At long last, I get to combine two of my great passions: French history and 1990s women’s figure skating! Let’s face it, France hasn’t produced that many great female skaters over the decades. Male skaters like Alain Calmat and Pierre Péra made their way to the champion’s podium, but as the end of the 20th century approached, French women had yet to clinch a single individual medal. At the beginning of the 1990s, however, a once-in-a-generation talent arrived, giving France its first shot at a women’s medal in 40 years. You’d think France would be thrilled, right? But Surya Bonaly was not the skating talent they’d expected: eccentric, defiant, athletic – and black. In the age of “ice princesses”, Surya was an anomaly, and the figure skating world feared the kind of future she represented. Frustrated at every turn, she faced disappointment after disappointment until at last, with the whole world watching, Surya decided to make figure skating history – on her own terms.

Episode 62: “Surya Bonaly”

Surya Bonaly at the Olympics:

1992 Albertville Olympics:

1994 Lillehammer Olympics:

1998 Nagano Olympics:

Transcript

Bienvenue and welcome back to The Land of Desire. I’m your host, Diana, and I’m really excited about this month’s episode, because I get to combine two of my biggest passions: French history, and women’s figure skating of the 1990s. Like so many other Millennial babies, I grew up watching the sport at what was maybe its peak: Kristi Yamaguchi, Oksana Baiul, Tara Lipinski, Michelle Kwan, Nancy Kerrigan, and more. It was a golden age and the whole world was watching – especially at the Winter Olympics. Every four years, everyone dropped what they were doing to watch the so-called “ice princesses” take to the rink with their axels, toe loops, and spins that seemed to go on forever. But there’s one skater whose talent was a bit harder to measure. Those who watched her skate at the time still remember what she accomplished, but she isn’t often included in the highlight reels, and the jury is still out on her career’s narrative arc. Was she a fierce innovator who focused on athleticism over grace? Or was she simply a poor skater with an attitude problem? Was she the victim of institutional racism, or just ahead of her time? This week, we’re reexamining the unusual and uncertain legacy of one of France’s greatest female figure skaters ever, Surya Bonaly.

“She lacks artistic refinement. She’s a sore loser. History will forget her unless she wins the worlds or Olympics. She and her omnipresent mother flub the big things, and they evince godawful taste in hairstyling, costumes, music and choreography. Plus, they don’t play the game by kowtowing to judges and skating officials.” So wrote Sports Illustrated, and if you asked 100 people to identify the figure skater in question, I think 99 of them would give the same answer: Tonya Harding. But they would be wrong: the skater in question was Surya Bonaly, then a 22 year old skater and France’s greatest hope for an Olympic figure skating medal in over 40 years. Surya and Tonya had a lot in common, it’s true: they both came from lower income, eccentric families, they were famous for their powerful moves – and awkward landings, and they were definitely cultural outsiders in the rich, white world of women’s figure skating. Tonya Harding’s career has received a lot of attention in the last few years, leading other 90s figure skating fans asking, “Where’s the story of Surya?” But when Sports Illustrated wrote those words in 1995, nobody knew how Surya’s story would end. “Depending on the beholder,” the article went, “Surya Bonaly is the most gifted and athletic figure skater in the world today, or she is a unique but squandered talent whose career seems destined to stall at also-ran status if she fails.” Nobody knew if Surya was destined for greatness – or obscurity.

In 1985, a small crowd gathered on the ice of the Jean-Bouin ice rink in Nice. Didier Gaihauguet surveyed the men and women in front of him as he began preparing drills and exercises for the day. While the skaters may have impressed and awed local spectators with their smooth warmup laps around the rink, Didier was frustrated. This was the French national team, gearing up for another year on the European championship circuit, and once again, it looked to be a disappointing bunch. While France boasted a number of champion ice dancers and pairs skaters, women’s figure skating was not exactly a source of national pride. Worldwide interest in women’s figure skating seemed to get bigger every year, but attention always focused on the biggest and best competitors: the United States, Japan, and of course, the Soviet Union. The team assembled in front of him had grace and talent, but they lacked spirit. He struggled to push them beyond their limits. While he might see a few medals from the European Championships, maybe a few competitors at Worlds, Didier had few hopes for the next Winter Olympics, three years in the future. While he put his skaters through their paces, a young girl carefully stepped onto the ice. This little girl was about ten years old, with dark black skin and lively eyes. As the girl made her way onto the ice, a woman from the stands motioned to Didier. Suzanne Bonaly, she introduced herself. My daughter wants to practice, but your group is taking up every space on the ice. Could she have an hour on the ice this afternoon? Amused, Didier watched the girl skate around the ice. Faster and faster, the young girl lapped the ice rink, while Suzanne told Didier her daughter’s story.

