{"id":200568,"date":"2026-02-16T00:51:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:51:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/figure-skater-surya-bonaly-looks-back-at-starting-the-quad-craze-30-years-ago-today-com\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T00:51:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T00:51:02","slug":"figure-skater-surya-bonaly-looks-back-at-starting-the-quad-craze-30-years-ago-today-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/figure-skater-surya-bonaly-looks-back-at-starting-the-quad-craze-30-years-ago-today-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Figure Skater Surya Bonaly Looks Back At Starting the Quad Craze 30 Years Ago – TODAY.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scott Stump
This story originally ran on TODAY.com on Feb. 18, 2022, and has been updated. <\/em>
Decades before the backflipping “Quad God” Ilia Malinin <\/a>took the Milan Cortina Olympics by storm, French figure skater Surya Bonaly was pushing the boundaries of the sport with quadruple jumps and backflips of her own.
Not only was Bonaly, 52, a Black pioneer in a predominantly white sport, she also was ahead of her time on the ice when it came to the explosive athleticism that\u2019s now a requirement to reach the top of the sport.
At the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France, Bonaly became the first woman ever to attempt a quadruple jump in Olympic figure skating when she landed a four-revolution jump. It did not count for the scoring because she was ruled to have under-rotated it, but it showed the possibilities for a sport where grace and artistry often overshadowed athleticism.
It took 30 years for a woman to finally land another quad jump in the free skate at the Olympics when a host of them did so in Beijing in 2022, including gold medalist Anna Shcherbakova<\/a> of the Russian Olympic Committee. She landed a pair of quad jumps as part of her winning free skate routine, while her ROC teammate, Alexandra Trusova, landed five quad jumps of her own to take the silver.
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to think it took that long for it to happen at the Olympics, that it was 30 years ago that I was really pushing myself to go forward,\u201d Bonaly said.
The performances in Beijing and Milan over the past four years are the culmination of what Bonaly started decades ago. Malinin, a star of Team USA, has now taken it to uncharted territory<\/a> on the men’s side at the 2026 Winter Olympics with his signature quadruple axel and multiple quad jumps in each routine.
Before Malinin was wowing crowds with backflips<\/a>, Bonaly pulled off one at the 1998 Olympics even though it was outlawed at the time and cost her points in the judging. She became the first skater to ever land a backflip on one blade at the Olympics.
Bonaly didn\u2019t think much of the backflip at first because she did it all the time in practice, but she admittedly has watched some of the old highlights with pride.
\u201cYou\u2019re somewhat confident as an athlete, but I was reserved back then, almost like I underestimated myself,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I watch some videos of some of my programs on YouTube, and I\u2019m like, \u2018That program was the bomb!\u2019\u201d
It was that inner fire that led Bonaly to become a five-time European champion and a three-time silver medalist at the World Championships. It\u2019s also what led her to give everything to a sport that didn\u2019t always love her back, whether it was judges evaluating her performances, commentators referring to her with racially coded words like \u201cexotic,\u201d or competitors who didn\u2019t know what to make of the Black skater in colorful costumes.
While many casual fans know Bonaly for the stunning backflip she pulled off at the 1998 Olympics that remains a YouTube staple, <\/a>it\u2019s her perseverance in the face of adversity during her career that has only grown more memorable with each generation.
Andrea Jordan, the chief operating officer of Figure Skating in Harlem<\/a>, has made sure her young skaters of color know all about Bonaly, who has also met with them in person. In a month not only celebrating the Olympics but also Black history<\/a>, Bonaly\u2019s legacy stands out.
\u201cBeing an athletic woman of color, but also in many ways being judged because of her physical appearance and her characteristics in a way that was unfair, to be able to break through all of those barriers and still persist in that spot and accomplish all what she accomplished is remarkable,\u201d Jordan told TODAY.com.
\u201cFor us, as I think about her meaning to our skaters, representation matters. Young people need to see individuals that look like them on and off the ice.\u201d
Bonaly didn\u2019t have any local role models who looked like her when she embarked on an ice skating career in the early 1990s while growing up in France.
As a Black girl who was adopted from an orphanage in Nice by white parents, she would often look around the rink and realize she was the only skater of color at many events in Europe.
