Brian Boitano

Brian Anthony Boitano (born October 22, 1963 in Mountain View, California) is an American figure skater from Sunnyvale, California. Once a champion in the amateur ranks, he became a professional skater following the 1988 season.

Boitano is probably best remembered for his incomparable jumping technique, having propelled the technical aspect of the sport in both the amateur and professional ranks. He was the first American to land a triple axel in 1982; he was the first skater to attempt a quadruple jump in competition; and in 1987, he introduced his signature jump, the Tano triple lutz in which the skater, while performing the already extremely difficult jump, raises his left arm above his head.

The extent to which Boitano helped push the technical limits of the sport is quite astounding when one considers the type of elements that skaters regularly executed during the 10 years prior to Boitano's final competition as an amateur and the 10 years following his departure. The contrast in the difficulty of elements between a winning performance in 1978 and 1988 is quite stark, while the elements that Boitano executed in 1988 are still very much part of a top performance today. Possessing such technical ability enabled Boitano to compete as a favorite in the second Olympics following his victory while previous Olympic champions would have found the technical landscape of their sport to have dramatically changed such that they would not be able to contend. Even in the professional ranks, Boitano was the first skater to regularly execute triple axels and land 6 triple jumps at the World Professional Championships. Prior to Boitano's entrance, professional skating had not at all emphasized technical prowess, but that significantly changed.

Amateur career

The highlight of Boitano's career is winning the much celebrated Battle of the Brians over Canadian Brian Orser at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Following the departure of four-time World champion and 1984 Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton to the professional ranks, a power vacuum had been left in the world of eligible men's figure skating. Among likely successors of Hamilton were 1984 Olympic silver medalist Brian Orser and Hamilton's fellow American, Brian Boitano, who had finished 5th at the Sarajevo Games. At the first World championships of the post-Hamilton era in 1985, Alexander Fadeev, then of the Soviet Union, was the surprise winner, with Orser finishing 2nd and Boitano 3rd. But in the 1986 World Championships in Geneva, Switzerland, Boitano took the title, while Orser unfortunately suffered a disastrous free skate despite having been in an excellent position to win. The following World Championships in 1987 were held in Cincinnati, giving the defending World champion Boitano a home-field advantage. Furthermore, the outcome of the event would set the tone for the 1988 Olympics. During the 1986-87 season, Boitano had introduced two new elements to his programs: the Tano triple lutz and a quadruple toe loop. Orser had also pushed the sport by introducing two triple Axels to the free skate. In Cincinnati, Boitano fell on his quadruple toe loop attempt, despite landing it perfectly during warmups, and that set the tone for the rest of the program. Brian Orser, on the other hand, skated fantastically, and took the gold medal.

The stage was set for the all-important 1987-88 season, which of course included the 1988 Olympics. Upon losing the world title to Orser at home, Boitano and his coach Linda Leaver decided that some drastic changes needed to be made if Boitano were to become the Olympic Champion. Boitano's technical elements had always been amazing, but his presentation had not; he was a self-described "jumping robot". In order to rectify these shortcomings in his artistic side, Canadian Sandra Bezic, now a legendary choreographer, was hired. Bezic recalls feeling somewhat uneasy about taking the job on two respects: She wondered if becoming Boitano's choreographer would constitute taking sides in the American Boitano vs. fellow Canadian Orser's looming duel in Calgary but Bezic also had doubts about whether Boitano could be transformed into an artistic skater. Boitano had usually skated to upbeat rock and roll music, trying to imitate Hamilton's and Orser's quick movements, but Bezic choreographed two programs that had clean lines and accentuated the 5' 11" Boitano's skating. The short program was based on Giacomo Meyerbeer's ballet Les Patineurs in which Boitano plays a cocky boy showing off his tricks and uses movements dating back to the 19th century. It is this program in which Boitano famously brushes off ice shavings off his skate and tosses it above his shoulder upon landing a very difficult Triple axel-double loop combination. The free program was based on the film score Napoleon by Francis Ford Coppola, detailing various phases of a soldier's life. Coincidently, Orser's free program this season also had a military theme, and both skaters' costumes involved military garbs: Boitano's blue and Orser's red.