In 1974, Suzanne and Georges Bonaly adopted an eight month old girl from an orphanage here in Nice. Suzanne, a PE teacher, and Georges, a draftsman, were eccentric, bohemian types who’d spent the past few years road tripping all the way from Europe to India. They named their daughter “Surya” – Sanskrit for “the sun”. The three moved into a ramshackle shepherd’s hut in the outskirts of Nice, without running water or electricity, where they raised Surya and 26 goats. “I lived in the countryside,” Surya recalled in an interview. “We did not have television. ..We made our own honey, and our own goat cheese. I loved this life so much.” Surya had responsibilities on the farm, but she also had freedom to pursue wide ranging interests, including the flute, diving lessons, and above all, gymnastics. Surya was uncommonly talented for her age, and by the time she and her mother drove up to the skating rink that day, she’d already participated in junior championship tumbling competitions. But her gymnastics training carried over onto the ice: she was strong, she was flexible, and she was fearless. While gymnasts practiced over padded mats, Surya had no hesitation about attempting the same moves over rock-solid ice. In 1984, Surya first became interested in figure skating after watching the great German skater Katarina Witt perform at the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Inspired by Witt’s routine, Surya attempted a double Axel at the age of nine, and promptly broke her ankle. She’d spent the whole summer in a cast, Suzanne said, practicing her flute. Today would be one of Surya’s first days back on the ice.

As Didier watched, the young girl gathered speed, spinning and leaping across the rink. Suddenly, to his astonishment, Surya leapt into the air and attempted another double Axel. While it was unsuccessful, Didier was stunned to see a little girl try a double Axel on a broken ankle caused by another double Axel! This was the kind of spirit his team needed, he knew. “France,” he recalled in a recent documentary, “had no hard fighters.” Didier leaned in towards Suzanne. The French national team would be here practicing for the next three weeks. Surya should come and practice with them. It was an absurd request to make of a young girl, but Surya and Suzanne showed up every single day, and by the time the national team left Nice, Surya landed a double Axel and a triple jump. Didier told the Bonalys in no uncertain terms: move to Paris. Train with me. You could be great.

As Surya remembers, it wasn’t an easy decision. She was still training in gymnastics, still learning how to fence, still enjoying the bucolic splendor of her countryside home. But the next year, Surya made the decision: The Bonaly family was moving to Paris. By the age of 12, Surya was training with the national team. “The first two years were rough,” she remembers. “The reception in Paris was not nice, and the other girls envied me a bit because I knew how to do a lot of different sports. But when you’re stuck in one gear, you can’t shift out of it.”

In 1987, a curious sight began popping up at European figure skating competitions. Making their way through the parking lot, figure skating fans saw a raggedy RV, covered in dirt. Sometimes the door would open, and out would a hippie man and woman with matching long grey hair, a young black pre-teen girl and five enormous, slobbering Great Danes. Surya, her parents and their traveling menagerie drove all over the continent, recalling her parents’ road trips around the world. But as Surya’s talent grew, there were more and more competitions to win. Under Didier training and Suzanne’s watchful eye, Surya ascended through the ranks of French figure skating until in 1989, she made her debut at the World Championships. The media took one look at Surya’s skin, her RV full of Great Danes and her bravery on the ice and knew they had a great story on their hands. But exactly what story did they have?

Who was Surya Bonaly? According to TV and radio, this young phenom apparently traced her origins back to the tiny island of Reunion, near Madagascar. Far away from ice and snow, Surya had been born on a beach full of coconuts. After the Bonalys adopted her, Surya’s life became a bizarre bohemian experiment: she ate a macrobiotic diet, including bird seed. She never cut her hair. If you’re thinking these rumors sound suspiciously racist, like the exotic fantasies of some weird white person…you’re not wrong. These stories were fed to the press by none other that Surya’s coach, Didier Gauhauguet. “I made them up,” he told Sports Illustrated a few years later. “They wrote that Reunion thing like crazy. Because that’s what you want to hear, no? It’s a good story. We did that together, me and Suzanne. We said Surya came from Nice, but her biological parents came from Reunion. Really, we had no idea.” A white coach telling reporters that the only black woman in figure skating was born on a beach full of coconuts is some truly old school, Josephine Baker in a banana skirt racism, and if you think people have written whole theses on this media moment, you are correct. But whatever the rumors swirling about her ethnic heritage, Surya controlled the narrative that year by taking 10th place at Worlds. Her career was about to explode – and everything seemed to be within her reach.

