Brian Anthony Boitano is an American figure skater from Sunnyvale, California. He is the 1988 Olympic champion, the 1986 and 1988 World Champion, and the 1985–1988 U.S. National Champion.
Figure skating jumps are an element of three competitive figure skating disciplines: men's singles, women's singles, and pair skating – but not ice dancing. Jumping in figure skating is "relatively recent". They were originally individual compulsory figures, and sometimes special figures; many jumps were named after the skaters who invented them or from the figures from which they were developed. It was not until the early part of the 20th century, well after the establishment of organized skating competitions, when jumps with the potential of being completed with multiple revolutions were invented and when jumps were formally categorized. In the 1920s Austrian skaters began to perform the first double jumps in practice. Skaters experimented with jumps, and by the end of the period, the modern repertoire of jumps had been developed. Jumps did not have a major role in free skating programs during international competitions until the 1930s. During the post-war period and into the 1950s and early 1960s, triple jumps became more common for both male and female skaters, and a full repertoire of two-revolution jumps had been fully developed. In the 1980s men were expected to complete four or five difficult triple jumps, and women had to perform the easier triples. By the 1990s, after compulsory figures were removed from competitions, multi-revolution jumps became more important in figure skating.
Surya Varuna Claudine Bonaly is a French-born retired competitive figure skater. She is a three-time World silver medalist (1993–1995), a five-time European champion (1991–1995), the 1991 World Junior Champion, and a nine-time French national champion (1989–1997).
Midori Ito is a retired Japanese figure skater. She is the 1989 World champion and the 1992 Olympic silver medalist. She is the first woman to land a triple-triple jump combination and a triple Axel in competition. At the 1988 Calgary Olympics, she became the first woman to land seven triple jumps in an Olympic free skating competition. She is widely recognised as one of the best figure skaters of all time.
Scott Scovell Hamilton is a retired American figure skater and Olympic gold medalist. He won four consecutive U.S. championships (1981–84), four consecutive World Championships (1981–84), and a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics. His signature move, the backflip; a feat few other figure skaters could perform at the time, is against U.S. Figure Skating and Olympic competition rules. Yet, he would include it in his exhibition routines as an amateur to please the crowd. Later, he also used the backflip in his professional competition routines. He is widely recognized for his innovative footwork sequences. In retirement, he has been involved in charitable work and is the author of three books.
Timothy Richard Goebel is an American former competitive figure skater. He is the 2002 Olympic bronze medalist. He was the first person to land a quadruple salchow jump in competition and the first person to land three quadruple jumps in one program. He landed 76 career quadruple jumps before his retirement in 2006.
John Garvin Weir is an American figure skater and television commentator. He is a two-time Olympian, the 2008 World bronze medalist, a two-time Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, the 2001 World Junior Champion, and a three-time U.S. National champion (2004–2006). He was the youngest U.S. National champion since 1991, in 2006 the first skater to win U.S. Nationals three times in a row since Brian Boitano in the late 1980s, and the first American to win Cup of Russia in 2007.
Brian Ernest Orser, is a Canadian former competitive and professional figure skater and coach to Olympic champions. He is the 1984 and 1988 Olympic silver medallist, 1987 World champion and eight-time (1981–88) Canadian national champion. At the 1988 Winter Olympics, the rivalry between Orser and American figure skater Brian Boitano, who were the two favorites to win the gold medal, captured media attention and was described as the "Battle of the Brians".
Evan Frank Lysacek is an American retired figure skater. He is the 2010 Olympic champion, the 2009 World champion, a two-time Four Continents champion, the 2009 Grand Prix Final champion, and a two-time U.S. national champion. Lysacek was the 2010 United States Olympic Committee's SportsMan of the Year, and the winner of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top U.S. amateur athlete of 2010. On January 22, 2016, he was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Kimberly Claire "Kimmie" Meissner is an American former competitive figure skater. She is the 2006 World champion, the 2007 Four Continents champion, and the 2007 U.S. national champion. She is the first American and the first woman to simultaneously hold the World, Four Continents, and national titles. In 2005, Meissner became the second American woman to land the triple Axel jump in national competition. She was the youngest American athlete to compete at the 2006 Olympics, coming in sixth place. She won the World Championships the following month, and the U.S. Nationals the following season. She was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2020.
The Battle of the Brians was an informal name given by the press to the figure skating rivalry between Canadian Brian Orser and American Brian Boitano at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. This competition is considered one of the most memorable in men's figure skating history.
The following is a glossary of figure skating terms, sorted alphabetically.
Brandon Mroz is an American former competitive figure skater. He is the 2009 U.S. silver medalist and the 2006 & 2007 Junior Grand Prix Final silver medalist. He is the first skater to have completed a quadruple Lutz jump in a sanctioned competition.
Ashley Elisabeth Wagner is an American former figure skater. She is the 2016 World silver medalist, a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist in the team event, the 2012 Four Continents champion, a three-time Grand Prix Final medalist, winner of five Grand Prix events, and a three-time U.S. national champion.
Denis Yurievich Ten was a Kazakhstani figure skater. He was the 2014 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time World medalist, the 2015 Four Continents champion, the 2017 Winter Universiade champion, and a five-time national champion of Kazakhstan.
A quad, or quadruple, is a figure skating jump with at least four revolutions. All quadruple jumps have four revolutions, except for the quadruple Axel, which has four and a half revolutions. The quadruple toe loop and quadruple Salchow are the two most commonly performed quads. Quadruple jumps have become increasingly common among World and Olympic level men's single skaters, to the point that not performing a quad in a program has come to be seen as a severe handicap. This phenomenon is often referred to as the "quad revolution". Since 2018, quadruple jumps have also become an increasingly common feature of women's skating, although they are not allowed under the ISU rules in the ladies' short program. The first person to land a ratified quadruple jump in competition was Canadian Kurt Browning in 1988. Japanese skater Miki Ando became the first female to do so, in 2002.
Chen Lu is a Chinese former figure skater. She is the 1994 and 1998 Olympic bronze medalist and the 1995 World Champion. Chen won the first ever Olympic medal in figure skating for China.
Larry Holliday is an American figure skater. He is the six time U.S. Adult Championship Masters Men Champion, and he was a member of Team USA in 1990.
The 1985 U.S. Figure Skating Championships was held in early 1985 at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. Medals were awarded in four colors: gold (first), silver (second), bronze (third), and pewter (fourth) in four disciplines – men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing – across three levels: senior, junior, and novice.
Alysa Liu is a retired American competitive figure skater. Liu is the youngest-ever U.S. women's national champion, having won her first title at age 13. She is also the youngest to win two senior national titles at age 14. Liu is the first to win two consecutive titles since Ashley Wagner in 2012 and 2013. She is also the first woman to win the junior and senior titles back-to-back since Mirai Nagasu in 2008. She is the 2022 World bronze medalist, the 2021 CS Nebelhorn Trophy champion, the 2021 CS Lombardia Trophy champion, and a two-time U.S. national champion. She competed in the 2022 Winter Olympics, placing seventh.
