There's an article in the San Francisco Chronicle with some fun quotes from Brian B. To wit:
"Then again, Boitano is an unusual celebrity; he enjoys poking fun at
himself. Consider, for example, his story about the lead-up to the 1994
Olympics, when he made a comeback six years after winning gold in Calgary.
TV Guide and Newsweek both did photo shoots with Boitano, planning to put
him on their covers. Then Tonya Harding's associates whacked Nancy
Kerrigan's knee, and he became, quite literally, background scenery.
Newsweek ran a cropped version of the U.S. team picture, showing Kerrigan
and Harding sitting side-by-side, with a bull's eye drawn over them.
"I was standing behind Tonya and Nancy for the team picture, and you can
see my chest behind them in the target picture," Boitano said, grinning.
"... So I went from being on the cover by myself to just having my chest
in Newsweek." "
" A few years ago, the Smithsonian asked Boitano to donate his costume from
the Olympic long program, an old-fashioned military outfit, that matched
his musical accompaniment from the score of the film "Napoleon." He
thought it over, realized that the curators would do a better job of
keeping the costume intact than he could, and agreed.
The museum sent an enormous truck, which seemed to take up an entire
block. It had a special climate-controlled chamber for the costume, and
Boitano couldn't quite believe all the pomp devoted to a piece of fabric.
"I looked at the back of the truck, and I thought, 'It's going to be all
alone in there,' " he said, drawing a perfect caricature of the scene."
And finally,one of my favorites:
"His account of watching Kwan falter in Salt Lake City four years ago has a
similar flavor. He remembers being in the gallery, seated a few rows
behind Kwan's costume designer, who looked back at him in anguish.
"I went through hell," he said, before uttering a sentence that could come
only from a figure skater. "I was hyperventilating with Vera Wang."
Kwan has said she took up skating after watching Boitano win the gold in
1988, and he has been a friend and big brother to her for years. "I wanted
to go down and skate for her," he said of that night in Salt Lake City,
where Kwan took the bronze medal."
Also notes that Brian will be working for NBC at the Olympics, writing a blog for the Web site and "attending a variety of events and social functions as a network representative. He will sign autographs, chat with sponsors, and generally just be Brian Boitano, Olympic gold medalist. (Mike Eruzione, captain of the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" hockey team, and Jim Shea, winner of the inaugural skeleton race in 2002, havethe same assignment, except for the being Brian Boitano part.)"
Really a fun article
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...sn=001&sc=1000
"Then again, Boitano is an unusual celebrity; he enjoys poking fun at
himself. Consider, for example, his story about the lead-up to the 1994
Olympics, when he made a comeback six years after winning gold in Calgary.
TV Guide and Newsweek both did photo shoots with Boitano, planning to put
him on their covers. Then Tonya Harding's associates whacked Nancy
Kerrigan's knee, and he became, quite literally, background scenery.
Newsweek ran a cropped version of the U.S. team picture, showing Kerrigan
and Harding sitting side-by-side, with a bull's eye drawn over them.
"I was standing behind Tonya and Nancy for the team picture, and you can
see my chest behind them in the target picture," Boitano said, grinning.
"... So I went from being on the cover by myself to just having my chest
in Newsweek." "
" A few years ago, the Smithsonian asked Boitano to donate his costume from
the Olympic long program, an old-fashioned military outfit, that matched
his musical accompaniment from the score of the film "Napoleon." He
thought it over, realized that the curators would do a better job of
keeping the costume intact than he could, and agreed.
The museum sent an enormous truck, which seemed to take up an entire
block. It had a special climate-controlled chamber for the costume, and
Boitano couldn't quite believe all the pomp devoted to a piece of fabric.
"I looked at the back of the truck, and I thought, 'It's going to be all
alone in there,' " he said, drawing a perfect caricature of the scene."
And finally,one of my favorites:
"His account of watching Kwan falter in Salt Lake City four years ago has a
similar flavor. He remembers being in the gallery, seated a few rows
behind Kwan's costume designer, who looked back at him in anguish.
"I went through hell," he said, before uttering a sentence that could come
only from a figure skater. "I was hyperventilating with Vera Wang."
Kwan has said she took up skating after watching Boitano win the gold in
1988, and he has been a friend and big brother to her for years. "I wanted
to go down and skate for her," he said of that night in Salt Lake City,
where Kwan took the bronze medal."
Also notes that Brian will be working for NBC at the Olympics, writing a blog for the Web site and "attending a variety of events and social functions as a network representative. He will sign autographs, chat with sponsors, and generally just be Brian Boitano, Olympic gold medalist. (Mike Eruzione, captain of the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" hockey team, and Jim Shea, winner of the inaugural skeleton race in 2002, havethe same assignment, except for the being Brian Boitano part.)"
Really a fun article
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...sn=001&sc=1000
