Looking Back - 1993 Worlds, Prague

Another retrospective -- the 1993 Worlds, which were held in Prague, Czech Republic. These championships featured some wonderful break-through performances and some performances that were, quite frankly, painful to watch. This may sound corny, but the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" were clearly shown at the 1993 Worlds.

The women:
Fifteen-year-old Oksana Baiul of the Ukraine, who had won the silver medal at the recent European Championships, stunned the figure skating world by winning the World title in her first-ever appearance. Oksana had skated a strong short program that left her in second place heading into the long program, and then she completely charmed and captivated the judges and the audience with a long program chocked-fill of triples and innovative, artistic choregraphy. Oksana skated with the poise and maturity of a seasoned champion.

US Champion Nancy Kerrigan, the reigning World silver medalist and Olympic bronze medalist, came into Worlds as the number-one ranked eligible skater and favorite to win her first World title. She had won the short program and appeared to be on her way to the gold medal. Then -- disaster struck, bigtime. Nancy suffered a really shocking meltdown in her long program. She singled her opening triple flip, put her hands down, stumbled, fell, or watered the rest of her jumps to singles. It was difficult to watch this program. When she finished her program, Nancy looked as though she wanted to flee from the rink. She appeared totally stunned when she sat in the kiss 'n cry area and received her cruel, but accurate, marks. She said, "I should have landed my jumps!" Kerrigan finished ninth in the long program, which dropped her to fifth place, out of the medals.

It was a disappointing competition for the American women. Lisa Ervin, the US silver medalist, finished 13th, and US bronze medalist Tonia Kwiatkowski finished 16th in her qualifying group and did not qualify for the rest of the competition. The US women had finished 1, 2, and 6 at the 1992 Worlds, and the US women had swept the medals at the 1991 Worlds. At Prague, the US women failed to bring home a single medal. Their poor overall showing meant that the US would be able to send only two women to the 1994 Olympics and Worlds.

Surya Bonaly of France won the first of three consecutive World silver medals. Her skating was pretty basic - skate to one end of the rink - JUMP - skate to the opposite end of the rink - JUMP - and so on. Her artistry was practically non-existent, IMHO. She was an incredible athlete, however.

Lu Chen of China won another World bronze medal.

The men:
Kurt Browning of Canada regained his World crown with an absolutely fantastic "Casablanca" long program. Bravo, Kurt!! Attired in white waiter's jacket and black pants, he looked like Humprey Bogart on ice. In one sequence, he flicked the ashes from a held cigarette, and he played to the audience and to the judges. In my opinion, this program was one of Kurt's finest - and he's skated so many masterpieces on the ice.

Elvis Stojko, Kurt's Canadian teammate, won the World silver medal with two strong programs. Alexei Urmanov of Russia won the bronze medal.

The US men finished out of the medals, as the women had done. US champion Scott Davis finished sixth, and US silver medalist Mark Mitchell finished fourth. Mitchell, particularly, was in an excellent position to medal, but he made several mistakes in his long program. Scott Davis had skated a terrific "West Side Story" to win the 1993 US title, but he made numerous errors at Worlds.

The pairs:
Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler of Canada won their first and only World title with two dynamic programs. Mandy Wotzel and Ingo Steuer of Germany won the silver, and Evgenia Eltsova and Andrey Bushkov of Russia won the bronze medal. The Canadians in the audience went wild with the victory in pairs (not to mention Kurt and Elvis 1-2 finish).

Jenni Meno and Todd Sand of the US finished fifth, and Calla Urbanski and Rocky Marval (the "Waitress and the Truck Driver") finished eighth.

Ice dance:
The Russians swept the medals, with Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin of Russia winning gold, Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov winning silver, and Anjelika Krylova and Vladimir Fedorov winning the bronze medal.

US champions Renee Roca and Gorsha Sur finished 11th, and silver medalists Susan Wynne and Russ Witherby finished fifteenth.

The exhibitions from that Worlds were also memorable. Oksana skated two numbers - "Swan Lake", which featured dancing on her toe picks, and a jazzy Michael Jackson number.

We had a blizzard in Philly during those Worlds (18 inches of snow). At that time it was called "The Blizzard of the Century" (until January 1996 when we had 30 inches). I mention this because we almost didn't get to see the pairs final. We were watching Isabelle & Lloyd on a split screen at best, but the local NBC station kept interrupting the coverage, giving snow reports all day. I was so glad they finally won Worlds.

Excuse me for my very personal biased gushing... but this event has a huge significance for me... I had kinda drifted away from figure skating for some years previously, then I happened to tune in to the worlds 93... then, for the first time I laid my eyes on my all time hero Alexei Urmanov... OMG he just captured all my attention and then some with his unforgettable short programme to Tchaikovsky's piano concerto, what a poetry in motion!!!! ... I remember it just like yesterday!! And I am sure I will for the rest of my life!!

I remember the women's competition vividly; what I remember most was having a really bad feeling the minute Nancy took the ice. It seemed like, up until then, almost EVERYONE was having a great night -- Sweszcenko, Kielmann, Preston, Kulovana (more on her in a second), Baiul, Bonaly, Chen, Sato -- and for some reason, the minute Nancy went out there, I thought, there is no way this is going to last; SOMEONE has got to be off tonight. It was just the oddest thing. And Chouinard, who skated after Kerrigan, was off, too, which really disappointed me, because I think with a great program, Josee could have won it all.

This was the only time I saw the Czech champion, Lenka Kulovana, who finished 10th, and I thought she was absolutely terrific -- elegant, dramatic, and downright sassy. I was hoping to see more of her over the years, but unfortunately she never did too well in Euros or Worlds again.

