r/interesting • u/AUTOBOTBROKE • 20d ago
HISTORY Surya Bonaly’s 1994 World Championships podium protest and her famous backflip.
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u/180flipkick 20d ago
i grew up in the Bay Area and during elementary school we had a field trip to an ice skating exhibition that had kristi yamaguchi, katarina witt, surya bonaly and other stars from the era before the olympics where kristi won gold.
During the warmups all the skaters were out there practicing, and all of a sudden Surya Bonaly does a backflip. Our whole class gasped in awe, and for the rest of the exhibition we were locked in on her hoping she’d do it again. She did, we screamed, and that’s all we could talk about the rest of the day even though Kristi freakin Yamaguchi had performed.
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u/crazykentucky 20d ago
In my (often incorrect) memory Yamaguchi never won gold. Was she not the one who fell and missed gold as the absolute favorite but skated to “fields of gold” anyway at the exhibition event anyway?
I may have to google this to see who I’m thinking of if it wasn’t her
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u/darkphoenix0602 20d ago
You're thinking of Michelle Kwan, who won silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002. Edited to add: Kristi Yamaguchi won gold in 1992.
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u/crazykentucky 20d ago
YES OKAY. It was totally Michelle Kwan which makes more sense because in 92 I was just a little kid. I really remember that Fields of Gold moment
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u/sk8tergater 19d ago
Despite not getting gold, Michelle Kwan is the most decorated US skater in history. She was really really good. Just never could get to the top of the Olympic podium
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u/phonage_aoi 19d ago
Michelle Kwan basically won most of the world championships around that time (5x) and dominated US figure skating (9x), just never got Olympic gold. But lots of people assumed she would.
Check her wiki description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Kwan
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u/Square_Specific8490 20d ago
I f*cking hate these type of questions by journalists, they’re trying to put words in her mouth and I feel like they are not truly interested in how she feels or what she has to say
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u/epi_introvert 20d ago
That was evil. She couldn't get a word out because they were too busy putting their own in.
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u/Long-Possession8915 19d ago
Also she’s French so may have been struggling with the language
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u/ThereIsNo14thStreet 19d ago
And did you see the one man grabbed her arm? Don't touch people, asshole. Poor Surya. She was clearly so upset, English does not seem to be her first language, and for the second time within a short window, a random man is putting his hands on her for no reason while people are demanding answers from her. Did you see in the first part, after the judge put the medal on, he had grabbed her hand and was pushing her up on the podium? Then this journalist turd grabbing her arm to pull her over.
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u/mr_herculespvp 20d ago
Gabriel Clarke.
UK folks will know the name
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u/icecue88 20d ago
And for those of us who don’t know?
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u/mr_herculespvp 19d ago
He is a sports 'reporter' on the main non-BBC TV channel in the UK (specifically - but perhaps not only - England).
He is becoming increasingly known for his aggressive and underhanded reporting/interviewing style, done purely to generate drama and discontent with the teams or individuals he's interviewing.
Most recently, he was under a fair amount of scrutiny during the summer's World Cup where he deliberately and flagrantly misrepresented the words of the England manager to the England players in separate on-pitch interviews, solely to sow discontent and create drama. This was when England won, as well!
He's done it for years, but this was as blatant as it gets.
We've had problems for as long as I can remember (80s) with journalists undermining our national football team (England) and they swore they'd changed. But they haven't. They exist not to report on the team, but to create drama within and around it.
And Clarke is the worst, because, unlike the tabloids, he pretends to be a journalist of integrity. He's anything but
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u/eaglescout67 19d ago
Who is the slimey female reporter from NBC who was also loading the questions?
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/GentilQuebecois 20d ago
The '98 Olympics were a shitshow all over for figure skating. Sad for these athletes.
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u/Level_Abrocoma8925 20d ago
The '94 figure skating was probably even worse in many ways.
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u/SmoreOfBabylon 19d ago
Aside from the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding thing, my mom still swears that Torvill and Dean got robbed that year, lol.
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u/Obvious_Cranberry607 19d ago
Harding?
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u/Dekronos 19d ago
Basically, one US figure skater hired her ex to smash the knees of her rival with a tire iron to get onto Team USA
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u/MathematicianTop3549 19d ago
They were both on the team. Kerrigan the favorite. Thus Harding wanting her out of the competition.
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u/Obvious_Cranberry607 19d ago
Yeah, Tanya Harding. That's why I was checking if that's what they were referring to.
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u/Comprehensive-Act-13 19d ago
Tonya Harding was the only competitive women’s skater in the world able to land a triple axel. (Midori Ito the only other woman in the world to land one had retired after the 92 Olympics). Tonya Harding’s only competition was Tonya Harding. If she landed the triple axel she won, if she fell, she didn’t. It was that simple. Nancy Kerrigan was barely on her radar when her real Olympic competition were skaters like Oksana Baiul, Surya Bonaly, Chen Liu, and Irina Slutskaya, Nancy was in the mix, but again, Tonya really only needed to worry about Tonya. She was definitely going to the Olympics, we had three slots and also sent teenaged Nicole Bobek who was great, but all over the place, and a little baby Michelle Kwan (alternate) who was barely old enough to even compete. Tonya Harding absolutely did not hire her ex husband to take out Nancy Kerrigan. Her crazy ex husband did it as a gesture to win her back. It was his version of love bombing her. 🤦🏻♀️ Tonya Harding’s only crime was not reporting her abusive ex husband to the police when she found out what he did. I can’t fully blame her. I’d be terrified of him too after finding out what he did.
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u/InAppropriate-meal 19d ago
She admitted in an ABC interview in 2018 she knew they were going to attack somebody on her behalf a couple of months before it happened and Gillooly and his co-conspirators all stated she knew in advance who and when.
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u/ouchouchouchoof 19d ago
What a load of bull! Kerrigan was the US champion in 1993. Harding was 4th. If Kerrigan wasn't on her radar she was an idiot.
Kerrigan was far more artistic. Skating traditionally had a ballet connection. The selected music was often from ballets. She didn't have a triple but she had enough degree of difficulty to win if performed perfectly.
Harding was more athletic and less graceful. She had a triple which made her program the highest degree of difficulty. It's a risk/reward situation. If you hit the triple you're in good shape. If not, forget it.
Your contention that Kerrigan was nothing is ridiculous. And looking at it logically, why would Harding's dumbass ex attack Kerrigan if she wasn't the main competition?
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u/rnavstar 20d ago
For sure the judges were being paid out or compensated. Or that they picked who they wanted to win before even seeing them skate. I remember this being so bad that it was all over the news.
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u/crazykentucky 20d ago
Was that the one with the France/Canada doubles scandal?!?! It’s crazy how much this stuff comes back to me
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u/GentilQuebecois 20d ago
That was Salt Lake City, 4 years after. Thank god the international federation changed the scoring sustem... Took too long, but they got there.
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u/crazykentucky 20d ago
Ok! It’s funny I remember all of these things but I’m more of an Olympics fan than an actual skating fan, so the memories all get mushed together
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u/JordanPetterPans 20d ago
Lol "artistry" and "footwork" my ass
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u/Low_Actuary_2794 20d ago
That’s the excuse for “the hosting country’s judges retain the right to put their hand on the scale.”
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u/Linguistin229 20d ago
This is a frequent ‘debate’ in figure skating. Are you camp jumping or camp artistry? There’s a lot of debate about pushing very young girls to aim for lots of triple and quad jumps, destroying their bodies under harsh training regimes - this is the majority of Russian skaters for the past 10 years or so especially (so it’s not generally a race issue, even if it might have been for Bonaly).
Jumping looks impressive (and it is) but Olympic-level footwork is just as difficult - the pros just make it look easy.
Skating purists believe it is about technical skill and artistic expression; big jumps are often just seen as showy.
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u/TopEmploy9624 19d ago
The debate also exists between Russian skaters. Zagitova's backloaded combinations vs Medvedeva's artistry and Trusova's 5 quad jumps vs Scherbakova's more artistic skate were active debates after both the 2018 and 2022 olympics.
It's just a fundamental difference of opinion in what the sport should be. Not necessarily tied to nationality or race or anything else.
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u/DomDomPop 19d ago
Yeah but that’s not nearly as exciting a thing for Redditors to argue about, so let’s pretend the online layman knows way more about figure skating technicalities than people who judge the biggest competitions in the world and just say it was a race thing, ok? Big jump make clap, after all.
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u/Sea-Original-5824 19d ago
Bonaly was a terrible figure skater. She was a great ACROBAT, but you could hear the heavy edges on the ice because she never learned how to skate properly.
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u/Agile_Highlight_4747 20d ago
I saw this at the time. As much as you don’t like it and would want other narratives to be true, Bonaly was not better than the skaters who won.
Her skating was jagged, with no continuity or flow. It was jump, frozen windup, jump. It just was not fluid. Those attributes are not about the color of the skater.
