Thoughts on Nicole Bobek

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Bobek

Here is a brief "wiki write-up" on 1995 US champion Nicole Bobek. IMHO, she was a young lady who had enormous talent - not to mention possibly the best spiral ever - but lacked the discipline that is required to nurture that talent into becoming a champion and remaining a champion. Many of us who watched the 1998 Nagano Olympics remember Nicole's short program to "Zorba the Greek" and the numerous mistakes that eliminated her from any reasonable chance to place in the top 10, much less vie for a medal. It was sad to watch. I felt so sorry for her, her mother, and her coaches.

To her great credit, Nicole rebounded at Nagano with a solid long program. It wasn't perfect, but it showed that this girl could really skate! :thumbsup:

Her Dr. Zhivago LP is one of my favorite programs from her... argh... those 2 falls at the end were devastating at '95 Worlds. Could've been World Champ, who knows how history would had written itself after that. Ahh well. Still one of my fav skaters.

1995 Worlds LP - Dr. Zhivago

But one of her best SP's: 1995 Worlds SP

She had a great personality on the ice. Her jump technique was not perfect. Her spiral was one of the best ever, IMO.

reynycpr said:

Her Dr. Zhivago LP is one of my favorite programs from her... argh... those 2 falls at the end were devastating at '95 Worlds. Could've been World Champ, who knows how history would had written itself after that. Ahh well. Still one of my fav skaters.

1995 Worlds LP - Dr. Zhivago

But one of her best SP's: 1995 Worlds SP

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I thought Nicole was going to win the 1995 Worlds. I believe she was in first place after the short program, then fizzled out in the long program. At least she won the bronze medal; however, as you wrote, had she won the World title that year, history may have been a bit different. On the other hand, Michelle Kwan and Tara Lapinski were in the wings, and both of them surpassed Bobek the following year. Bobek's training habits were suspect, and her "every year a new coach" approach just did not lend itself into bringing consistency into her training and performances.

I was surprised that she won the short at 1995 Worlds. Not because she didn't skate the best (to me she did), but because she really had not been a factor on the world scene before that, and both Lu and Bonaly skated relatively well. I wasn't confident of her winning the long program because even her best previous performances would have put her behind the top 2 that night. (Of course, had she gone clean with a 3Z-3T she would have won). So, while she could have won, bronze was a very good result nonetheless. Like you, I do wonder how her winning would have impacted history. Had she been world champion she would never have been left off the 1996 world team - Lipinski would.

Nicole was always most dangerous when no one was expecting anything from her. The season, all the buzz was focused on Michelle as the new teen phenom coming into nationals and to a slightly lesser degree at worlds. She was supposed to be the new teen phenom to start a new American dynasty but proved to be not quite ripe yet. Nicole was pretty overlooked by the media before her nationals win and was already well known for her suspect training and coach switching. So her win at Nationals was surprising b/c she held it together so well. She was still somewhat under the radar before the Worlds SP. Once she won it, all eyes were on her. In my opinion, that was the kiss of death for her. I always wondered if she would have won overall, had she not been in first heading into the LP. The rest of her career was so unfortunately spotty. There were two occasions when I thought she'd really pulled it together again, 1997 (sadly derailed by Carlo Fassi's death) and 1998 (remember all the Campbell's ads and talk of a podium sweep?). Unfortunately she had meltdowns in both seasons.

Even winning the SP, I think it would have been difficult for her to have won the LP on her best day. I'm not sure that she ever skated a totally clean program with a flip and a lutz, which she would have needed to beat Lu and Surya. I always looked at it like her SP at Worlds enabled her to win a bronze medal, not that it put her in position to actually win the title against those two very strong LP skaters. Maybe fitness (or nerves) played a factor in her LP at Worlds, but to a certain extent both held her back over the years.

I always loved Nicole's skating--still do. Nobody could beat her charisma on the ice, and her programs were never boring; I still like watching them. Her costumes were always gorgeous. Her spirals set the standard, and it was one of the elements that Michelle worked on when competing with her. In time, Michelle's spirals became just as breathtaking. I'm so happy that Nicole is once again skating and hope to see more. In case anybody missed it, here she is earlier this year skating to KD Lang's Hallelujah.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBMzTt5szQ8

What a pity the present scoring system doesn't count spirals for much; the lack of a good spiral was one of the things that never really made me a Yu-Na fan. Alissa's is lovely and Mirai has a good one going, and the others, it's hard to tell because no one holds them for that long or else they turn them into some sort of contortionist's exercise.

Oreo said:

What a pity the present scoring system doesn't count spirals for much; the lack of a good spiral was one of the things that never really made me a Yu-Na fan. Alissa's is lovely and Mirai has a good one going, and the others, it's hard to tell because no one holds them for that long or else they turn them into some sort of contortionist's exercise.

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I find it very frustrating as well. I understand the need to reward difficulty; it is a sport, after all. But many of the memorable skating moments that have captured our hearts were those simple, elegant moved performed beautifully. Bobek's spiral was so spectacular and, yeah she didn't change positions 10 times or catch her foot, but it was a marvelous thing to see.

Thank you for the link, Oreo. I remember Jenny Kirk writing in her blog about Nicole and how she wished that one day we could all see that beautiful spiral on the ice again. Well....

One of the general things that I loved about Nicole's spiral is that her foot typically snapped quickly to the top of the spiral exactly at a high point in the music, which made everything just that much better.