Christopher Bowman

Christopher Bowman
Full name	Christopher Nicol Bowman
nation	United States
birthday	March 30, 1967
place of birth	Hollywood, California
size	178 cm
date of death	January 10, 2008
Place of death	Los Angeles, California
Career
discipline	Single run
Trainer	Frank Carroll, Great Cranston, John Nicks
End of career	1992
Medal table
World Cup medals 0 × 1 × 1 ×
World figure skating championships silver Paris 1989 Men's bronze Halifax 1990 Men's

Christopher Nicol Bowman (born March 30, 1967 in Hollywood , California , † January 10, 2008 in North Hills , California) was an American figure skater who started in a single run .

Bowman started figure skating at the age of five, but was also a child actor on the side. He appeared in over 200 commercials such as for McDonald’s , Burger King and Pepsi as well as in television productions such as 1978 in “The Wedding”, “The Sound of Children” and 1979 in two episodes of “ Our Little Farm ”.

Bowman was the reigning American junior champion in Sarajevo in 1983 junior world champion . For the first time he stood on the national podium in 1987 and qualified for his first world championship , which he finished in seventh place. He was also seventh in his first Olympic Games in Calgary in 1988 . At the 1988 World Cup , he finished fifth. In 1989, Bowman was the first US senior champion and won his first world championship medal in Paris with silver behind Kurt Browning . At the World Cup the following year he won his second and last World Cup medal with bronze behind Browning and Wiktor Petrenko . He finished his fifth world championship in 1991 in fifth. In 1992 Bowman was again US champion . In his second Olympic Games he missed a medal in fourth in Albertville . This placement was repeated at his last World Cup .

During his figure skating career he was coached by Frank Carroll and after 1990 for a short time by Toller Cranston , who called him the most undisciplined figure skater of all time.

He was known as "Bowman the Showman" because he managed to dominate and electrify the audience in no time. Brian Boitano counted him among the three most talented figure skaters in history.

In the book "The Inside Edge" by Christine Brennan Bowman gave the daily consumption of cocaine worth $ 950 during his amateur career and was due to this addiction before the 1988 Winter Olympics in the Betty Ford Center treated.

In 1992 he turned professional and worked at Ice Capades. At that time he was training with John Nicks . The planned comeback to the 1994 Winter Olympics failed. Bowman then began working as a coach.

Bowman came into conflict with the law on several occasions. In 1993 he was beaten up by drug dealers. On October 27, 2004, he was arrested in his hometown of Lake Orion , Michigan , where he worked as a figure skating coach, for threatening a woman with a gun.

On January 10, 2008, Christopher Bowman was found dead in a motel. The autopsy revealed that the cause of death was an overdose of the drugs cocaine and valium found in his blood, as well as an enlarged heart. According to the investigation report, it should not have been suicide.

Bowman was divorced from figure skating coach Annette Bowman. With her he had a daughter named Bianca.

Results

Competition / year	1983	1984	1985	1986	1987	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992
winter Olympics						7th				4th
World championships					7th	5.	2.	3.	5.	4th
Junior World Championships	1.
American championships	1st J	9.	4th	Z	2.	3.	1.	Z	2.	1.

• J = juniors; Z = withdrawn

Web links

• Christopher Bowman in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• News of his death (English)
• Articles about Bowman (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/figureskating/news/story?id=3191349
2. ↑ ^{a b} http://detnews.com/article/20100530/METRO/5300310/1409/rss36