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u/Sea-Original-5824 19d ago
She was never a good figure skater. She was good at being an acrobat. She had no flow and you could hear her skates loudly gouging into the ice over the music because she never learned out to skate. Someone took a natural gymnast and threw her on the ice.
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u/180flipkick 20d ago
ahh yes the black athlete with “explosive power and athleticism” and the asian athlete with “artistry and finesse”.
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u/AlphonseLoeher 19d ago
That's literally the case. Just because it's a stereotype doesn't mean it can't be true sometimes.
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u/Independent-Wolf-832 19d ago
they treat russian skaters the same way. asians are said to be artistic, elegant, beautiful while russian style is aggressive, ferocious, powerful like they're not humans.
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u/Majestic_Animator_91 19d ago
except those are absolutely things, and should be what the sport focuses on instead of body destroying jumps.
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u/SilkBC_12345 19d ago
I had the same problem with the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
In the men's competition, Evgeni Plushenko was the only one with a quad jump in his program and he nailed it. His program overall was far superior on a technical basis than any other program and he still finished 2nd.
I was a little perturbed by that.
I am Canadian, BTW.
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u/Extension-Fail-1917 20d ago
Why was she protesting again? She wanted gold for backflip or what?
Figure skating is such a rotten sport. They all are always fighting and throw tantrums.
That backflip was banned for a reason. Its dangerous. No need now for other skaters to start doing it to catch up and land on their head and break a neck.
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u/sk8tergater 19d ago
“Always fighting and throwing tantrums”
Bro I’ve been involved in this sport for most of my life and can count on one hand “tantrums.”
Also thanks to Adam Siao Him Fa of France, the backflip was unbanned a couple of seasons ago
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u/Ok-Budget3225 20d ago
That backflip was banned for a reason. Its dangerous.
It's the Olympics- lots of sports are dangerous. Otherwise we'd all just be watching crocheting.
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u/utzutzutzpro 19d ago
The reason here is that it is not such a special move but got a huge injury risk. So the risk reward trade off is too low, but people kept on doing it to wow the audience, but it isn't that difficult as it is to amateurs, yet more dangerous than other complications.
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u/lorgskyegon 19d ago
As well, just like gymnastics, they don't want people constantly pushing for more and more difficult/dangerous techniques to try and earn higher scores.
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u/WhatWouldKantDo 20d ago
Welp, guess it's time to give the fencers sharp sabers then
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u/TheSuperContributor 19d ago
And a lot of restrictions has been implemented to limit the dangerous of those sports as well. What is your problem?
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u/Jbots 19d ago
Most of the equestrian stuff is far more dangerous than a back flip. And thats just the summer games. Skeleton, Luge, Downhill, Big Air, and plenty more are at the summer Olympics. The idea that a black woman got shafted in 1994 Japan shouldn't be controversial.
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u/ogopo 19d ago
Likewise, the idea that Sato deserved the Gold and nobody got 'shafted' shouldn't be controversial. It was close, and most with knowledge of the sport agreed that the judges made the right call.
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u/801intheAM 19d ago
God forbid somebody elevates and progresses a sport. I’m sure people were clutching their pearls when Dr. J dunked on an opponent…”he could’ve broken that player’s neck.” People cling onto “tradition” as if it’s set in stone. I’m sure a triple axle was deemed dangerous at some point and now it’s just part of figure skating.
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u/specks_of_dust 18d ago
There's a guy who can land clean quad axels now. He's only 21, and people think he may land a quint at some point, or that he already has in practice. The people that push the limits are what keep sports moving, because it becomes a race for everyone else to catch up.
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u/Snuffleupagus27 20d ago
And now all they seem to care about is the technical aspect.
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u/Capivaras_assassinas 19d ago
Sounds like she was being a stubborn bitch trying to bend the rules and a sore loser and we're giving it too much credit and attention. Her opponent won fairly, it was not even classy of her to go give her a kiss if she really had a disagreement about this ruling.
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u/Extension-Fail-1917 20d ago
I'm honestly tired of people on reddit posting random videos without context. Some of them are incidents of 10 years old. And then I have to scroll comments to find out what is this or spend time trying to find on internet.
I call them Garbage Posts. People just dump random stuff they encountered.
If OP posts this 'podium protest" then they should write what it was about. Otherwise video is stupid.
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u/Balthazzah 19d ago
Context:
Surya Bonaly protested the pdium at the 1994 World Figure Skating Championships.
She took off her silver medal and initially refused to step onto the podium after losing the gold to Japan's Yuka Sato in a tiebreaker, she viewed the result as recurring biased judging and unfair treatment throughout her career.
Bonaly believed she was systematically undervalued by judges who favored a traditional aesthetic over her athletic power and tumbling background. Having dominated the technical elements of her routines only to lose repeatedly to skaters she felt she outperformed, she grew frustrated with subjective scoring that she experienced as bias against her style and her identity.
At the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, despite suffering from a torn Achilles tendon and out of contention for a medal, Surya Bonaly decided to perform an illegal backflip during her free skate. She executed the one-footed landing as an act of defiance against the strict conventions of the sport.
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u/Sakarilila 19d ago
The defiance wasn't the backflip, that was a hope it'd count through a loop-hole as she had nothing to lose (it was easier for her to perform with her injury, she also had a second injury between the two programs). The defiance was bowing to the judges last. You are supposed to bow in the direction of the judges first at the end of your skate. She chose to bow to the crowd first in appreciation to her fans and as a statement to the judges for how they treated her.
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u/TheHylianProphet 17d ago
The defiance was bowing to the judges last. You are supposed to bow in the direction of the judges first at the end of your skate.
I don't really know much about this sort of thing, but the fact that you're supposed to bow at all to the people in control of your score pisses me off.
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u/Thasauce7777 16d ago
I think that's been a thing as long as there have been competitions like this (ones with judges across all sports). Those judges used to be (and probably still are in many sports) competitors as well, and I thought the bow in that direction was always more of an acknowledgement of respect to those that stood in your place before. Otherwise, I agree that it doesn't make sense for etiquette to require any pandering to judges. I agree in that case because putting any weight into that etiquette would functionally detract from judging the performance.
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u/thatshoneybear 19d ago
To expand on the "loophole" part- a man had preformed a backflip during competition and landed it on two feet. Right after that, they banned backflips all together for two reasons: 1, because it was unsafe, and 2, figure skating moves traditionally landed on one foot, and landing on two didn't fit the vibe of figure skating. Some people said it looked like a circus trick instead of the elegant look they were going for.
So when she did the trick in competition, she was hoping the judges would like the vibe of a one footed landing. It still didn't count because of the safety aspect of it though.
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u/Balthazzah 19d ago
Maybe it wasn’t the only defiance, but certainly the backflip was a defiant act. She knew it was illegal and she did it to stick a finger up at the judges and the association.
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u/Sakarilila 19d ago
You miss my point and ignore the fact that her ultimate statement was putting the judges last. She was injured, to the point that the backflip was less strain on her. She thought it could be accepted because a jump is defined at having a one-foot landing. The backflip was not an f-you.
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u/Induane 14d ago edited 14d ago
I listened to a podcast about this a while back and iirc (I need to go find it to be completely sure) she stated the backflip was specifically an FU.
Update: I listened to the podcast. The backflip wasn't an FU. While it was mentioned that maybe it wouldn't be illegal if it was landed on one foot, she said the real reason was just that she wanted something for herself to feel good.
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u/Artimusrex 19d ago
It's engagement bait. 1. Curious people click the link to get more information or context, none is provided. 2. Curious person then leaves a comment asking for context. 3. 8 people reply. 3 with serious correct answers, 3 with joke answers, at least one is a pun and so on. 4. Then a pun train starts, the three serious people argue over pedantic bullshit for 30 comments, 30 more people jump into the jokes with classic "your joke but worse comments", etc. etc. 5. Effort minimimal, engagement maximized.
We need to stop feeding this bullshit for it to go away. Unfortunately, complaining about engagement bait posts is also engagement so it's a loosing battle.
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u/analfabeet 18d ago
But what is the catch? There's nothing to gain from engagement on a reddit post right?
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u/Hugh_Man89 15d ago
Wherever I see this type you're describing, I'm just thinking about how grim their life and goals are that these random upvotes are sustaining their social interaction needs. It's quite depressing that people crave it, and by the next day it means nothing.
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u/JaySayMayday 19d ago
I'm not sure if it's still a thing, but for a very long time the judges were unfairly harsh on figure skaters that didn't fit the way they wanted figure skaters to look. Even if they perfectly executed extremely difficult moves. Figure skaters with darker skin had it especially harsh, Debi Thomas before her only got bronze even though she was more than capable like she even won world championship gold 2 years before the Olympics.
It might not seem like much now because people are way more outspoken but her reaction at silver got world attention. She ended up doing a move that was illegal for a long time because it was deemed too dangerous just to show that she was the better skater.
To date, no black athlete has ever won Olympic gold in figure skating. Alyssa Liu is arguably the first figure skater to win gold that didn't fit the typical or stereotypical image of a figure skater.
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u/Looking4LochNess 19d ago
We can honestly use the word "racism" in this context.
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u/snkn179 19d ago
I mean she lost to a Japanese person tbf
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u/kinderziekte 19d ago
Japanese women are often stereotyped as gentle and feminine. The exact thing they look for in figure scaters.
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u/Few-Worker7597 19d ago
As info, Kristi Yamaguchi got a gold in the 1992 Olympics. She wasn't stereotypical either but her talent and personality crushed any barriers. She got a ton of endorsements. Her second act was when she dominated and won Dancing with the Stars (season 6).
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u/sk8tergater 19d ago
Surya didn’t have perfectly executed difficult moves though, like that’s the thing. I love Surya, but she was all over the place consistency wise.
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u/MattTheCatt444 19d ago
I was 15 and watching the 88 Olympics and I remember Debbie Thomas receiving the bronze. I was really excited for her but her face told me a different story about how she felt about the bronze. I decided that day that as a black girl, I wanted nothing to do with Olympic figure skating even though I was fantasizing about it.
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u/randomusernevermind 19d ago
Debi Thomas was seen as the gold medal favorite at the time, but she made multiple errors and stumbled during her long free skate program. Her competitors did not. This was not a controversial decision.
This performance earned her 3th place
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u/Moistgranni 19d ago
if the entire Olympics said Debbie Thomas A black doctor was going to be number one and fumbled than this is clearly probably not all about "racist" judges plus that was 1988, 6 years prior.
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u/randomusernevermind 19d ago
"To date, no black athlete has ever won Olympic gold in figure skating. Alyssa Liu is arguably the first figure skater to win gold that didn't fit the typical or stereotypical image of a figure skater."
Or maybe it is because countries where black people usually live, don't tend to send their athletes to the Winter Olympics because you know,....they have no winter. As a result only roughly 2% of Winter Olympia athletes across the board are black. 2 in 100. The probability that within those 2%, are the best of the best of the best, is simply much lower. You mentioned Debi Thomas like it was some kind of controversial decision in 1988, to push your misleading narrative. Debi Thomas was seen as the gold medal favorite at the time but she made multiple errors and stumbled during her long free skate program. Her competitors did not.
This performance earned her 3th place
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u/greenlemon23 19d ago
There are quite a few black people living in countries like the USA and Canada that definitely send athletes to the winter olympics.
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u/MarionberryPlus8474 20d ago
I remember this incident. She was a remarkable athlete and extremely talented and never felt like the judges gave her a fair shake. I think the judges generally scored her low on “artistic presentation “ which is very subjective.
I believe in these games she bowed to the crowd and turned her back on the judges, basically mooning them.
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u/SYKslp 20d ago edited 20d ago
the subjectivity of these judged sports (skating, gymnastics, snowboarding, etc) make it hard to take them seriously whenever it's a close call. At least with pro wrestling, the athletes know it's not real.
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u/DudeTookMyUser 20d ago
My Mom used to watch figure skating when I was young and my biggest take-away was how bad and clearly biased the judging is. To this day, it's a sport that I can't take seriously, despite the amazing skills and acrobatics.
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u/HelloAbjectChaos 19d ago
My mom is big on ice skating so I saw a lot of it growing up. It's pretty obvious who the top is vs. the "good, but yawn, when's the next person up" when I choose to watch. So I'm just having a very hard time believing you.
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 19d ago
I have issues with sports where literal young children are competing against grown-ass adults. Women's gymnastics and figure skating used to really bad for this and still aren't great and Olympic skateboarding is truly ridiculous. Imo, 12 and 13 year-olds have no business there. Not only are they naturally smaller and lighter, but like all children they have no sense of their own mortality so will take bigger risks.
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u/sk8tergater 19d ago
After the 2022 Olympics, the international skating union raised the age to 17 for figure skating.
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u/lilshortyy420 19d ago
I used to ride horses competitively and it’s very much the same thing. It was tough and the judge could just have a personal taste towards one thing over another, and you can go to a show the next weekend and the judge will be the opposite.
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u/Future_Nature589 19d ago
The rings (gymnastics) for one are pretty cut and clear to me, show off more strength and win
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u/DoYouLikeWafflezz 18d ago
It’s hard for me to consider judged sports as actual sports instead of just fun things athletic people do.
If it’s a competition there should be a clear winner, not just someone the judges decided they liked the most.