By the dawn of the 1990s, Surya Bonaly was the most exciting female figure skater in France. She was sensational in every way, her routines offered a spectacle for the eyes, with brightly colored costumes inspired by the sprinter Flo-Jo, and routines that offered more jumps and tricks than anyone else’s. In 1990, Surya moved into ninth place at Worlds, and the next year she made it to fifth. In 1991, Surya took home the gold medal at the European Championships, the first French woman in history to do so. She was only getting better with every major competition, and the biggest test of her career was around the corner.

In 1992, France couldn’t believe its luck: the best female figure skater the nation had produced in decades arrived just in time to compete in the first Olympics hosted on French soil since 1968. It had been 40 years since a French woman had had a real shot at an Olympic figure skating medal. It seemed like destiny: Surya was the hometown hero. She was given the honor of taking the athlete’s oath on behalf of all the competitors during the Opening Ceremony. Spectators crowded the stands during her practice sessions, where she tested out tricks too risky to be allowed in regular competition. To the crowd’s shock and delight, during one of her warmup routines, Surya dug her toe into the ice and flipped backwards, her head only inches from the ice. She’d been performing the trick at exhibitions for years, a legacy from her days as a champion gymnast. It was easy to do the same backflip on the ice as she’d done on the mat, so long as she didn’t think about what might happen if it went terribly wrong. And from the judges podium, it almost did – Surya performed her backflip only a few feet away from the Japanese star, Midori Ito. A referee skated over to Surya and told her in no uncertain terms, she was not allowed to do a backflip during warmups ever again – and why should she, when backflips had been banned from competition since 1976?

Why were backflips banned from competition? It depends on who you ask. Some say it’s just too damn dangerous. Others say it was too tacky, turning world-class figure skating into a Vegas act. Another reigning theory argues that all figure skating jumps must be landed on one foot, and all the backflips performed in competition before the ban had been landed, with a bit of a thud, on both feet. Regardless of the reasons, Surya’s backflip drew cheers from the crowds and glares from the judges. As the referee said to the New York Times that day, “Of course it was intimidation. Whether it was intentional or not, I don’t know. But these people have enough problems putting their mental state in order without this kind of bashing going on.” Even without a backflip, however, Surya’s program seemed like a knockout – eight triples, more than anybody else on the ice, and the ace up her sleeve: a quadruple toe loop. No woman had ever landed a quad in competition. But the same little girl willing to attempt a double Axel on a broken ankle was now an 18 year old determined to make figure skating history. But could she pull it off in competition? And more importantly – was it enough to please the judges?

On February 22, 1992 Surya prepared to step out onto the rink. As she prepared her body and mind, Didier warned her: don’t do the quad. You’re not ready, it’s too risky.” But Surya was determined. Everyone favored the two American champions, Kristi Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan, who combined technical precision with grace and elegance. When it came to Surya’s own routines, she knew she lacked a certain finesse, that special something, what the French might call a je ne sais quoi. Like Tonya Harding, warming up on the sidelines, Surya knew the judges looked down on her idiosyncratic background, her eccentric parents, her outsider status. The judges hated her Flo-Jo inspired costumes, so to please them, Surya wore a beautiful costume designed by none other than French designer Christian Lacroix. No one could fault her appearance – except, of course, there was the unspoken question of her skin. Though Surya has always denied she was treated unfairly because of her race, she was without doubt the only black figure skater in elite competition, in a sport famously predominated by white, rich girls from good families. Under the scoring system of the time, everyone was graded out of 6, regardless of the difficulty of their routine. There was nothing to say that doing eight pretty good toe loops instead of seven would earn her higher scores than someone else doing six toe loops to perfection. The only way she’d have a shot at the medal, Surya figured, was to knock the judges socks off. If she landed the quad in competition, she’d be too good to ignore.

Rattled from her argument with Didier, Surya sought out her other most important mentor: Suzanne. But to her surprise, the officials said no. “I was very disturbed,” Surya told reporters that night, “that my mother was not allowed by the ice. I am used to seeing her. I lost my concentration.” That night, Surya launched into the air, rotating into a quad – and landed only a triple. She didn’t realize it at first, raising her fists in victory while Didier jumped for joy. But the judges were already docking her for underrotation when suddenly she fell on one of her loops. Then another. Attempting a triple lutz, she landed with a clumsy thud on both feet. Surya skated her way out of contention. Kristi Yamaguchi clinched gold. If Surya’s warmup backflip had indeed been meant to intimidate Midori Ito, the move backfired: Ito took home silver, while Surya left empty-handed. The hometown hero was a flop. The 18 year old Surya was devastated, and before long, she parted ways with Didier. The coach who had discovered her, nurtured her, and trained her all the way to the Olympics had now let her down, she thought. He’d shaken her nerves at the worst possible moment. She needed a change.

Surya acquired a new coach, the well-respected André Brunet, in time for the 1992 World Championships in Oakland. For the past three years she’d climbed steadily up this ladder: tenth, ninth, then fifth place – but that year, she capped off her disastrous Olympics appearance with an 11 place finish at the World Championships, her worst ever. Within a week, André resigned, declaring the experiment a failure, and leveling blame at one culprit in particular: Suzanne Bonaly.

“With Mrs. Bonaly,” Brunet told the press rather ungallantly, “work is impossible. We cannot move forward with two coaches.” Every day, Suzanne and Surya had been an inseparable duo, with Suzanne contradicting and countermanding Brunet’s coaching. “Her mother didn’t leave her alone for a moment during the warm-up” at Oakland, Brunet declared. That month, an editorial in L’Humanité commented with a sign, “Brunet only confirms, alas, what we knew for a long time: the entourage of the champion of Champigny-sur-Marne is decidedly not compatible with a life of an elite athlete, competing for the highest steps of the podium.” Brunet’s criticism was harsh, but hopeful. In remarks which would be repeated over and over by others in the years ahead, Brunet warned his ex-student: “Her possibilities are immense, we can make her a great champion. But you have to work with professionals, and with no one else.”

Following Brunet’s swift departure, Suzanne Bonaly assumed the role of her daughter’s full-time coach. Things seemed to be turning around – in 1993, Surya Bonaly won her third straight gold medal at the European Championships, and consistently landed more combinations than her competition. That year, at the World Championships in Prague, Surya faced off against the Ukranian champion, Oksana Baiul. Surya performed a program of exceptional difficulty, landing all seven triples, along with multiple complex combination jumps. Oksana Baiul delivered a beautiful routine, but a simpler one, with only five triples and no combination jumps. But once again, Surya’s technical bravado lost out to elegance – Oksana took home the gold. Still, Surya achieved 2nd place, her highest ranking yet – and her timing was perfect. In a move that left the figure skating world scrambling, the International Olympic Committee moved the Winter Games, so they would no longer happen the same year as the summer games. Instead of being held in 1996, the next Winter Olympics would take place in just a few months, in Norway. Didier Gailhaguet, Surya’s former coach, was now the director of the French national Olympic team, and he warned Surya again – leave your mother behind, or you’ll repeat history.

In 1994, the entire world focused its attention on women’s figure skating. At the beginning of the year, Tonya Harding’s idiot husband paid someone to attack her rival, Nancy Kerrigan. The drama was irresistible: America’s ice queen crying “Why me?” while the rough and tough Tonya pleaded innocence. Back in France, however, the focus was on Surya – could she pull it off this time? Could a French woman actually take home a figure skating medal for the first time in half a century? After Tonya Harding exited in disgrace during the preliminary round, there were three skaters in medal contention: Nancy, Oksana and Surya. The LA Times declared Oksana and Surya “both eminently capable of winning her country’s first gold medal in this event.” But the same criticism that dogged Tonya Harding attached itself to Surya – they were too gauche, too athletic, too much. As the New York Times noted, “the International Skating Union prefers a more traditional, classical style of skating to an athletic style. That approach would seem to favor the elegance and completeness of Kerrigan and Baiul over the muscular jumping of Harding and Bonaly.”

Sure enough, Oksana and Nancy skated the routines of their lives: all long limbs and elegant hands, beautifully executed jumps and swelling violin music. Surya failed twice at the triple Lutz, her signature move, and knew at once she’d once again knocked herself off the podium. She left Lillehammer in fourth place. It was a crushing blow – Surya had been a real gold medal contender, until all of a sudden she wasn’t. In the month between the Winter Games and that year’s World Championship, Surya retreated from the public eye, practicing in a private rink and avoiding the press. But while Surya trained, the French press went into overdrive. The media wanted blood, and they knew who they wanted it from. Once again, a narrative took shape around an old villain: Suzanne Bonaly.

As early as 1992, following Surya’s disappointment at the 1992 Games, the media bestowed a nickname on Suzanne Bonaly: “The Dragon Lady”. The Seattle Times wrote shortly after Surya’s disappointing routine that Suzanne was “the ultimate stage mother, and has made enemies in every camp from the French press to her daughter’s own coach.” Long after Surya and Didier parted ways, Didier continued to trash Suzanne in the press. As he oh-so-helpfully told newspapers before her skate in the 1994 Olympics, “Suzanne is putting a lot of pressure on her kid. Sometimes too much pressure. It is stupid. It doesn’t really help her. It has been a problem the last two years…we need not to have the mother in the way.” He may have been right, but it wasn’t exactly the gallant thing for an ex-mentor to do. By the time of Surya’s fourth place finish in Lillehammer, Suzanne was a dreaded figure in the French figure skating community. The official French figure skating federation searched for yet another new coach for Surya, and almost everyone they approached said they’d be honored to coach the promising young star – as long as her mom butted out. But Surya refused. Once again, Didier was available for media commentary that nobody asked for: “It’s a scandal. I have seen Suzanne yell. Miss the program, she slaps her. Hits her in the face with hockey sticks.” Physical abuse? That’s a hell of a claim to make, and Surya was torn between outrage and laughter when asked about it. “You’re joking right? This is NOT true!” No one else has ever corroborated Didier’s accusations, Surya has always denounced them, and considering his long history of flamboyant lies, I’m inclined to believe her. “Though we are like two,” she protested, “we are really like one.” Even in the gossip circles, Didier’s comments seemed to have crossed a line. “Gailhauguet’s remarks were extraordinary” Sports Illustrated wrote, “coming from a man who should be willing to do anything to ensure Bonaly’s success.” But why help Surya when you could attack her mom in the press? One particularly hysterical French TV show accused Suzanne of using coded sign language to override the instructions of Surya’s coaches. But time and again, Surya defended her mother, and insisted on her close presence.

Meanwhile, Suzanne defended herself from Didier, the press and the world of women’s figure skating. In 1992, when she was first dubbed the “Dragon Lady” Suzanne didn’t understand what she was doing wrong. Surya, after all, had only just turned 18. Surya was young, under a lot of pressure, and was always the only black person in a room, ever. Wasn’t it natural for a mother to want to be a constant source of support for her daughter during vulnerable moments?

American journalists noted that Suzanne was maybe guilty of nothing more than being a hippie. “In a materialistic, high-fashion world where even the Zamboni driver wears a tuxedo, Suzanne Bonaly prefers blue jeans and a face unadorned by makeup.” Perhaps the biggest sin of all to the French hearts and minds? Suzanne and the entire Bonaly family were vegetarians. Surya’s father defended his wife in the press: “Everyone criticizes her for being too present, but is she her mother? Yes or no? Do you think that other coaches are not that present? Ask other skaters what their life is like and you will see that they are never left alone.” Just as Tonya attracted attention for her chain-smoking, rough-edged mother, Surya’s career was often overshadowed by the obsession with her Zen-minded, bohemian mom. As Surya departed from the Olympic village, she was already looking towards the 1994 World Championships. This time, she decided, things would be different. Much like Tonya Harding had done a few years earlier, Surya vowed to give the judges whatever they wanted. If they wanted graceful, she’d give them graceful. If they wanted demure and feminine, she’d given them demure and feminine. Only a few weeks earlier, Surya watched from the stands as Oksana Baiul, Nancy Kerrigan and Chen Lu took home Olympic medals. Exhausted and triumphant, all three medalists opted not to compete in the World Championships halfway around the world in Chiba, Japan. To Surya’s eyes, no one stood between her and the gold medal now.

In Chiba, Surya skated to perfection. She gave up on her most muscular, powerful movements, including the quad. No backflips, ever. In perhaps the most obvious moment of racial subjugation in her career, Surya cut off her signature thick braid, because the judges didn’t like it. Her routine was clean, a traditional combination of well executed jumps and graceful transitions. She nailed the triple lutz, and no fewer than six triples. Her scores ticked in, ranging from 5.5 to 5.9 out of 6. Surya was tied with the hometown favorite: Yuka Sato. She’d done everything she could, she’d landed her jumps, she’d adapted her style, her clothes, even her hair, and now everything came down to a tie-breaker vote.

It was 5-4.

Surya lost.

Could it have ever gone another way? Yuka Sato was the local pride and joy. She was also the “right kind” of skater. Every piece of sports journalism from 1994 describes Surya’s competition as though they were genetically predisposed to victory. In February, during the European Championships, the New York Times had called Oksana Baiul “innately graceful” while criticizing Surya’s “artistic weakness” – and this was describing a competition that Surya won. “Grace” was something Oksana Baiul was simply born with, gifted at birth, rather than something Oksana Baiul presumably trained very, very hard to obtain. If “grace” was innate, there was simply no way that someone like Surya would obtain it, and oh boy, do I wonder why they might think that. Now, Yuka Sato was praised and arbitrarily awarded a gold medal after performing an easier routine than Surya’s.

