I realize that it is shameful how I'm one of those sappy people underneath a sarcastic exterior, but I just can't get enough of the adorability of Baby Kwan. It is amazing how a 12-year-old had more refinement than almost every senior there (and there was still a LOT of work to be done.) To put it in perspective, this was the year that Carol Heiss Jenkins had two ladies on the world team. Standards were obviously quite low that year.
Michelle Kwan was oozing Frank Carroll that year. Mind you, he openly admitted to taking her on because she was Asian, so he felt she'd be thin and likely have the Asian work ethic of Kristi Yamaguchi. Point Frank.
Gotta love early 90s practice dresses.
ReplyDeletebut she never won olympic gold :sadface
ReplyDeleteAwesome find! I think I spotted Bobek on the ice. Can anyone ID all the other skaters?
ReplyDeleteLisa Ervin is the blonde in the red, white and blue dress and black leggings.
ReplyDeleteBobek's SP practice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeMSFMYxopA
(note that she does a Flutz+Toe combo, but doubled the flutz and wound up doing a triple flip+double toe for the first time ever in competition. I'm not even sure she had ever landed a triple flip in competition before.) Also notice that this is around the time Jana and Joyce really started starving Nicole. She always slimmed down unhealthily when at her peaks, which is part of the reason she was so inconsistent about being in shape (as well as her inconsistent work ethic.)
Lisa Ervin--sadly, she was the 2nd best skater in the country that yr.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBczN9xjbYQ
Nancy Kerrigan's SP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rsoP8bdnWc
(Up until 92-93, Nancy was known as a spectacular short program skater who always splatted in the long- like Sasha Cohen.)
This is the year that Tonya Harding let herself get so out of shape that she didn't even make the World Team in a depleted field...setting up the drama of '94.
The legendary Tonia Kwiatkowski:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp0UbS9k6FI
Wow, thanks for the digging those up. I think what's amazing about those links is how much of what they'd become you could already glimpse. Kwan fell and had a near miss with another skater but still skated her run through full out until the end, keeping her focus all the way through at what had to be one of her first major senior competitions. Bobek had so much potential that if you compared her to Kwan at this competition, you'd think she would have been the dominant skater for the next 10 years. Her natural flair, personality, speed and amplitude on the ice was already so apparent. It's so sad to see the link about the meth charge in the upper corner of my screen :(
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