\u201cI wish there was somebody back in my day who was able to do that for me,\u201d Bonaly told TODAY.com. \u201cYou always need someone to be the first to do something. I didn\u2019t have that, so in my case, I had to be the one for Europe.\u201d
She tried a host of sports as a child thanks to her mother, Suzanne, who had her competing in fencing, ballet, diving, gymnastics and figure skating. Her gymnastics background ended up playing an important role in the acrobatic feats she would one day pull off on the ice.
The only other prominent Black skater in singles competition at the time was American Debi Thomas, who won bronze at the 1988 Olympics. Bonaly admired Thomas as a fellow Black woman in the sport but particularly looked up to Midori Ito. The 4-foot-9 Japanese dynamo was compact, explosive and muscular, able to land seven triple jumps during her free skate at the 1988 Olympics.
\u201cI would watch videos over and over of her, repeating her program every practice like her,\u201d Bonaly said. \u201cShe was an amazing jumper. Asian skaters were not very common at that time, and Midori Ito does not have that typical (figure skating) body of being super slim.
\u201cShe was very muscular and like a bomb on the ice, and she inspired me to believe I could be like her. She helped people kind of start getting used to seeing people of color skating at a high level.\u201d
Bonaly quickly became a star in France, winning the first of her nine national titles as a 15-year-old in 1989 while working on her quad jump. She was determined to hone the difficult maneuver, suffering through painful falls in practice during a time when there weren\u2019t cutting-edge recovery therapies like there are now.
However, her drive to push the boundaries of the sport with her dazzling jumps and colorful costumes soon clashed with a figure skating culture and judges who prized thin, graceful skaters in muted dresses.
At the 1992 Olympics, she argued with her coach in practice about whether to attempt a quad jump in her free skate routine. He advised against it with an eye on how it might be judged, but she went for it anyway because there was always one group whose approval she wanted the most: the crowd.
\u201cI didn\u2019t think about politics and judges,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was not my field. I just wanted to get people clapping and out of their seat and put on a show.\u201d
Bonaly didn\u2019t quite land it and ended up taking fifth, but she made an impression at an Olympics that featured some of the biggest names in figure skating history \u2014 Kristi Yamaguchi, Midori Ito, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding.
At the 1993 World Championships, she landed seven triple jumps with a triple combination, while Ukrainian skater Oksana Baiul landed five triple jumps with no combinations, yet Baiul won the gold.
\u201cIt was a challenge of being the best and being better than the champion, who was white,\u201d Bonaly said. \u201cI had to be better than a normal skater. It was a challenge every single day, but in a way, it was just like a real fun goal to reach every night.\u201d
Bonaly took fourth at the 1994 Olympics behind Baiul, Kerrigan and Chen Lu, but her biggest disappointment came later that year at the World Championships. She had worked to improve her gracefulness while even cutting her ponytail in order to be more appealing to the judges. It wasn\u2019t enough, as she finished second behind Japan\u2019s Yuka Sato after skating a rigorous program.
During the medal ceremony, she took off her silver medal in frustration. Tears flowed down her face as she stood still on the podium while the other two skaters waved to the crowd.
Figure skating coach Joel Savary, 37, the author of \u201cWhy Black and Brown Kids Don\u2019t Ice Skate\u201d and the founder of the Diversify Ice Foundation<\/a>, remembers watching that emotional moment as a young boy. Bonaly was booed by the crowd<\/a> and then immediately rushed by reporters thrusting microphones into her face and asking if she was going to give up the sport.
\u201cI feel that was the beginning of the judges really wearing her down through this sort of attrition of not giving her what she truly deserved,\u201d Savary told TODAY.com. \u201cThe feeling that I felt was it paints another negative picture of a person of color. You oftentimes think of it as the angry Black woman stereotype, but honestly, that was the only voice that she really had to share that this was unfair.
\u201cI think she did what she believed was right, and I think a lot of people of color automatically were just saying, \u2018This sport is unfair, I\u2019m not going to have anything to do with it.\u2019\u201d
Savary believes that moment had a ripple effect.
\u201cPeople watched her and turned to another sport and said, \u2018I\u2019m going to track and field, where the person who makes it to the finish line first wins, or basketball, where the team that scores the most points wins, not this subjective sport,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI think people of color saw that and gravitated to more objective sports as opposed to figure skating, with that subjective artistic merit being such a huge part of it.\u201d
As for Bonaly, she looks back on it with decades of perspective as a moment she does not want to define her.
\u201cI didn\u2019t want any excuses,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t want it to be that I didn\u2019t win because people are racist or people don\u2019t like me. If I didn\u2019t win or finish at the top, I probably didn\u2019t do enough. My only goal was I need to do more than anyone else.\u201d
Bonaly made one last statement at her final Olympics in 1998 when she stunned the crowd in Nagano with a backflip, even though backflips had been banned from competition. The ban on backflips was lifted in 2024.
She had ruptured her Achilles tendon ahead of the Olympics and could not complete her planned routine, so she went for a show-stopping move that became the talk of the Olympics despite Bonaly finishing in 10th place.
\u201cThey outlawed the backflip, saying that when she did it, she landed on both feet, and for jumping, the judging says you should land on one foot,\u201d Olympic historian Bill Mallon told TODAY.com. \u201cBonaly actually a couple times landed on one foot just to make a statement, which is incredible just to be able to do that.\u201d
Her relentless push for bigger and more acrobatic jumps also planted a tiny seed that led to changes in the way the sport is judged. The point system officially changed after a judging scandal marred the pairs final at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
\u201cThe judging has changed so that it\u2019s much more based on athleticism and jumping now,\u201d Mallon said.
Figure skating remains central to Bonaly\u2019s life, as she lives in Las Vegas and works as a coach for skaters ranging from 5 to 18.
She skated professionally for years on the Champions on Ice tour, showing off her backflip to roaring crowds before retiring in 2015 to coach full time. Her partner, Peter Biver, is also a skating coach, but she said her dedication to the sport cost her an opportunity to have a family.
\u201cI missed the train,\u201d she said about not having children. \u201cI knew for me if I stop for nine months of skating, maybe I won\u2019t be able to get my next contract. I couldn\u2019t just take a break because I was so afraid to lose everything.\u201d
Bonaly also is a motivational speaker and the subject of a 2022 children\u2019s book called \u201cFearless Heart,\u201d an illustrated look at her journey that she wrote with author Frank Murphy. The cover features an illustration of Bonaly in the middle of her signature backflip.
In the decades since their peak, skaters like Bonaly and Thomas have looked more like outliers than signifiers of the next generation of Black skaters. There were none on the U.S. team that competed in Beijing and there are none competing for Team USA in Milan Cortina.
The last African American skater in the Olympics was in 2006, and no skater of African descent has won an Olympic medal in the singles competition since Thomas in 1988. Germany\u2019s Robin Szolkowy won bronze in the pairs competition in 2010 and 2014.
\u201cIt\u2019s true that figure skating can push you away because it\u2019s an expensive sport,\u201d Bonaly said. \u201cEspecially in America, it\u2019s very expensive where you have to pay for your own private lessons.\u201d
Organizations like Diversify on Ice and Figure Skating in Harlem work to expose young children of color to the sport, push down the barriers for entry<\/a> and raise funding to help them train. Savary said it can cost as much as $50,000 a year to reach an elite level.
\u201cCost still remains a huge issue, and you look at the return on investment for a skater,\u201d Savary said. \u201cYou can put in all this money and still be judged unfairly and have nothing to show for it. A lot of kids quit skating whose families are not super-rich and are in incredible debt and taking out second mortgages to pay for all of it.\u201d
Savary believes the latest generation can take a cue from Bonaly, who had plenty of barriers of her own but didn\u2019t let it stop her.
\u201cI think we need to continue understanding our history in the sport, but also looking at how strong someone is like Surya,\u201d he said. \u201cIf she can do this, we can all push through a lot harder.\u201d
She embodies what Jordan is trying to teach at Figure Skating in Harlem.
\u201cWe have a creed in our curriculum for our students, and part of it is, \u2018I am the dreams of women past, and I\u2019m the hope of those to come,\u2019\u201d Jordan said.
\u201cFor me, that is what Surya represents \u2014 all of the dreams that we\u2019ve had as girls of color that she manifested on the ice, but also the hope of those dreams our girls coming up are going to realize because of trailblazers like her.\u201d
Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here!<\/a>) that brings the day’s news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and uplifting stories right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else.\u00a0
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Scott StumpThis story originally ran on TODAY.com on Feb. 18, 2022, and has been updated. Decades before the backflipping “Quad God” Ilia Malinin took the Milan Cortina Olympics by storm, French figure skater Surya Bonaly was pushing the boundaries of the sport with quadruple jumps and backflips of her own. Not only was Bonaly, 52, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-200568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}