For some reason (I'm consulting my notes here); I never saw the Pairs or the Men; I'm assuming since I was living in New Orleans at the time, it was probably pre-empted for college basketball..... Saw Dance, but remember absolutely nothing about it because due to various rule changes, free dance from th 92-93 season until the 96-97 season was, IMHO, pure unadulterated TEDIUM, except for Bourne & Kraatz.

Nancy's meltdown really wasn't that much of a shock, IMO. The World silver she won in 1992 was pure luck. Everyone (but Kristi....and perhaps Hubert) skated as bad or worse than she did. She also won the U.S. title in Phoenix with a very unimpressive 3 triple skate. But, I think this is exactly what Nancy needed to motivate her. She finally broke through all of the mental barriers after this competition and delivered some of her best performances (93 Piruetten LP, 94 Olympic SP & LP). It is a shame she couldn't compete at Nationals in 1994....I bet she would have been spectacular (or at least better than Phoenix).
I also remember being shocked after watching Oksana's SP. She was so confident and charming......and so blatantly sexual with her hip gyrations! I loved it! The girl was out there feeling the music and doing her own thing. And, no matter what anyone says now, I will always look back on her amateur days with fond memories. She was a breath of fresh air, IMO.

iluvtodd said:

We had a blizzard in Philly during those Worlds (18 inches of snow). At that time it was called "The Blizzard of the Century" (until January 1996 when we had 30 inches). I mention this because we almost didn't get to see the pairs final. We were watching Isabelle & Lloyd on a split screen at best, but the local NBC station kept interrupting the coverage, giving snow reports all day. I was so glad they finally won Worlds.

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In Massachusetts it was the blizzard of 93. we also watched Isabelle and Lloyd on a split screen. Not much of their skate was shown

I was so upset over Nancy's zskate I actually threw up at the spoilers. Her skate was so painful to watch.

SkateFan4Life said:

Elvis Stojko, Kurt's Canadian teammate, won the World silver medal with two strong programs. Alexei Urmanov of Russia won the bronze medal.

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"Two" strong programs? I have to disagree strongly on the short program. In his short program Stojko did a three-turn in the middle of his triple axel-double
toe combo, stumbled in the middle of the circular footwork sequence, and stepped out of the final triple lutz. His marks ranged from 4.7 to 5.4, as it was unclear some judges were sure on the exact deductions. He was very lucky to end up in medal contention with a 5th place finish, it was due to a combination of: a)alot of flawed performances, Dmitrenko, Candelero, Davis, and many others all turned in flawed short programs, Millot managed to be 4th in the short with a triple lutz combo(a womens combo by that time)and a hand down on it, his performance wasnt even as good as Lu Chen's 5th place short program in the womens event IMO, b)the ordinals were so mixed and strangely arranged, his ordinals could easily have ended up 8th or 9th place, but had the lucky mix that he ended up 5th, it could have been alot worse. He did skate an outstanding long program with 8 clean triples, and improved artistry however. His short was not a "strong" performance by any means however, and he was lucky to get away with it as he did.

We had a horrendous snow and ice storm that weekend, too. I also wasn't exactly shocked at Nancy Kerrigan's meltdown in the Prague long program, as she had skated very mediocre long programs in a number of major competitions, including the 1992 Olympics, 1992 Worlds, and the 1993 US Nationals. The judges had held up her marks in those competitions - very generously, IMHO - but at Prague the judges gave her the marks she really and truly deserved. It was a sad moment for her, but it was a dose of hard reality.

I agree, the judges saw Nancy's potential first in 91, and were impressed enough with her to be slightly forgiving for flawed performances at each of the 92 Major events-U.S nationals, Olympics, World Championships. At the 93 U.S nationals, there was really nobody to challenge her anyway, so she could do anything and still win. The 93 Worlds was a reality dose, this time around the competition progressed with a series of inspired performances, and an error-
filled effort simply was not good enough. She took that hard lesson to heart though the following year, and must be admired for that.

Yes, Nancy really learned a hard lesson at the 1993 Worlds. She worked very hard at perfecting her technique so that she could deliver programs that were close to error-free, and she learned to control her competitive nerves. She showed the world how strong she really was after she was attacked at the 1994 US Nationals, and she deserves a HUGE amount of credit for recovering so quickly and for skating so beatifully at Lillehammer.

SkateFan4Life said:

Yes, Nancy really learned a hard lesson at the 1993 Worlds. She worked very hard at perfecting her technique so that she could deliver programs that were close to error-free, and she learned to control her competitive nerves. She showed the world how strong she really was after she was attacked at the 1994 US Nationals, and she deserves a HUGE amount of credit for recovering so quickly and for skating so beatifully at Lillehammer.

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Exactly! Her last year of amateur skating, was definitely her best and she pulled it all together for the most important year of her career, people still remember her great skating that year today, even though as we all know she narrowly missed the big prize due to 1 or 2 peoples opinions. It is a shame that she did not get to skate at U.S nationals and Worlds that year, and be able to put the new Nancy on display a couple more times than she was able to. Also after losing that heartbreaker in Lillehammer, winning the elusive World title would have been nice, but I guess she was flooded by marketing and commerical commitments by then, it would have been near impossable.

It always disappoints me when Olympic medalists retire immediately and do not compete at the Worlds that follow the next month. For Nancy Kerrigan, she would have been the favorite to win, as Oksana Baiul withdrew due to the back injury she suffered at the Olympics. Lu Chen, the Olympic bronze medalist, also withdrew from the Worlds with a foot injury, so Kerrigan would have been the only Olympic medalist to compete at the 1994 Worlds.

As you wrote, she was inundated with commercial deals, and possibly she felt she simply did not want to spend any more time training intensively to compete at that level.