Surya Bonaly

Surya Bonaly
Surya Bonaly at the Nuremberg Gala 2007
nation	France
birthday	15th December 1973
place of birth	Nice
size	156 cm
Weight	50 kg
Career
status	resigned
Medal table
World Cup medals 0 × 3 × 0 × EM medals 5 × 1 × 0 ×
World figure skating championships silver Prague 1993 Ladies silver Chiba 1994 Ladies silver Birmingham 1995 Ladies  European figure skating championships gold Sofia 1991 Ladies gold Lausanne 1992 Ladies gold Helsinki 1993 Ladies gold Copenhagen 1994 Ladies gold Dortmund 1995 Ladies silver Sofia 1996 Ladies

Surya Bonaly (born December 15, 1973 in Nice ) is a former French figure skater who started in a single run . It is the European champion of 1991 , 1992 , 1993 , 1994 and 1995 .

biography

Born in Nice in 1973, Bonaly was adopted by Suzanne Bonaly, a physical education teacher, and her husband, Georges, an architect who worked for the government. Bonaly's biological parents come from Reunion Island . At the age of ten, Bonaly began to train in the group of former figure skater and then figure skating coach Didier Gailhaguet . Before she got into figure skating, Bonaly did gymnastics , trampoline jumping and tumbling (a non-Olympic variant of floor gymnastics ), all of which were competitive. In tumbling, as later in figure skating, she even became a junior world champion.

From 1989 to 1997 Bonaly was French champion . In 1989 she first took part in world and European championships . In 1991 she became Junior World Champion in Budapest . In the same year she won her first gold medal at the European Senior Championships in Sofia . It was the first European championship title for a French woman in women's competition. Bonaly was able to defend this title four times, so that she was European champion five times in a row from 1991 to 1995 . Bonaly was replaced in 1996 by Irina Sluzkaja , behind whom she became vice European champion that year.

She wasn't that successful at world championships. Three times in a row she was runner- up from 1993 to 1995 , first behind Oksana Bajul , who she had defeated twice at the European Championships, then behind Yuka Sato and finally behind Chen Lu . At the World Figure Skating Championships in Chiba in 1994 , she felt cheated out of victory by the judges and initially did not step on the podium, later she demonstratively removed her silver medal and was booed by the audience. In 1993 she finished second behind Oksana Bajul, whom she had defeated with technical jumping skills, but to whom she was ultimately defeated due to the poorer ratings in artistic expression.

Bonaly took part in the Winter Olympics three times without winning a medal. In 1992 in Albertville she finished fifth, 1994 in Lillehammer fourth and 1998 in Nagano tenth. There, in the freestyle program, her last competition, she was the first to jump a backflip and one-legged, as the regulations require jumps to be landed with one leg. Nevertheless, the somersault in Nagano was not rated positively. She took the Olympic oath at the Winter Olympics in Albertville .

Bonaly was best known for her great jumping talent. In 1991 she was the first woman to attempt a quadruple jump, a toe loop , at world championships . She also made the jump, but only rotated it to the end on the ice, which is why it was not recognized as a quadruple jump. Bonaly herself was so delighted and excited after the jump that she fell shortly afterwards. She was often criticized for her lack of artistic expression and received low ratings in this segment.

Bonaly lives in Las Vegas , Nevada and became a US citizen in 2004 . Until 2007 she toured for several years with the ice revue Champions on Ice. She was also successful as a professional runner. She became the first woman here to master a one-legged back flip. Bonaly had previously been noticed in competitions as the runner with the fastest and longest pirouettes.

Results

Competition / year	1988	1989	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998
winter Olympics					5.		4th				10.
World championships		10.	9.	5.	11.	2.	2.	2.	5.
European championships		8th.	4th	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	2.	9.	6th
Junior World Championships		3.	2.	1.
French championships	4th	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	2.
Trophée Lalique		1.	1.		1.	1.	1.	3.

Web links

Commons : Surya Bonaly  - collection of images

• Surya Bonaly in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )