{"id":3019,"date":"2022-02-09T11:56:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T16:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstandpen.com\/staging\/5861\/?p=3019"},"modified":"2022-02-10T10:05:01","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T15:05:01","slug":"surya-bonaly-paved-the-way-for-future-figure-skaters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstandpen.com\/staging\/5861\/surya-bonaly-paved-the-way-for-future-figure-skaters\/","title":{"rendered":"Surya Bonaly Paved The Way For Future Figure Skaters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

During the women\u2019s free skate portion of the team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics, 15-year-old Kamila Valiyeva of Russia become the first to land a quadruple jump at the Olympics<\/a> during competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to Valieyva\u2019s amazing move, only two who have competed in women\u2019s competition are believed to have attempted to land the skill in competitions before, Black figure skater Surya Bonaly of France in 1992 during the Albertville Games, and Japanese figure skater Miki Ando during the 2006 Torino Winter Games\u2014neither were successful<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

French figure skater Surya Bonaly\u2019s attempted quad thirty years ago, while she was a teen, was discounted due to under rotation. However, she paved the way for future attempts. Skating rules had precluded those competing in the women\u2019s category from performing quadruple jumps in the short program, but Bonaly, best known for her single-blade backflips, would not be deterred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She noted to NBC Sports\u2019 Nick Zaccardi that she had landed clean quads in practice, making it clear that she was capable of doing what many thought women weren\u2019t capable of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to do it, not because I wanted to be the first woman to do it, but because I know that women don\u2019t have to just be pretty and try to do a nice spiral,\u201d said Bonaly. \u201cWe definitely can mix both aspects of being pretty and be tough and be able to jump<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonaly\u2019s comments speak to the ways in which girls and women athletes are often bound by the politics of beauty when it comes to competition, where athleticism and strength are often deemed counter to ideal notions of femininity and grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a Black woman, Bonaly\u2019s athletic career was doubly bound by the intersection of race and gender in a sport historically residing in a white space. Sociologist Elijah Anderson defines it as an area in which the presence of Black and other people of color are unexpected, unwelcome, and\/or marginalized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are now a week into Black History Month. So far it\u2019s been marred by the murder of 22-year-old Amir Locke in Minneapolis, bomb threats made against several HBCU campuses by domestic terrorists and Black NFL coaches being humiliated in the head coaching process<\/a> once again.<\/p>

\r\n
\r\n