Boitano debuted his new programs at 1987 Skate Canada, held in the Saddledome in Calgary, the same venue in which he would compete against Brian Orser for the Olympic title in three months. Boitano's new programs were received with standing ovations by the audience and quite a surprise by skating pundits. Orser actually won this competition, but Boitano showed amazing early season form, landing 7 flawless triple jumps, which was more than what Orser had landed. Furthermore, the Tano triple was refined, the Triple Axel further improved, and the Triple Flip-Triple Toe Loop combination now preceded by a footwork sequence. This sent a message that the significant strides in presentation did not come at the expense of technique; if anything, Boitano's technical elements were now much more difficult and better executed. Furthermore, Boitano, Leaver, and Bezic were so confident about the strength of Boitano's new programs that they omitted the quadruple toe loop, which if landed, would have put him a shoulder above Orser in technical merit even if Orser skated absolutely flawlessly.

The short program at the 1988 US National Championships proved to be a highlight. Boitano received marks of 6.0 from eight of the nine judges for presentation, not for his usual high mark of technical merit, although those marks were quite good as well. His free skate was not his best, but because of significant delays, the program was skated in the wee hours of the night, nearly 6 hours after it was scheduled. Boitano's only remark was, "I was sleepy." Orser faced a similar predicament at the Canadian Nationals: a fantastic short program, and a not-so-great free skate due to extremely sloppy conditions. But both skaters had the clear backing of their national federations, and the stage was set for the Olympics.

The media coverage surrounding the head-to-head competition between Boitano and Orser, dubbed the Battle of the Brians was in a state of frenzy. At the Calgary games, Fadeev won the compulsories, with Boitano 2nd and Orser 3rd. Then in the short program, Orser finished 1st with a dramatic rendition of Sing, sing, sing and Boitano finished 2nd. Heading into the final free skating portion of the competition (worth 50% of the overall total), Boitano still had a slight lead over Orser, but the lead was so minuscule that the winner of the free skate was guaranteed to win the gold medal. Boitano went on to skate the performance of his life and win the gold, landing 8 triple jumps including two triple axels and a triple flip-triple toe loop combination. The performance is considered to be among the very best in the history of the sport, which is particularly impressive given the pressure of the Olympic Games as well as intense media scrutiny surrounding the Battle of the Brians. To this day, the Sports Illustrated cover featuring Brian Boitano landing his second triple axel of the program marks the only time a male figure skater has appeared on the cover of the magazine.

Professional career

Following his victory in Calgary as well as another gold medal at the World Championships in Budapest, Boitano turned professional. He went on to dominate competitions in the professional ranks, winning 10 straight professional competitions, including 5 consecutive World Professional Championship titles and 4 consecutive wins at the Challenge of Champions. During this five-year stretch, Boitano did not make a single technical error in his programs. In June 1993, the International Skating Union (ISU) introduced a clause, known as the "Boitano rule", which allowed professionals to reinstate as 'amateur' or 'eligible' skaters. This had been the result of Boitano's active involvement during the early 1990s, which saw professionals being allowed in the Olympic Games in the sports of tennis and basketball. Boitano reinstated to have a crack at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Going into the Olympics as a gold medal favorite among a star-studded field, Boitano uncharacteristically missed his triple axel combination during the short program—for the first time ever, according to Scott Hamilton—and this proved extremely costly, knocking Boitano completely out of medal contention. He fought back to finish 6th.

Competitive highlights and achievements

Amateur

Olympic Champion (1988).
Two-time World Champion (1986, 1988).
Four-time United States National Champion (1985-1988).

Professional

Six-time World Professional Championships Champion (1988-1992, 1994).

Awards

Inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1996).
Inducted into the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame (1996).

Cultural references

A caricature of Boitano as a superhero appears as a recurring character in the cartoon series South Park. The movie Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999), features a musical number titled "What Would Brian Boitano Do?". Boitano also appears in a 1995 Christmas cartoon that was a prototype of South Park, entitled The Spirit of Christmas. Boitano would later use the song during one of his skating routines.

In 2006, Boitano was mentioned in a scene from the FX series Rescue Me.

Trivia

Boitano is a graduate of Peterson High School in Sunnyvale, California. [http://www.petersonhigh.com/

External links

Brian Boitano's U.S. Olympic Team bio

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