Americans Skating for Other Countries

The United States has produced a steady stream of singles skaters who have competed at Worlds and Olympics, and in a number of occasions, the US has placed more than one skater on the podium. A few examples of US medalists:

1960 Olympics – Heiss (gold), Rowles (bronze)
1990 Worlds – Trenary (gold), Cooke (bronze)
1991 Worlds – US women swept the medals – Yamaguchi/Harding/Kerrigan.
1992 Olympics – Yamaguchi (gold), Kerrigan (bronze)
1998 Olympics – Lapinski (gold), Kwan (silver)
2002 Olympics – Hughes (gold), Kwan (bronze)
2004 Worlds – Cohen (silver), Kwan (bronze)
2005 Worlds – Cohen (silver)
2006 Worlds – Cohen (silver)

1952 Olympics – US men swept the medals – Button/Robertson/Jenkins
1956 Olympics – H. Jenkins (gold), D Jenkins (bronze)

Single medals won by US men –
1964 Olympics – Allen (bronze)
1968 Olympics – Wood (silver)
1984 Olympics – Hamilton (gold)
1988 Olympics – Boitano (gold)
1992 Olympics – Wylie (silver)
2002 Olympics – Goebel (bronze)


While these wonderful skaters were a blessing, they posed a problem for the rest of the field. There have been a number of very talented American women and men who never had the opportunity to skate at Worlds and/or Olympics because they could not skate past the current crop of top US skaters to make the US team. These 4th, 5th, and 6th place skaters probably could have won the national title of a number of countries (excluding Russia, Canada, and Japan, of course), or at least medaled in those competitions. In some cases, these skaters took the route of using their dual citizenship to represent their “second” country so that they could compete at the Worlds and/or Olympic Games. I, for one, never faulted them for doing so. Their decision to jump ship, as it where, did not make them “traitors” or any less American. They wanted to compete, and they did what they needed to do, within the rules of the game.

One example is Patricia Neske, a Californian holding dual-German citizenship who represented Germany at several World championships. Neske was a competent skater who did not have a realistic chance of outskating the then-top US women (Jill Trenary, Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding, etc). She finished in the top ten at Worlds, which was a wonderful accomplishment for her.

Diane deLeeuw, another California, chose to represent the Netherlands at Worlds and Olympics in the 1970s. Diane was a very talented skater, who quite frankly, did not need to go this route (or at least it seems) in order to skate in those competitions. She won the 1975 World title over Dorothy Hamill and Christine Errath, and she won the 1976 Olympic silver medal behind Hamill. Perhaps she wanted to compete at Worlds and the Olympics as the National Champion, and she felt that Hamill was “the anointed one” to hold that title in this country.

Alice Sue Clayes, a native of Georgia (US), represented Belgium at Worlds. Alice Sue had won the US Junior title in 1989 but she never came close to winning a medal at nationals at the senior level. Her decision to skate for Belgium seemed to be the right one for her, and even though she did not break into the top ten at Worlds, at least she competed there.

Tonia Kwiakowski shared the ice with Yamaguchi, Kerrigan, Harding, Kwan, Lapinski, and other top US skaters. She competed at Nationals a number of years before she even reached the podium. I remember her victory at the St. Ivel competition back in 1989. She was 18 at the time, young, fresh, and talented. The British commentators remarked that Tonia had finished “only eighth” at US Nationals the previous season and that she would probably win the national title of any of a number of countries. Tonia remained in the USFSA system, but I wondered if she ever had the opportunity to skate for another country. Probably not – she remained within the US competitive system.

Skaters skating for other countries

Perhaps I shouldn't do this, but since I have no names to add at present of US skaters skating for other countries, there are at least two other tacks this thread could expand in to, and where I can at least offer some names.
Other countries' skaters skating for the US include the obvious of Tanith Belbin (Canada), and most of the (Russian) men skating for the US Dance teams. Also, Rena Inoue skated ladies singles for Japan before doing Pairs for the US.
The other list to build upon would be current US skaters skating for foreign countries. One name here is Tamara Katz who skates for Israel.
Anyway, just a few thoughts.

That Trifun Zivanic (or whatever his last name is) is American skating for Serbia (I believe, or maybe Croatia).

Angela Nikodinov should have probably skated for Bulgaria.

Then there's Kristin Fraser skating for Azerbaijan.

Yvonne Gomez for Spain.
Sydne Vogel tried to skate for Germany but couldn't make the team.

Didn't we have the exact thread last summer when there was nothing else to discus???

Looks like there is a ton of skaters who were born in US but were skating for Thiland, Taiwan, Mexico, Phillippines (sp?), etc at the 4CC. Looking at their placements (some of them did not even get out of QR), that's the only chance they get to skate at internationals.

Galit Chait is also an American citizen, though she was born in Israel.

Jennifer Don is now skating for Chinese Taiwan. I think after breaking up with Jonathan Hunt, she tried to search for a pairs partner but failed. So she decided to continue on with her singles skating, but with only triple toe and salchow under her belt, she wasn't going to go that far in deep US ladies field. So she decided to represent Taiwan. I think she's serving Soldatova rule right now, so judgement is out there whether this will be worth it for her.

STL_Blues_fan said:

Didn't we have the exact thread last summer when there was nothing else to discus???

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Yes, here is the link. The thread was started with the same exact message also by SkateFan4Life.

US citizen Igor Matsipura will compete in Torino for Slovakia.

I say, if it gives you the chance to compete, why not? As others have pointed out, Americans aren't the only ones playing the citizenship game...Tanith Belbin (Canadian) in dance skating for the U.S., Utako Wakamatsu skates for Canada with Jean-Sebastien Fecteau in pairs (in fact, they were not eligible for the Olympics because Wakamatsu did not want to give up her Japanese citizenship), Arseny Markhov skates with Chantal Lefebvre in ice dance and he is Russian, there have been a number of Russian/American dance teams - largely, I imagine, because it is so competitive to get anywhere in dance in Russia, whereas girls are dying for partners in North America. Likewise, Japanese ladies who want to skate pairs aren't faced with much of a competitive program in Japan, but can find willing N. American partners.

Currently we have:

Michael Novales (Philippines)
Tammy Sutan (Thailand)
Emily Naphtal (Mexico)
Teresa Lin and Diane Chen (Taipei)
Alissa Allapach and Peter Kongkasem (Thailand)
Laura and Luke Munana (Mexico; were they named after the General Hospital characters? )
I know Tiffany Sfikas skated for GB for a time, but her partner, Michael Aldred, used to beat her, so she returned to the US. I don't know if she's still competing.

OT- you have in your list as Cohen being the winner of the 2006 world silver medal. A mistake or a premonition?

SkateFan4Life said:

Diane deLeeuw, another Californian, chose to represent the Netherlands at Worlds and Olympics in the 1970s. Diane was a very talented skater, who quite frankly, did not need to go this route (or at least it seems) in order to skate in those competitions. She won the 1975 World title over Dorothy Hamill and Christine Errath, and she won the 1976 Olympic silver medal behind Hamill. Perhaps she wanted to compete at Worlds and the Olympics as the National Champion, and she felt that Hamill was “the anointed one” to hold that title in this country.

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Diane stated that she didn't want to compete in all the regional competitions in the United States, because back then, there were so many qualifying competitions for nationals. I think the Dutch national qualifying isn't as much as it is in the US.

Another skater that represented another country at a time was Todd Sand back in the early 80's as a singles skater. He represented Denmark.

thisthingcalledlove said:

Diane stated that she didn't want to compete in all the regional competitions in the United States, because back then, there were so many qualifying competitions for nationals. I think the Dutch national qualifying isn't as much as it is in the US.

Another skater that represented another country at a time was Todd Sand back in the early 80's as a singles skater. He represented Denmark.

