My lit review roundup concluded with Ekaterina Gordeeva’s My Sergei: A Love Story (with E.M. Swift). If the Russian pairs team of Gordeeva and Grinkov weren’t famous enough with two Olympic gold medals, Grinkov’s sudden, premature death in late1995 during routine training in Lake Placid would’ve been enough to seal their fame forever. My Sergei ( Read more... )

The fourth book I chose to read was A Skating Life: My Story, by Dorothy Hamill. After the inanity of the Lipinski book, anything would likely have seemed better, but I dare say Hamill’s book is actually quite good, and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit.

I should begin by saying: I have no emotional investment in Hamill’s skating career. She had ( Read more... )

My next installment (and least favorite of these books) is Triumph on Ice by Tara Lipinski. Like Kwan’s book, it should likely be read with a grain of salt given the age of the “author” and the intended audience. A mere 101 pages in the same oversized font as Heart of a Champion, Triumph also includes (surprise!) a skating glossary and scoring ( Read more... )

Next, I read Michelle Kwan’s Heart of a Champion. The Kween, as I like to call her, was 17 when this was published. She’s the Kween because she’s won the World Championships 5 times and the US National Championships 9 times. Despite these successes, I was heartbroken to see her fail to win an Olympic Gold both in 1998 and again in 2002. I feel like ( Read more... )

When I heard that Johnny Weir had signed a book deal for an autobiography, I can’t lie: I got really, really excited. By the time the thing is published in January 2011, I’ll be lucky if my long-suffering coworkers haven’t killed me for talking about it non-stop. I even have a working title for it in my mind: Our House Had Electricity: Growing ( Read more... )

Happy April Fools' Day, everyone!

This last month has been a major drag in a lot of ways, but one way it hasn't sucked has been my consumption of all things to do with figure skating.

First, I found this awesome snarktastic blog, Aunt Joyce's Ice Cream Stand. It's written by a young gay man who used to do gymnastics (I think) but also loves ( Read more... )

As the 2010 Winter Olympics were drawing to a close, I couldn't stop myself from ferreting out and watching Pop Star on Ice, the documentary about figure skater Johnny Weir.

I first became aware of it via a post on Project Rungay, which is a review of the doc and a bit of promo for the reality series on Sundance Channel, Be Good Johnny Weir. After ( Read more... )