Surya had had enough. During the awards ceremony, she stood next to the podium rather than on it. When she was bestowed the silver medal, she quickly removed it, at which point the stadium erupted with boos. Mobbed by reporters on her way back to the locker rooms, Surya protested: “It’s not right…I don’t know what I have to do. It’s crazy.” To a world which had just gone through an exhausting year of ice princess drama, the protest was nothing more than a temper tantrum – or worse. Surya’s protests brought more comparisons with Tonya Harding, who was then pleading guilty to hindering prosecution, as though protesting a judging decision was somehow comparable with assault. The news articles were dripping with racial dogwhistles, including this astonishingly offensive quote from the Associated Press, which I will repeat in full because you won’t believe it otherwise:

“More training money means…you don’t have to be well-heeled to participate.” said Michael Rosenberg, an agent who represents top figure skaters. “These changes are bringing more “diversity” to the sport…’The sport of figure skating has a higher percentage of well-educated, intelligent, nice people from nice families in it…With the big TV money and big federation money, that means a broader spectrum of people in it. There will be kooks, rebels, interesting people.”

Here that? Figure skating used to be for well-educated, intelligent people from nice families before you people got into it. Here’s hoping someone accidentally threw a skate at that guy’s head somewhere along the way.

After her protest at the 1994 Worlds, Surya’s future was cloudy. She considered dropping out and turning pro. She picked up her backflips during practice again, getting them ready for the pro exhibition circuit, where she might dazzle the crowds with the so-called “showbiz move” the judges hated so much. In 1995, Surya won her fifth straight European championship despite having a broken right toe – an achievement which went mostly unnoticed in a country which had never won a European championship ever before Surya came along. At the moment Sports Illustrated published its article about Surya and her “unique but squandered talent”, she stepped up her training in preparation for the World Championships. For the third year in a row, Surya had a real chance at gold. And for the third year in a row, she came in second place. For the third year in a row, Surya lost by one judge, and one tenth of a point. It was so arbitrary. All of the attention that year went to a young breakout star, Michelle Kwan, who drew standing ovations and column inches despite coming in fourth place. None of the articles say anything about Surya’s program, only mentioning the fact that she accepted her silver medal with a smile this time. Michelle Kwan received a new moniker: the future of figure skating. Only a few years after she’d launched her elite career, Surya was fading into the past.

The following season marked the beginning of the end. For the first time in her life, Surya came in second at the European Championships, and fifth at the World Championships. The next year, Surya tore her achilles tendon during a training session. Unable to walk for four months, Surya resolved to train on one foot. The figure skating federation didn’t even want to send her to the European championships, but Surya managed to argue her way on, where she had a 9th place finish. In 1997, she didn’t even go to the World Championships. As Surya looked at the the 1998 season, and the upcoming Winter Olympics in Nagano, she knew it was her last chance, her swan song. This time, she was going to compete on her terms.

Armed with two new coaches, Surya built her way back from injury and managed to qualify for one final Olympic games by the skin of her teeth. On her way to Nagano, Surya knew she didn’t have any chance at a medal. She was too injured, too notorious, and now, at the age of 24, she was too old. Everyone understood Nagano would be a showdown between the two teen sensations – Michelle Kwan and Tara Lipinski. As the LA Times put it so delicately, skaters like Surya “have no real chance for the top prize but are invited along anyway to help pad out the evening’s entertainment, like old-timers’ games held before the Dodgers host the Giants.” Nevertheless, during the short program, Surya landed a beautiful routine. She was the only woman on the ice that night to land a triple-triple combination. But once again, the judges seemed to find faults, and she didn’t receive any scores higher than a 5.3. How did she get such low scores after landing one of the hardest routines? “Because I’m French and they prefer other ones? I don’t know…” Surya shrugged her shoulders, wearily. “After 10 years, I am used to it. I’m tired of crying, crying, crying.” Surya went into the final night of competition in 6th place. Friday night, the long program, would be the final amateur program of her career.

