Elaine Zayak

Elaine Zayak
Full name	Elaine Kathryn Zayak
nation	United States
birthday	April 4, 1965
place of birth	Paramus, New Jersey
size	157 cm
Weight	50 kg
Career
society	SC of New York
Trainer	Peter Burrows, Marylynn Gelderman
status	resigned
Medal table
World Cup medals 1 × 1 × 1 ×
World figure skating championships silver Hartford 1981 Ladies gold Copenhagen 1982 Ladies bronze Ottawa 1984 Ladies

Elaine Kathryn Zayak (born April 4, 1965 in Paramus , New Jersey ) is a former American figure skater who starts in the individual run . She is the world champion of 1982 .

Career

At the age of two, Elaine Zayak had an electric lawn mower accident. As a result, she lost part of her left foot, two little toes. On the advice of her doctor, she began figure skating as physical therapy . Her left shoe needed an insert to compensate for the missing foot part as best as possible. Zayak trained with Peter Burrows and Marylynn Gelderman .

In 1979 Zayak became World Junior Champion . She made her breakthrough among the seniors in 1981. For the first time she traveled as the reigning US champion to a world championship and was runner-up behind the Swiss Denise Biellmann in Hartford . A year later she became world champion in Copenhagen . After winning this title, she found it difficult and especially had difficulties in the compulsory figures. At the 1983 World Cup , she had to withdraw. But she fought her way back. She finished sixth at the Olympic Games in Sarajevo , but won a bronze medal again at the World Championships in Ottawa with a similar performance.

Zayak was the first woman to have many triple jumps in her program. At the 1982 World Cup she jumped six triple and won ahead of Katarina Witt . However, four of these jumps were triple toe loops . Because of these frequent repetitions of the same jump, the regulations were changed and the so-called zayak rule was introduced. According to this, each jump may only be carried out twice in a program, one of which must be performed in combination with another jump.

In 1984 Zayak switched to the professionals for a few years. In 1993 she was reamateurised to start again at the 1994 Winter Olympics . Despite good performance, however, she was only fourth at the US Championships in 1994 and could therefore not qualify.

Elaine Zayak has been married since 2000 and has one son, Jack. She is a figure skating coach in Hackensack , New Jersey . She is also a spokesperson for the US Figure Skating Federation.

Results

Competition / year	1979	1980	1981	1982	1983	1984	1994
winter Olympics						6th
World championships		11.	2.	1.	Z	3.
Junior World Championships	1.
American championships		4th	1.	3.	2.	3.	4th

• Z = withdrawn

Web links

• Elaine Zayak in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )