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltddda83774b203ee3/69892719e76ad237b1630fc6/gettyimages-917118340.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Figure Skating - Winter Olympics Day 3","caption":"Figure Skating - Winter Olympics Day 3","creditText":"Richard Heathcote—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2018-pyeongchang-olympics/","name":"2018 Pyeongchang Olympics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5144016/olympics-2018-adam-rippon-figure-skating/","name":"What Adam Rippon Was Thinking During His Olympic Debut"}}]}] ```