Surya Bonaly Radiolab interview

glorybox6 · Apr 22, 2016

The popular podcast Radiolab has just released a new 40 minute+ episode focused on Surya Bonaly.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/edge/

Not a lot of new content here for skating fans, but a surprising level of (mostly accurate) detail considering this is for a general audience.

Also, interviews with (whoa!) Tonya Harding, Elvis Stojko, Gailhaguet and (double whoa!) Marie-Reine Le Gougne.

Most interesting, I think, were Sandra Bezic's comments. She's very dismissive of the idea that racism had anything to do with Surya's marks over the years and sort of side-steps the insinuation that her criticism had anything to do with race either. I'm not sure she's totally successful, to be honest, and she comes off as somewhat defensive and a little bit privileged and in a bubble.

Curious what other folks think! An interesting listen for sure. It's been amusing to see how Surya has gotten quite a bit of attention from mainstream publications in recent years -- perhaps more than most other skaters, current or otherwise.

Crossover · Apr 22, 2016

I will certainly listen to this interview looking interesting. Thank you for informing this to us.

drivingmissdaisy · Apr 22, 2016

I have mixed feelings on Surya. She was definitely a weak "skater" so I think low marks are objectively justified. However, I think the question is whether, despite not having great skating skills, would she have gotten higher marks if she were white? Sasha Cohen was a weak skater the first few years of her senior career but still got great marks. Yes, she had great artistry but that is subjective and the knock on Surya was that she wasn't a good skater rather than her lack of artistry.

Botan · Apr 23, 2016

I always thought Surya was over scored. Her artistry wasn't that outstanding that it could have made up for her skating.
Sasha was overrated as well but she fit the mold of elegant, petite skater that the judges love.

andromache · Apr 23, 2016

Surya had great energy and performances even if her skating skills were bad and she lacked in the elegance department. Her weak SS would've been ignored completely if she tried harder to fit into the princess mold, looked less muscular, copied the white girls, etc. Her SS were terrible and she wasn't a princess, but I think some of the criticisms she received were the result of unintentional racism (sort of similar to people who make comments about Serena Williams looking too manly.) Because of the historical perception that black women are masculine, they have to try twice as hard to mimic white femininity, and Surya didn't do that.

Listening to the podcast now. I hope they acknowledge the potential for subtle racism AND the bad SS. Because the bad SS played a role too even though casual watchers might not pick up on it.

AsadaFanBoy · Apr 24, 2016

I'm listening to the radiolab interview right now.

It's as if they're deliberately not comparing Surya to Debi Thomas. Debi Thomas was a wonderful skater, much better skating skills, could hit a clean triple triple (when her 3T-3T was clean, it was beautiful!), had flow into and out of her jumps, and most importantly, gave Katarina Witt a run for her money! In skating, EVERYTHING counts. Debi Thomas was both graceful and powerfully athletic. And that was rewarded.

I just don't see a balanced perspective on Surya in this Radiolab segment. Surya could have worked on the artistic mark and on really improving her jumps (no flow out is a serious fault) and I truly think that she would have had more success. She had so much time to improve her skating. After all that time, she was still skating on flats.

And she kept on doing that weird running on the ice thing. That really wasn't cute.

kappa_1 · Apr 28, 2016

I like that they brought up the question of race. But also thought that it was interesting that they didn't address Debi's success. Not to say that Debi's success proved anything either way about the role of subtle racism, but that it would have made a stronger case had they addressed it. I also thought they downplayed the importance of good skating skills. It was framed as a purely aesthetic feature of ice skating rather than an aspect of technical mastery.

On a tangent, I'm so sad Mae Berenice didn't Mae the FS at worlds! I was only able to attend the FS and not the sp. I wonder if Surya is at all involved with mentoring the young French skaters?

ozmodiar · Jun 4, 2016

Prompted by listening to this podcast, someone posted a gif of Surya's backflip-3S on reddit which got a pretty good-sized response. There's nothing that hasn't already been talked about here but it's interesting reading skating discussion on a non-skating forum.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/4migmk/amazing_backflip_on_ice_skates/

andromache · Jun 4, 2016

ozmodiar said:
Prompted by listening to this podcast, someone posted a gif of Surya's backflip-3S on reddit which got a pretty good-sized response. There's nothing that hasn't already been talked about here but it's interesting reading skating discussion on a non-skating forum.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/4migmk/amazing_backflip_on_ice_skates/

Omg thank you for sharing. Some of the comments are gems.

"Skating Races are competitions. Spinny skating is not."

caitie · Jun 5, 2016

" Listen to the radio lab episode about this, it's pretty interesting. From what I understand it's more about form and grace than doing super sick tricks, bruh."

"No, professional ice skating is how many times you can spin 3 times in the air. It's been that way for decades, oh and it's also about Tara Lipinksi and Johnny Weir's clothes."

Ha. Thanks for the link, the comments were fun. People seem really into backflips. Maybe the ISU should consider allowing them in programs, IDK. Are they really that much more dangerous than quads?

andromache · Jun 5, 2016

caitie said:
" Listen to the radio lab episode about this, it's pretty interesting. From what I understand it's more about form and grace than doing super sick tricks, bruh."

"No, professional ice skating is how many times you can spin 3 times in the air. It's been that way for decades, oh and it's also about Tara Lipinksi and Johnny Weir's clothes."

Ha. Thanks for the link, the comments were fun. People seem really into backflips. Maybe the ISU should consider allowing them in programs, IDK. Are they really that much more dangerous than quads?

I was shocked at how into backflips people seemed and briefly thought the same thing as you. But, idk, there's something about backflips that seems so much more acrobatic than a matter of technique or skating skills...which for me would undermine the sport. I'm not assuming that technique doesn't matter during a backflip, but the fact that backflips can be done entirely on the flats of the skate blade means that "skating" has very little to do with the backflip.

It's so interesting thinking back to the origins of jumps, which were really all about precision and doing moves on correct edges and stuff--things very much related to blade-to-ice work--and how jumps have evolved to be much more dependent on what is done in the air. Though of course blade-to-ice technique does impact what can be done in the air. So I'm really just rambling.

Surya Bonaly Radiolab interview

glorybox6

Crossover

All Hail the Queen

drivingmissdaisy

Botan

andromache

AsadaFanBoy

kappa_1

ozmodiar

andromache

caitie

andromache

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