Just make an actual point system for all the cool tricks they are doing. Tony Hawk and SSX games figured that out decades ago.
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u/MDinMaine77 20d ago
I was ice skating in Vegas of all places and she came on the ice. Absolutely incredible to be on the ice with someone of her skill level. Effortlessly flying around the ice while the rest of us knuckle-dragging hockey players flailed in comparison.
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u/clock_twice_broken 20d ago
Fellow hockey primate here, and I shared the ice with a nationally-ranked figure skater on a free skate when the rink was gonna close, so we were all just letting it rip. I was feeling proud of my backwards crossovers until this young woman just torched all of us, absolutely flying across the ice like a banshee. A figure skater's power to weight ratio is insane, and they're tough as nails too. It was her ice the minute she stepped out there.
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u/FreeElleGee 19d ago
She lives there now. I used to see her at my daughter’s rink a lot. She’s a very nice lady. And still a powerhouse on the ice.
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u/Widdershinsplint 20d ago
For what it is worth, I have no recollection of seeing the other performances but I clearly remember Surya's gravity defying backflip all these years later.
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u/HuckleberryCold9642 20d ago
Only when landing on two feet, she perfected it by landing on one foot, because the rule state you're not allowed to do any extreme maneuvers while landing on two feet, so technically she didn't break the rules, people please do some research, she was too good and she just so happened to have the wrong color, back in the 90s 80s and 70s this is how discrimination worked, especially when it came to the international life, prejudices and the racial discrimination was very indirect, because it was considered shameful to be bold and direct about it back then, as it is now, nowadays you can start a whole career off of behaving this way! For the record this incident took place in 1998 not 1994 hermaneuver and all similar maneuvers were officially banned after she performed this maneuver in 1998, to all those who made comments against my original statement, get your history right!
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u/grubas 20d ago
Anybody who knows this era knows that the judging was incredibly selective and favoritism was rampant. They didn't like her style.
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u/-_-0_0-_0 19d ago
Mix of both.
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u/grubas 19d ago
It was the infamous, "1 from the Russian judges" era. You'd have voting blocs and youd get these insane scores of like 9 9.5 9 9 2 1 1 2
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u/Interesting-Case2526 19d ago
she was too good and she just so happened to have the wrong color
And there it is. That's the problem with posts like this. You extrapolate racism, when in reality her preformance wasnt that good. Just go watch it. She did an amazing jump and that's about it. There's more to the sport.
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u/Lalocal4life 20d ago
Most people can't even lift their own bodyweight, much less backflip on ice skates and land like that.
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u/richtofin819 20d ago
It's fair that they shouldn't reward the backflip though. It's incredibly dangerous and it would only encourage other athletes to try it.
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u/HuckleberryCold9642 20d ago
I remember watching this with my family back then, we all couldn't help but notice that the Japanese Gold metal winner (I can't quite remember her name) had also realized what her country had done, coincidentally, the camera begin to zoom in on her face as she also began to tear up for Bonalys unfair treatment.
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u/Kamikaze_Ninja_ 19d ago
Unless she said something specifically about it, I doubt you’d be able to tell if she thought it was rigged. Her tearing up could be embarrassment for the drama overshadowing her win.
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u/demomagic 19d ago
OK, there was a backflip. Cool. She seems to be an incredible skater. But the video is also showing like five or six different outfits so obviously these are from different times. Should she have actually beaten that person?
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u/Fun_Classroom5714 13d ago
You are correct, those clips are from entirely different competitions. The clip where she took off her medal in protest was at the 1994 World Championships, where she took the silver behind Japan's Yuka Sato. Surya had a stronger technical performance than Sato, but she received lower artistic marks, which caused her to take second place.
This silver medal was not the first time she had received a result that she had deemed unfair, and her emotional reaction and podium protest was her way of visibly making that frustration clear. In my opinion, she should have won several world titles, including this one. (It's also important to note that I believe Surya apologized for this protest later on, believing it to be unsportsmanlike and disrespectful to the winner, who she respects as a skater).
She has stated that she believed her lower scores were because her judges didn't care for her bolder, more powerful skating style, which stemmed from her unique tumbling background. She also came from a small federation, France, as opposed to the big federations that typically dominate figure skating (Japan, the US, Canada, etc). There is also the matter of her race. Iirc, she has also spoken on racism within the sport, and said that if she were white or American she believes she very well could have won a lot more titles.
So, did she deserve to win the 1994 World Championships? Yes, probably. There were also a handful of other titles she probably deserved to take as well. However, the artistic side of figure skating is a real part of the judging, and it's very subjective, which means there are always going to be controversies like these.
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u/iCanReadMyOwnMind 20d ago
The protest aside, she won that event and knew she outskated the competition. How she processed it was up to her and I beleive she won it as well.
To the banned back flip; I get that they banned it because this is potentially a lot of serious injuries if skaters were to try to hit that threshold, but the ban be damned, she continued to do it anyway and that was the biggest middle finger she could have given to those judges.
She's a hell of an athlete and skates at gold level no matter the competition or the rules.
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u/Getshitdone-333 19d ago
Now Ilia does a backflip and the crowd, judges, commentators go wild! Every time, I just say, “Surya did it first,” and was criticized for it.
Yes, I know that it was banned at the time, but it’s still hard to watch a white male get praised for it when Surya, in general, was always treated poorly, especially for the backflip.
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u/MouthJob 19d ago
If it was banned at the time, it seems unlikely she did it first.
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u/Getshitdone-333 19d ago edited 18d ago
I believe she was the first person to do it in the Olympics landing on one skate.
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u/Winderige_Garnaal 19d ago
It was banned, she did it anyway, she was objectively the first.
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u/Meldanorama 19d ago
Youre not following their logic. They are saying the move likely wouldnt have been banned if it hadn't be attempted before.
Surya did it before but she didnt do it first. Terry kubicka did it in competition that got it banned and it had been around exhibitions before then.
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u/iron0maiden 20d ago
I empathise with her, the years and the effort she has probably put into the sport, just to be stolen by the judges cos the championship was in Japan and so 1st place went to Japan.
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u/Corner_Post 20d ago
Don’t think it works like that, the 5 judges that favoured the Japanese winner were from Japan, USA, Canada, Germany and Belgium. The 4 judges favouring Bonaly were France, Russia, Switzerland and Denmark. 8/9 judges gave Bonaly the top mark for technical merit (Canada being only that didn’t) whereas 8/9 judges gave Sato higher artistic marks (with the only being France). Artistic impression was the tiebreaker. So if anything you can say Bonaly’s home country of France was being biased…
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u/Every1ThinksImBoring 19d ago
lol, I thought she was going to do a backflip on or off the podium, by the title
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u/PattyRain 19d ago
Several people have mentioned that you should see both skates before making a judgement. Here they are:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PpTCwyV6XFM
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t9bdr3O3TGA&pp=0gcJCYsCo7VqN5tD
If I have the wrong skates, please let me know.
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u/KonaKumo 19d ago
Surya put up with a lot of crap beyond the backflip. She definitely deserved to win a gold medal but race and body shaming are apparently special deductions on the score sheet
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u/Maximum-Charge2474 19d ago
It's crazy how young they all are. She was what, 20? I thought they were grown ups, but really, they are a bunch of kids! Most of us young women were at college crying about our breakups and stressed about our grades, not representing our countries in front of millions and feeling like our lives would be worthless if we didn't win a sporting event. So much pressure and politics and they just wanted to do the sport they loved. I LOVED skating back then but I have to admit as an adult that ice skating and gymnastics can be brutal and basically child abuse the way teenage girls are forced to starve and train hours every day and keep going when injured.
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u/MrFrogNo3 20d ago
Dam it's almost like it's subjective. I feel like protesting coming second seriously harms the winner who was no less talented and hard working.
Imagine winning gold after a lifetime of athletic hardship just to have this contestation hanging over your most precious achievement forever.
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u/RespecDawn 20d ago
Surya Bonaly faced everything the gold medalist did and had to suffer the additional consequences of limited wins despite being a much stronger athlete than most of her competitors. I don't know if people understand how absolutely racist that era was in figure skating.
All the comments were coded, but omnipresent. Surya Bonaly "lacked femininity". The performances of Asian skaters were "mechanical" and "souless".
A lot of who were fans at the time understood that she was penalized because she was black, and no one who understood what she faced at every competition would be upset at her for that protest.
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u/s00pahFr0g 19d ago
I’ve literally never even heard of this until seeing this post. I’m slightly confused though. The gold went to an Asian skater which you also point out faced racism.
Was she protesting that she placed second? or is it not about the placement and just about the racism in general?
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u/Itchy58 19d ago edited 19d ago
While you should not underestimate how racist AF that time was, I also recommend to not underestimate how backwards/tradition clinging AF sports were through all of time. (to give recent examples: Pentatlon had fucking horse riding until 2024, Synchronous/Artistic Swimming did not exist as an olympic sports for men until 2015).