[CUE THE FOUR SEASONS BY VIVALDI IF I CAN]

Wearing a sparkling ice blue costume and the thick braid of her early career, Surya stepped out onto the ice to the sound of her signature tune, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”. As millions of viewers watched around the world, Surya slid across the ice one last time, spinning, stretching, gliding and leaping into the air. She was a little clumsy that night, her old foe ‘gracefulness’ sometimes deserting her when she needed to move within a combination. Her right leg, so recently recovered, throbs with pain only a few seconds into her routine. The crowd was lackluster, offering tepid applause. Early into the program, unable to overcome the pain of her weak Achilles tendon, Surya fell during what was supposed to be her signature move, the triple Lutz. But she shook it all off and continued skating: after tonight, she would have a new signature. After more than ten years of competition, Surya knew she would never beat the Michelle Kwans and Nancy Kerrigans at their own game. She wasn’t graceful, and perhaps she couldn’t be, perhaps that had been denied the moment she’d been born black, or the moment her mom showed up to competition in a dog-filled RV, or the moment someone first murmured the word “coconuts” to the press. But maybe someday, another day, the world would be different. Maybe figure skating would be different. Maybe there would be room for a skater like Surya: strong, muscular, fearless. Maybe the rules would be different someday, and more women would be able to skate the way Surya did. Just in case that day came, Surya knew, she wanted to be the first. With thirty seconds left in her program, skating backwards across the rink, Surya dug her toe pick into the ice. Ignoring the pain in her legs, launching herself into the air, Surya flung herself backward, her head sweeping inches away from the ice, before landing, with confidence, courage, and yes, grace, on one defiant left foot. It was a milestone in figure skating history, broadcast live around the world: the first one foot landing backflip. Was it banned? Yes, but maybe one day it wouldn’t be. The judges had said it was showbiz – well maybe she was showbiz. The judges had said it was dangerous – well, didn’t that come with the territory? The judges had said it wasn’t a jump if she landed on both feet – well, fine, she’ll land it on one. Sailing around the rink as the crowd leapt to their feet, Surya smiled wide, before drawing her body into one last infinite spin. Slowing to a finish, Surya raised her hands high over her head, as flowers rained down on the ice.

Resting on the sidelines between her coach and her mother, Surya watched the scores roll in. She’d hoped that maybe, maybe if she landed her backflip on one foot, the judges would count it, but they rejected the backflip and deducted points from her score. That day, the French judge was approached by another delegate, who complained that Surya had behaved unacceptably. The judge replied, “Ah, but she did so well, for all these years.” Consigned to tenth place, Surya shrugged her shoulders. At the end of the Nagano Games, she announced her retirement from amateur competition. She was done playing the judges game. It was time to turn pro, and do the kind of skating she wanted to do – the kind of skating the world wanted to see.

When I, Tonya came to theaters in 2017 – a terrific movie by the way, two thumbs up – Surya’s name began popping up in thinkpieces abou the film. Surely if we’re going to be out here rehabilitating the reputations of misunderstood underdogs, we could start with the one who isn’t famous for maybe kneecapping her opponent? Why not focus on Surya, whose most infamous career highlight was not an act of violence, but an act of courage, when she channeled her frustration and desperation into a moment so transcendent, no one has ever attempted it since. What’s more, while Tonya fled the world of figure skating in disgrace, Surya’s transition into exhibition skating simply launched a new phase of her life. She spent 15 years as a consummate professional, touring with Champions On Ice and performing in front of crowds at Madison Square Garden. On the exhibition circuit, Surya’s so-called showbiz moves delighted audiences, and her colleagues estimate she completed over 500 of her infamous backflips over the course of her career. Over the years, America’s frenzy for figure skating died down, and there wasn’t as much money to be had doing gigs like Champions On Ice. At the age of 40, Surya performed her final backflip on ice, and then hung up her skates for good.

While Surya dazzled the crowds, changes were brewing back in the world of French figure skating. After ten years of suffering under arbitrary, inscrutable judging, Surya got an indirect form of revenge when her old enemies ended up in a scandal of Olympic proportions.

In the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the first since Surya’s backflip into retirement, in the pairs figure skating final, the Canadian competitors outskated the Russians so much that their victory was declared before they’d even finished their routine. When the judges announced their scores, everyone was outraged – the TV commentators, the crowds, even world leaders. Despite performing a more difficult routine, the Canadians lost by one judge, one fraction, because of the artistry of their routine – a familiar story to anyone who’d followed Surya’s career. This time, though, everyone smelled something fishy. Before long, the French judge broke down. “It was a deal with the Russians!” she said. She’d been pressured to vote for the Russian pair to win. In exchange, the Russian judge would vote for the French favorites in that week’s ice dancing finals, giving France a shot at a figure skating medal. But the most shocking part of the judge’s confession was her revelation of the person pressuring her to make the deal: none other than the president of French figure skating, Surya’s old coach, good old Didier Gailhaguet.

