Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took the world by storm at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics with their Moulin Rouge performance.Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press
Some of the most iconic moments in Olympic history took place on toe picks. There’s a reason that figure skating always ranks among the most popular sports with audiences. It has it all: athleticism, artistry and a steady stream of scandal and off-ice drama.
On Friday, the first figure skaters competing at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will take the ice for the Team Event. To mark the occasion, The Globe and Mail has done the impossible and compiled a list of the Top 10* most memorable Olympic figure skating performances of all time.
*It was actually impossible to narrow it to 10, so we have a top 11.
11: Yuna Kim, Vancouver, 2010
There is a reason that she’s called Queen Yuna and regarded as a superstar not just in her native South Korea, but around the world. Yuna Kim’s flawless and record-breaking performance to Concerto in F at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 is one for the history books. (Canadian angle: Kim’s coach at the time was the legendary Brian Orser.)
10: Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz, Nagano, 1998
Long before the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games – when the rampant judging misconduct in figure skating was finally, unequivocally exposed – deserving athletes were being robbed of medals. Canadians Shae-Lynn Bourne and Victor Kraatz were among the system’s chief victims. They narrowly missed the podium at two Olympics, despite being one of the most exciting and innovative teams in the world.
Medal or not, their Riverdance at the 1998 Games has gone down as one of the most legendary programs in Canadian figure skating history. (In 2003, the duo became the first North American ice dance team to win the ISU World Figure Skating Championships.)
9: Surya Bonaly, Nagano, 1998
Throughout the 1990s, few skaters were as athletic and dynamic as France’s Surya Bonaly, who won five European titles and three World silver medals during her career. She could even perform a backflip on the ice, though the move was illegal as it was deemed too risky and not a “real” figure skating jump as it (allegedly) could not be landed on one foot. But at the 1998 Nagano Games, Bonaly – who was frequently criticized for not being artistic enough – made history when she popped a backflip into her program, gracefully landing on one foot.
She never won an Olympic medal, but that moment – a skater refusing to be told to tone down her ability – is one of the most iconic in Olympic history. The backflip is now legal and this will be the first Games since 1998 when skaters will perform the feat in Olympic competition.
8: Brian Orser, Calgary, 1988
The Battle of the Brians at the 1988 Calgary Olympics was one of those figure skating phenomena that broke out of the sport into the wider culture. In one corner was Canada’s Brian Orser. In the other, the United States’s Brian Boitano. The pair were long-time rivals and frequently swapped the top spot. However in Calgary, Boitano managed to narrowly edge out Orser for gold. Nearly four decades later, it remains one of the most memorable rivalries in figure skating.
7: Elvis Stojko, Lillehammer, 1994
Three-time world champion Elvis Stojko competed in four Olympic Games, winning two silver medals. The programs from both of those podium-finishing skates are iconic in different ways. In Nagano in 1998, the Canadian battled a serious groin injury – which he had kept secret – and still managed to deliver an incredible medal-worthy performance. But ultimately, the defining Stojko skate will always be his 1994 routine to Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. In that program, Stojko, who held a black belt in karate, showcased a kind of artistry that was atypical for the sport.
6: Elizabeth Manley, Calgary, 1988
It was the skate that inspired a generation of young girls to ask their parents for figure skating lessons: Canadian Elizabeth Manley laying down the performance of her life to secure a silver medal on home ice in Calgary. The image of Manley – an underdog in an event that featured Katarina Witt and Debi Thomas – gleefully receiving her marks while wearing a white cowboy hat sparks pure joy.
5: Joannie Rochette, Vancouver, 2010
When Canadian Joannie Rochette arrived at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, expectations were high. She was the six-time national champion and World silver medalist. And then the unthinkable happened: Just two days before she was set to compete, her mother died of a sudden heart attack at age 55. The Rochettes had just arrived in Vancouver to watch their daughter.
What happened next became a defining moment of the 2010 Games. Rochette took the ice and – while fighting back tears – skated a flawless short program that brought the home crowd to its feet. She went on to win the bronze medal.
4: Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, Lillehammer, 1994
Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov’s performance of Moonlight Sonata is top-to-bottom magic, perfectly marrying the two components of the sport: technical and artistic. Part of what made the program so compelling at the time was the love story between the Russian husband-and-wife team, who partnered when they were just children. Tragically, Grinkov died a year later of a massive heart attack. He was only 28 years old.
3: Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, Salt Lake City, 2002
It’s the program that changed figure skating forever. Jamie Salé and David Pelletier’s Love Story in Salt Lake City was so undeniably wonderful that it laid bare the judging scandals that had long dogged the sport. Despite a perfect skate, the Canadian duo were placed second behind Russians Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, who had faltered.
Soon after, the French judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne alleged that she had faced pressure to support the Russian team in exchange for favourable marks for France’s ice dancers, Gwendal Peizerat and Marina Anissina (who did win gold). A decision was made to name Salé and Pelletier co-gold medallists alongside the Russians. Going forward, the scandal led to an overhaul of figure skating’s scoring system to make it less subjective and susceptible to cheating.
2: Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, Sarajevo, 1984
There are some performances that are so powerful that they claim a piece of music forever, like retiring a basketball player’s jersey. This is why even a few notes of Boléro will always conjure the image of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean at the Sarajevo Olympic Games in 1984. The British ice dancing team’s iconic skate pushed the boundaries of the discipline at the time and earned incredible across-the-board perfect scores – nine 6.0s – in artistic impression from the judging panel.
1: Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, Pyeongchang, 2018
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you knew this was coming: The most memorable Olympic figure skating performance of all time comes from Canada’s Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. When the long-time ice dance partners arrived at those Games, they were already Olympic champions, having won in Vancouver in 2010. But after a silver finish in Sochi in 2014 – and a two-year competitive hiatus – the team mounted an epic comeback culminating in their Moulin Rouge masterpiece.
The duo’s chemistry on the ice in Pyeongchang caught the attention of skating and non-skating fans alike, creating a global Tessa and Scott mania. The couple won two more gold medals at that Games – one in the Team Event and one in ice dance – becoming the most decorated figure skaters in history.
Honourable mentions:
Katarina Witt’s Carmen at the Calgary Olympic Games in 1988.
Kurt Browning’s Casablanca at the Lillehammer Olympic Games in 1994.
Toller Cranston’s bronze medal performance at the Innsbruck Olympic Games in 1976.
All of Team Canada’s gold-medal winning competitors in the 2018 Team Event in Pyeongchang: Gabrielle Daleman, Kaetlyn Osmond, Patrick Chan‘s short and free, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir short and free and Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford’s short and free.