Brian Boitano

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Olympic medal record
Men's Figure skating
Gold	1988 Calgary	Singles

Brian Boitano

Personal Info
Country:	United States
Residence:	San Francisco, California
Height:	5' 11"
Coach:	Linda Leaver, Sandra Bezic
Retired:	1988, 1994
ISU Personal Best Scores

Brian Anthony Boitano (born October 22, 1963 in Mountain View, California) is an American figure skater from Sunnyvale, California. Once a champion in the amateur ranks, he became a professional skater following the 1988 season.

Boitano is best remembered for his incomparable jumping technique, having propelled the technical aspect of the sport in both the amateur and professional ranks ^{[citation needed]}. He was the first American to land a triple axel in 1982; he was the first skater to attempt a quadruple jump in competition; and in 1987, he introduced his signature jump, the Tano triple lutz in which the skater, while performing an already extremely difficult jump, raises his left arm above his head.

The extent to which Boitano helped push the technical limits of the sport is quite astounding when one considers the type of elements that skaters regularly executed during the 10 years prior to Boitano's final competition as an amateur and the 10 years following his departure ^{[citation needed]}. The contrast in the difficulty of elements between a winning performance in 1978 and 1988 is quite stark, while the elements that Boitano executed in 1988 are still part of top performances today. Possessing such technical ability enabled Boitano to compete as a favorite in the second Olympics following his victory while previous Olympic champions would have found the technical landscape of their sport to have dramatically changed such that they would not be able to contend. Even in the professional ranks, Boitano was the first skater to regularly execute triple axels and land 6 triple jumps at the World Professional Championships. Prior to Boitano's entrance, professional skating had not at all emphasized technical prowess, but that significantly changed ^{[citation needed]}.

Contents 1 Amateur career 2 Professional career and 1994 Olympics 3 Competitive highlights and achievements 3.1 Amateur 3.2 Professional 3.3 Awards 4 Cultural references 5 Trivia 6 References 7 External links 8 Navigation

[edit] Amateur career

The highlight of Boitano's career is winning the much-celebrated "Battle of the Brians" over Canadian Brian Orser at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Following the departure of four-time World champion and 1984 Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton to the professional ranks, a power vacuum had been left in the world of eligible men's figure skating. Among likely successors of Hamilton were 1984 Olympic silver medalist Brian Orser and Hamilton's fellow American, Brian Boitano, who had finished 5th at the Sarajevo Games. At the first World Championships of the post-Hamilton era in 1985, Alexander Fadeev, then of the Soviet Union, was the surprise winner, with Orser finishing 2nd and Boitano 3rd. But in the 1986 World Championships in Geneva, Switzerland, Boitano took the title, while Orser had a disastrous free skate despite having been in an excellent position to win. The following World Championships in 1987 were held in Cincinnati, giving defending World champion Boitano a home-field advantage. Furthermore, the outcome of the event would set the tone for the 1988 Olympics. During the 1986-87 season, Boitano had introduced two new elements to his programs: the 'Tano triple lutz and a quadruple toe loop. Orser had also pushed the sport by introducing two triple Axels to the free skate. In Cincinnati, Boitano fell on his quadruple toe loop attempt, despite landing it perfectly during warmups, and that set the tone for the rest of the program. Brian Orser, on the other hand, skated fantastically, and took the gold medal.

The stage was set for the 1987-88 season, which included the 1988 Olympics. Upon losing the world title to Orser at home, Boitano and his coach Linda Leaver decided that some drastic changes needed to be made if Boitano were to become the Olympic champion. Boitano's technical elements had always been amazing, but his presentation had not; he was a self-described "jumping robot". In order to rectify these shortcomings in his artistic side, Canadian Sandra Bezic, now a legendary choreographer, was hired. Bezic recalls feeling somewhat uneasy about taking the job on two respects: She wondered if becoming Boitano's choreographer would constitute taking sides in the American Boitano vs. fellow Canadian Orser's looming duel in Calgary but Bezic also had doubts about whether Boitano could be transformed into an artistic skater. Boitano had usually skated to upbeat rock and roll music, trying to imitate Hamilton's and Orser's quick movements, but Bezic choreographed two programs that had clean lines and accentuated the 5' 11" Boitano's skating. The short program was based on Giacomo Meyerbeer's ballet Les Patineurs in which Boitano plays a cocky boy showing off his tricks and uses movements dating back to the 19th century. It is this program in which Boitano famously brushes off ice shavings off his skate and tosses it above his shoulder upon landing a very difficult triple axel-double loop combination. The free program was based on the film score Napoleon, detailing various phases of a soldier's life. Coincidently, Orser's free program this season also had a military theme, and both skaters' costumes involved military garbs: Boitano's blue and Orser's red.

Boitano debuted his new programs at 1987 Skate Canada, held in the Saddledome in Calgary, the same venue in which he would compete against Brian Orser for the Olympic title in three months. Boitano's new programs were received with standing ovations by the audience and quite a surprise by skating pundits. Orser actually won this competition, but Boitano showed amazing early season form, landing 7 flawless triple jumps, which was more than what Orser had landed. Furthermore, the 'Tano triple was refined, the triple Axel further improved, and the triple flip-triple toe loop combination now preceded by a footwork sequence. This sent a message that the significant strides in presentation did not come at the expense of technique; if anything, Boitano's technical elements were now much more difficult and better executed. Furthermore, Boitano, Leaver, and Bezic were so confident about the strength of Boitano's new programs that they omitted the quadruple toe loop, which if landed, would have put him a shoulder above Orser in technical merit even if Orser skated absolutely flawlessly.

The short program at the 1988 United States Figure Skating Championships proved to be a highlight. Boitano received marks of 6.0 from eight of the nine judges for presentation, not for his usual high mark of technical merit, although those marks were quite good as well. His free skate was not his best, but because of significant delays, the program was skated in the wee hours of the night, nearly 6 hours after it was scheduled. Boitano's only remark was, "I was sleepy." Orser faced a similar predicament at the Canadian Nationals: a fantastic short program, and a mediocre free skate due to extremely sloppy conditions. But both skaters had the clear backing of their national federations, and the stage was set for the Olympics.

The media coverage surrounding the head-to-head competition between Boitano and Orser, dubbed the "Battle of the Brians" was in a state of frenzy. At the Calgary games, Fadeev won the compulsories, with Boitano 2nd and Orser 3rd. Then in the short program, Orser finished 1st with a dramatic rendition of "Sing, Sing, Sing" and Boitano finished 2nd. Heading into the final free skating portion of the competition (worth 50% of the overall total), Boitano still had a slight lead over Orser, but the lead was so minuscule that the winner of the free skate was guaranteed to win the gold medal. Boitano went on to skate the performance of his life and win the gold, landing 8 triple jumps, including two triple Axels and a triple flip-triple toe loop combination. The performance is considered to be among the very best in the history of the sport, which is particularly impressive given the pressure of the Olympic Games as well as intense media scrutiny surrounding the "Battle of the Brians". To this day, the Sports Illustrated cover featuring Brian Boitano landing his second triple axel of the program marks the only time a male figure skater has appeared on the cover of the magazine.

[edit] Professional career and 1994 Olympics

Following his victory in Calgary and another win at the World Championships, Boitano turned professional. He went on to dominate competitions in the professional ranks, winning 10 straight professional competitions, including 5 consecutive World Professional Championship titles and 4 consecutive wins at the Challenge of Champions. During this five-year stretch, Boitano did not make a single technical error in his programs. In June 1993, the International Skating Union (ISU) introduced a clause, known as the "Boitano rule", which allowed professionals to reinstate as 'amateur' or 'eligible' skaters. This had been the result of Boitano's active involvement during the early 1990s, which saw professionals being allowed in the Olympic Games in the sports of tennis and basketball.^[1] Boitano reinstated as an amateur to compete in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Going into the Olympics as a gold medal favorite in a strong field, Boitano uncharacteristically missed his triple axel combination during the short program—the first time he ever made that mistake, according to commentator Scott Hamilton. This mistake proved extremely costly, and knocked Boitano out of medal contention. He skated a good long program and finished 6th.

[edit] Competitive highlights and achievements

[edit] Amateur

Event/Season	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1994
U.S. Championships	3rd	3rd	1st	1st	1st	1st	2nd
World Championships	-	-	3rd	1st	2nd	1st	-
Winter Olympics	-	5th	-	-	-	1st	6th

[edit] Professional

• Six-time World Professional Championships Champion (1988-1992, 1994).

[edit] Awards

• Inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1996).
• Inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1996).

[edit] Cultural references

• A caricature of Boitano as a superhero appears as a recurring character in the cartoon series South Park. The movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999), features a musical number titled "What Would Brian Boitano Do?". Boitano also appears in a 1995 Christmas cartoon that was a prototype of South Park, entitled The Spirit of Christmas. Boitano would later skate to a slightly-modified version of the song during his Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular in 1999.

• In 2006, Boitano was mentioned in a scene from the FX series Rescue Me.

• In a Madtv sketch Boitano is said to "star" in an adaptaion of Angela's Ashes on ice as Franky.

[edit] Trivia

• Boitano is a graduate of Peterson High School in Sunnyvale, California.^[2]
• Boitano won an Emmy for his portrayal of Don Jose in "Carmen on Ice."
• Boitano became the focus of a song "What Would Brian Boitano do?" performed in the South Park Movie "Bigger Longer and Uncut"

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Brian Boitano's U.S. Olympic Team bio
• Brian Boitano Fan Club

[edit] Navigation

Persondata
NAME	Boitano, Brian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Boitano, Brian Anthony
SHORT DESCRIPTION	United States figure skater
DATE OF BIRTH	October 22, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH	Mountain View, California
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH