Surya Bonaly
Surya Bonaly is the first woman ever to complete the quadruple toe lift. She is best known for standing up to judges who she believed held a racist bias against her at the 1998 Winter Olympics. Angry at low markets for her short skate earlier in the day, she landed the incredibly dangerous a one-bladed back flip during her long routine. The move is illegal and she did it to send a message to the judges. Despite landing the move, the judges deducted points from her final score because of it. Still to this day she remains the only figure skater to attempt and complete the move at the Olympics. She is a three-time World silver medalist, a five-time European champion, the 1991 World Junior Champion and a nine-time French national champion. Currently, Surya is continuing her love of figure skating through coaching a new generation of figure skaters in Minnesota. She also teaches, and is involved in various social movements including animal rights.
Nicole Bobek
Nicole Bobek was coached unsuccessfully by eleven different coaches during her professional skating career. Despite her difficult personality and lack of a permanent coach, she does have a number of commendable achievements under her belt including being the 1995 U.S. national champion and 1995 World bronze medalist. She was expected to place at the top of the 1998 Winter Olympics. Things did not go as planned as a hip injury resulted in her placing 17th at the event. Not too long after the failure at the Olympics, Bobek was caught selling illicit substances which was an all-time low for the figure skater. She has had a number of other run ins with the law including being arrested for first degree home invasion in Michigan in 1995, and more recently in 2009 for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. On a brighter note, she developed a deep passion for performing in circuses and one of her most notable performances was in 2015 when she performed a hoop routine at a skating show hosted by Nancy Kerrigan. She married one of her circus co-stars in 2017 in Florida.