After the Olympics, Didier and the French judge resigned in disgrace. He was stripped of his leadership of the French ice sports federation and barred from the 2006 Winter games. Somehow, he managed to get himself reelected into the same presidency in 2007, where he’s been ever since. But in 2020, French figure skating dissolved into a new scandal. Dozens of French skaters stepped forward to accuse their coaches of abuse, and once again, Didier was assumed to be at the heart of the coverup. Didier resigned in disgrace again this summer, though he is now suing the French Ministry of Sports for lost wages. It remains to be seen whether anything can pry that barnacle out of figure skating for good.

In the fallout of the 2002 judging scandal, The International Skating Union worked frantically to repair trust in their sport by introducing a new scoring system. In the new scoring system, arbitrary decisions about ‘gracefulness’ would be scrapped in favor of a points system that rewarded skaters for attempting technically complex routines. Lots of traditional fans worried this spelled the end of the sport: will we never have elegant skaters like Michelle Kwan again? Will figure skating turn into glorified tumbling-on-ice? Wherever you stood on the matter, one thing was clear: Surya had been ahead of her time. The new system favored everything Surya was good at – athleticism, bravery, innovation, and disfavored everything Surya was bad at – “innate gracefulness”. We can only wonder how Surya’s career might have turned out if she’d only started a few years later.

But Surya herself has no regrets. Now splitting her time between Las Vegas and Minnesota, Surya is a coach and mentor. She continues to give terrific interviews and makes guest appearances on podcasts, where she reexamines her own career with the accumulated wisdom of the years. Surya is now engaged to Pete Biver, a five time U.S. Nationals gold medalist pairs skater, who figured out an excellent way to her heart – start by winning over Suzanne. In the past few years, Surya has been busy traveling the world, undergoing surgery to treat years of accumulated skating injuries, and even accepting a stint on France’s Dancing With The Stars. Last year, Surya got an hour in the spotlight with an episode of the Netflix series, Losers, where new generations discovered her backflip for the first time. In 2019, Surya received the Legion of Honor. She remains the only French individual skater to have won the European Championship, and with her 3 consecutive silvers, she still has more World Championship medals than any French individual skater, ever. Surya Bonaly remains the only skater in history to land a one-footed backflip in competition.

Thanks for listening to The Land of Desire! For those about to disappear into a YouTube wormhole watching womens’ figure skating from the 90s, I salute you. I also really recommend watching Surya’s episode on Netflix’s miniseries, Losers. Surya is active on social media, and I get a kick out of her Instagram account. I am proud to say that I think I can bake a better madeleine than she can, but in just about every other aspect of life, I think it’s safe to say she is beating us all. Living well is the best revenge, n’est-ce pas? Keep an eye out for the next edition of The Land of Desire newsletter, and until next time, au revoir!

Sources:

“Surya And The Dragon Lady: France’s Skating Soap Opera” Jere Longman, The Seattle Times, January 12, 1992.
“French investigation exposes more than 20 skating coaches” Associated Press, August 3, 2020.
“Patinage: Didier Gailhaguet, attaque le ministère des sports en justice” Le Monde, June 12, 2020.
“French ice federation boss steps down amid sexual abuse scandal” Reuters, February 8, 2020.
“Les bons mots de Georges Bonaly, père de Surya” L’Humanité, February 25, 1994
“ALBERTVILLE; Bonaly, Sans Backflip, Has the Jump on Ito” Michael Janofsky, The New York Times, February 21, 1992.
“French skater comes close in bid for first quad toe loop” Toledo Blade, February 22, 1992.
“SURYA S’ECLIPSE” L’Humanité, March 31, 1992.
“LILLEHAMMER / ’94 WINTER OLYMPICS: After Harding Stumbles, Baiul, Bonaly Contend” Mike Downey, Los Angeles Times, February 24, 1994.
“WINTER OLYMPICS; A Pause in Scandal: Now They Will Skate” Jere Longman, The New York Times, February 23, 1994.
“FIGURE SKATING; Cheers for Sato of Japan; Tears for Bonaly of France” Associated Press, March 27, 1994.
“Figure skating’s bad-girl star Surya Bonaly makes new life in Minnesota” Susan Du, City Pages, September 7, 2016.
“Questions Of Style for European Champions” Christopher Clarey, The New York Times, February 6, 1994.
“Silver Isn’t Enough for Bonaly: Figure skating: She objects to decision giving Sato the gold medal. Kwan finishes eighth with strong freestyle performance.” Randy Harvey, Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1994.
“Figure Skating Has Earned Some Low Marks in 1994” Wendy E. Lane, Associated Press, April 2, 1994.
“Young Kwan Learns Older Is Better in World Championships” Mike Penner, Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1995.
“Chen is on top of world; Bobek falls into third” Tampa Bay Times, March 12, 1995.

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