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However, Diane won the World Championship (!) in 1975, the World bronze medal in 1974 and 1976, and the Olympic silver medal in 1976. She was hardly a skater who had to be worried about getting out of the qualifying rounds. I'm sure she would have made it to the US team, but perhaps there were political considerations to be considered at that time.

Yes, Todd Sand skated for Denmark as a singles skater, then switched to pairs and represented the US with Natasha Kuchiki and his future wife, Jenni Meno.

And for those who are harping about the fact that I started this thread last summer, may I ask you -- what's your problem with that? I happen to think this is an interesting topic as we are right at the opening of the Olympics. And, remember that a lot of new people come into this board, and many of them did not read this thread when it was started last summer.

Hmmm

You know what, if I couldn't skate for America, I simply wouldn't skate for another country. I just couldn't do it. But I don't condemn anyone else for doing it.

kyla2 said:

You know what, if I couldn't skate for America, I simply wouldn't skate for another country. I just couldn't do it. But I don't condemn anyone else for doing it.

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I agree with you completely, kyla2. I would never represent any country but the United States. The USA, for better or worse, is stuck with me for life.

SkateFan4Life said:

However, Diane won the World Championship (!) in 1975, the World bronze medal in 1974 and 1976, and the Olympic silver medal in 1976. She was hardly a skater who had to be worried about getting out of the qualifying rounds. I'm sure she would have made it to the US team, but perhaps there were political considerations to be considered at that time.

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I asked that question for many years. If she was good enough to be World Champion, she was good enough to be U.S. Champion. But I was told there were certain politics in the USFSA at the time (shocking huh) and she knew she might make the U.S. team but they would never stand behind her internationally.

Pixie Cut said:

I asked that question for many years. If she was good enough to be World Champion, she was good enough to be U.S. Champion. But I was told there were certain politics in the USFSA at the time (shocking huh) and she knew she might make the U.S. team but they would never stand behind her internationally.

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But the question is, why would the USFSA not stand behind Diane? She was an American, a wonderful figure skater, etc. It's a mystery to me. There must be other reasons for her decision. It was America's loss, as far as I'm concerned.

SkateFan4Life said:

But the question is, why would the USFSA not stand behind Diane?

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Why did they often favor one skater over another?
You'd have to ask the judges and officials who were around at the time.

Yeah, Trifun Zivanovic is competing for my country, for Serbia.

Fritz said:

Perhaps I shouldn't do this, but since I have no names to add at present of US skaters skating for other countries, there are at least two other tacks this thread could expand in to, and where I can at least offer some names. Other countries' skaters skating for the US include the obvious of Tanith Belbin (Canada), and most of the (Russian) men skating for the US Dance teams. Also, Rena Inoue skated ladies singles for Japan before doing Pairs for the US. The other list to build upon would be current US skaters skating for foreign countries. One name here is Tamara Katz who skates for Israel. Anyway, just a few thoughts.

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Thanks for branching off into the "other side" of this issue! I have often thought that, while the US judges were favorable towards skaters from outside of the US who moved to America and competed for this country, that the international judges looked upon this with disfavor. A classic example, I think is Peter Tchernyshev, who came to the US, partnered with Naomi Lang and won five consecutive US Dance titles. While that pair did very well here at home, they did far less well in international competitions. Granted, there was steep competition from many countries, but Naomi and Peter deserved better than their typical less-than-top-ten placement at Worlds.

And then there's Gorsha Sur, who left Russia to come to the US and who partnered with Renee Roca. They made an excellent ice dance team, and they, too, won US titles, but they were not placed high at Worlds.

Tanith Belbin is truly an exception to this rule. Can we all dare to hope that the judges have stopped with this ridiculous (!!!) nonsense of national bias??

It is true that Tanith has not been tainted by this trend of punishing skaters who swap countries. However, she is not from an eastern-bloc nation, as the others were.