"It was a nice experience, and I finished 4th again," Bonaly said. He performed the move in his free skate at both the Olympics and the World Championships that year, but after his backflip in Austria, authorities banned the move entirely. It was a way for her to make her final performance memorable. "It was kind of like a time where you don't have much option going on and you're trying to figure out what to do to get out alive. I will miss the Summer Olympics dearly this year. All Rights Reserved. Despite claims that Bonaly caused the backflip to become illegal in figure skating, that isn’t the case. "I'm just hoping to have some open ears and people are here to receive everything I can tell them because I think it's a gift," Bonaly said. At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Surya Bonaly performed an illegal backflip and stunned everyone at the eve I will miss the Summer Olympics dearly this year. She said once she was on the path to training for the Olympics, her goal was to make it for the 1992 Albertville Olympics in France. Surya Bonaly (born December 15, 1973) is a French-American Professional figure skater. Playrface is a website dedicated to stories about sports, popular and obscure, from a unique perspective. Get Make It newsletters delivered to your inbox, Learn more about the world of CNBC Make It, © 2020 CNBC LLC. Today, in 2019, Bonaly still skates. Elle devient professionnelle en 1998 puis commence sa carrière d'entraîneur à Las Vegas puis à Minneapolis. She was in a lot of pain from an Achilles tendon surgery and she knew her chances for gold were already gone. At age 12 she was a world champion in the gymnastics discipline of tumbling. I had heard many people thought it was Bonaly's way of rebelling against the judges who had never given her gold. (although she is nowhere close to being one!). It was an iconic moment of defiance against the judges and authorities, it amazed the crowd, and it showed that despite the physical adversity (her Achilles injury hadn’t gone away, don’t forget), she could still pull off incredible moves. Before the Games, Bonaly won her 4th consecutive continental title at the Europeans Championships in Denmark and went to Norway as one of the favourites for a medal. She made headlines not because she had won silver, but because she refused to stand on the podium. Her mother was a sports coach who taught multiple disciplines from gymnastics to figure skating.

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Surya Bonaly (Niza, 15 de diciembre de 1973) es una ex-patinadora sobre hielo francesa.Triple medalla de plata en el Campeonato Mundial de Patinaje Artístico sobre Hielo (1993–1995), cinco veces campeona europea (1991–1995), ganadora del Campeonato del Mundo Junior en 1991 y nueve veces ganadora del Campeonato Nacional de Francia (1989–1997). She also performed at other shows with her signature backflip in tow.

"I was 12 years old, it was kind of a goal with my coach--why don't you try a backflip?" She said she wanted to go out with a bang, and she did. "I was not a 100 percent at my full potential because of my body," she said. Bonaly was crowned when she knowingly performed an illegal move, a one-legged backflip, at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. Despite all this, she tried again in 1998 at the Nagano Winter Olympics. Why do all the Croatian’s men’s names end in -ić? Once she mastered it, she wasn't shy about showcasing her skills. No one has been able to copy her combo move of back flip, splits while upside-down, and landing on one foot.

Regardless, it was illegal no matter how many feet you landed on. Most recently, Surya was featured on an episode on Netflix in a series called "Losers." Although she has said she never faced any direct racism in her career, Bonaly believes she would have been world champion had she not been Black.

In 2015, she retired from performing after surgery to remove cysts on her spine. Notifications can be turned off anytime in the browser settings. Bonaly said that always going the extra mile is a rule she stuck by since she first began figure skating as a young child in France. Figure Skating and International Skating Union Events. In 1994, a small improvement. Instead, she went from something even more difficult—so difficult, it hadn’t been done before. Mais c’est en 1998, aux JO de Nagano, qu’elle donne réellement la preuve de son tempérament de feu, sur patin. There was also an opinion that all jumps had to land on one foot, while Kubicka’s finished on two feet.

She would go on to compete in the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics as well as the 1998 Nagano Olympics. It's also the hometown of a man she fell in love with.