The general consensus goes more in the direction of "she was ahead of her time" and that the judges of this era were generally cautious at anything evolution the sport.Judges at that time favoured edge quality, as soft flow, and polished presentation - basically a smooth silent aestetic ice princess. Bonaly was an explosive athlete with a gymnastics background who pushed boundaries with powerful jumps, scraped ice here and there, pushed athletic boundries. Judges often did not honor that and Bonaly underscored for lacking the tiniest bits of the mentioned conventional softness and finesse. Retrospective fortunately has been a lot kinder to her, especially after backflips got accepted and the sport evolved, but that was generally not the professional view at that time.
You can claim that the judges reasoning was just an excuse (as masking racism was also typical for the era) but this "traditional/backwards oriented" was quite typical for the sport in that era.
Potentially a white "ambassador" for this change would have lead to a more accepting position towards the changes she tried to bring. But in general this is in the first place a case of innovation vs backwards orientation.→ More replies (5)2
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u/Equal_Heat5947 18d ago
Is it racism every time a non-white person loses? How do you distinguish between racism and other factors?
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u/Yodayorio 19d ago
The gold medal winner is literally Japanese. Stop talking out of your ass. Surya was an entitled brat throwing a tantrum and spoiling her opponent's victory because the judges didn't decide things the way she wanted them to. That's the real context
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u/Own-Fondant2949 19d ago
Asian here.. do you know how historically racist Asians are to other Asians? You think the Chinese and Japanese get along? Koreans and Russians? Indians and Pakistani? Go to Japan today and you can see how friendly they are to non-japanese folks.
Just throwing that out there to state that just because an Asian won, it doesn't negate that racism didn't play a part.
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u/RespecDawn 19d ago
I was watching the sport in the 80s. I remember the comments. And one Japanese athlete winning gold doesn't erase the racism that was in the sport or the blatant and specific racism Surya Bonaly faced because she was black.
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u/thekyledavid 19d ago
Eh, if I came 2nd in the 100 meter dash, and the committee just decided to let me win the gold because they didn’t like the idea of a black person winning gold, I’d be fine with that guy protesting during the ceremony where he’s being given the silver that should be mine while I’m being given the gold which should be his
It’s just easier to act like she wasn’t penalized due to race when the correct winner isn’t so obvious in an event like this
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u/Puzzleheaded-Seat950 20d ago
Jesus christ that backflip looked like she stumbled and barely landed on her feet
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u/SunkenSaltySiren 20d ago
It was ONLY ever landed on two feet before, and never by a woman but her. They said she couldnt do a backflip because its a jump that lands on two feet. So , without anyone being aware, she decided to throw STILL throw the backflip and land with one foot. No one had EVER done it before. Yeah, it was a little shaky, but she made history and the judges hosed her anyway.
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u/youaregodslover 20d ago
Don't concede to qualifiers of idiots. That backflip was pretty smooth.
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u/SunkenSaltySiren 20d ago
There are two of them i think in this clip. One was a touch shaky, and the other was very smooth. Still both amazing and inventive, and shows her skill and heart.
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u/jittery_raccoon 20d ago
Yeah athletic feats look cool, but will not ylein you points wirh the judges. Being unbalanced after a skill will be deductions, even if it was a cool skill. You have to do big skills well, that's the hard part. Because your peers can also do big skills without landing them well
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u/ilikepisha 20d ago
Anything judged is not a sport. They are certainly athletes but you can’t take any result where it’s based on “judges” as a sport. Especially figure skating.
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u/Ok-Budget3225 20d ago
If she was silver medalist then who was third place then? Where did the third place girl stand if Surya was occupying the third place podium?
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u/finallyfreeallalong 19d ago
There's a show called Losers on Netflix with a special about her. It's very frustrating watching.
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u/beemeeting 19d ago
I remember watching this live as a 10 year old and thinking Surya Bonali was BADASS for the flip and that she totally deserved to be 1st place.
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u/InterstellarChange 19d ago
Disgusted at that IOC asshole strongarming her up to the podium. The blatant disrespect shows how much she was discriminated against at the time. She is a true heroine. She does France proud.
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u/notAnExpert-but 19d ago
why not show her actual performance in the event where she “protested”? lol
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u/Redditcadmonkey 19d ago
The second step of the podium isn’t the time to protest subjectivity in judging.
It’s disrespectful to your fellow athletes, it’s poor sportsmanship. Effectively you’re protesting the person that beat you.
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u/Peregrine9000 19d ago
She was one of those athletes where the skill gap between her and the next best person put her in a class of her own.
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