1993 Worlds

Who deserved the ladies' title at the 1993 World Championships?

I know this has been done before, but there are several new people and it has been a while. I was reading over some topics and debates on other boards and was surprised to see that this was an event still discussed. Many people felt Surya Bonaly should have won. Here are the marks and ordinals:

5.7 5.6 5.5 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.8 5.7 5.6 BAIUL
5.9 5.8 5.8 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7
2 3 1 1 1 2 1 2 1
5.9 5.8 5.7 5.8 5.8 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.7 BONALY
5.8 5.5 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.7 5.5 5.8 5.6
1 4 3 2 3 1 4 1 2
5.7 5.8 5.5 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.7 5.4 5.6 CHEN
5.8 5.7 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.5 5.7 5.5 5.6
3 2 4 3 2 3 2 3 3
5.6 5.6 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.6 5.5 5.4 SATO
5.6 5.9 5.7 5.6 5.6 5.5 5.7 5.4 5.6
4 1 2 4 4 4 3 4 4

Here are my thoughts after rewatching the competition:
1. Baiul - Five solid triples and two double axels, but no combinations. She also had strong spins but no real difficult combinations. However, I feel her presentation and flow were superior to the rest that night. She skated with emotion and the overall package was the best. I would have gone with 5.6/5.8

2. Chen Lu - Six beautiful triple jumps and two double axels. The spins were mediocre and not extremely difficult. Chen had impressive flow and was developing quite nicely, but the music was far too heavy. A solid skate, but no where near the quality of Chen's later years. 5.7/5.7

3. Bonaly - Brilliant technical performance with seven triples and two double axels, including a 3t/.5/3s. Her spins were also fast and included difficult combinations. However, the program was sparse choreography wise and much of the skating was jump set up. And, Surya's edging and stroking techniques were extremely poor and her skating lacked any real fluidity. 5.8/5.6

4. Sato - Solid skating overall with four triples and lovely presentation, but didn't come anywhere close to the explosive performance she would deliver at the 1994 Worlds. 5.5/5.6

Boy, did I have to dig into my archives for this one! I'm going on my notes from the time; it would be interesting to see a videotape of it now 11 years later to see if my opinions would have been any different.

Chen & Sato were both pretty good, BUT they were, respectively, 5th & 6th after the SP, so even had they won the free skate they likely wouldn't have won the overall title anyway.

So for me it would have to come down to Bauil or Bonaly, which for me is a tough choice. I could never understand how Bonaly could have been given 5 European titles when she never really knew how to actually skate, and I've never been much of a Bauil fan, either; she IMO always had the "OOOOOOOOh, isn't she precious?" routine going on a little too much for me.

But, given the overall circumstances of that wild night in Prague, I'd probably give it to Bonaly. My notes indicate that this was actually one of the rare occasions where she put on a program that was actually moderately championship-level and she had IMO actually improved quite a bit at that time, tho in later seasons she fell right back into her old mode again. Bauil I considered over-rated, tho I did make a note of her "above average on-ice personality".

What I would have liked to have seen happen was Josee Chouinard rising to the occasion; she was the final skater of the night and was definitely in position to win, but unfortunately she had way too many problems to even maintain her 4th-place SP position.

I think the right skater won. I say Oksana all the way--she was definantely the best of that night. Her maturity and flow, and presentation that night was unmatched.