Olympic Speed Skater Finishes His First Year of Med School

Sidney Chu sees parallels in his journey to excel on skates and to pursue a career in medicine.

Speed skating is a “split second science” says Chu, a veteran of the 2022 Beijing Olympics and a first-year medical student at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (NJMS). “Training every day and going through that pain, you’re doing it eventually to realize your dream. And I think for med school that journey is somewhat the same.” 

Chu was born in Hong Kong, which he represents on the ice. He moved to Los Angeles for elementary school and then returned to Hong Kong for high school, where he says skating is “the ‘nichest’ of niche sports” due to the warmer climate. 

In New Jersey, Chu has access to world-class ice rinks while training for the 2026 Olympics. And in Newark at NJMS, “serving a community with so much need,” he says, “this is really the place for me to grow into the type of physician that I want to be.”