skating down memory lane

i had the foresight to record last night's "nine for ix," which was about katerina witt's rise to stardom. i watched it this morning and learned that katerina & her coach essentially made a deal for her professional freedom - if katerina won gold at the 1988 olympics, the east german government would give her permission to continue her skating career. she won gold and then went on to shoot "carmen on ice" in spain with brian boitano, which led to this exchange on twitter:

@queeneulalia http://t.co/PNuVk3NfCn

— Brian Boitano (@BrianBoitano) August 7, 2013

pre-teen me had no idea about the political drama going on backstage at the '88 olympics, though. i was all about debi thomas. i still can't skate to save my life but debi thomas was (ok, still kinda is) one of my idols. here's her long program from the '88 olympics:

and while i was remembering that, a memory from crc came back to me of a group of us watching the '98 games and actively rooting for surya bonaly to do a backflip. in our defense, bonaly was already out of medal contention and she knew it, which kinda makes the backflip even more awesome as a "fuck you" move: