Radiolab - On the Edge

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

At the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, one athlete pulled a move that, as far as we know, no one else had ever attempted. In this episode, first aired in the Spring of 2016, we tell you about Surya Bonaly. Surya was not your typical figure skater: she is black, she is athletic, and she didn’t seem to care about artistry. Her performances—punctuated by triple jumps and other power moves—thrilled audiences around the world. Yet commentators claimed she couldn’t skate and judges never gave her high marks. But Surya didn’t accept that criticism. Unlike her competitors—ice princesses who hid behind demure smiles—Surya made her feelings known.  Then, during her final Olympic performance, she attempted one jump that flew in the face of the establishment and marked her for life as a rebel. Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail] Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Hey, Oulu here. We are going back to the archives for hands down one of my top three favorite radio labs of all time. I'm not going to say anymore. Here is Chad and Robert. Listening to radio lab radio from W and Y Okay, so then what we can introduce this how would you convince the many people listening to stay listening because it's a great story It doesn't matter that it's figure skating. It's like a really good story. It's a good story that like pops off of it's like, okay, I'm Chad Abramron. I'm Robert Crowley. This is radio lab. And look, I've never been a huge fan of figure skating, but like this story, I think, asks a really

interesting question. The question would be, what if you, with all your heart, wanted to be the best at something, but the persons who judge what's the best at this something you want to do, don't share the bestness with your sense of bestness so you do your best and they're best and you're best are different and now you can't best it out. What do you do? What do you do? Story comes from our producer, Lattif Nasser and also producer Tracy Hunt. Okay.

Okay, okay. All right. Okay. So let's start then. So okay. So we're starting in 1998 with the're at the Olympics in Nagano. In Japan. Japan.

And... So we've seen the girls... ...worming up on the ice. You have this woman, this figure skater, Saria Bonnelly. How do you spell Saria? S-U-R-Y-A. She's French, 24 years old.

She's black. Five times European champion, but also also a problem, particularly injury problem. She's got Nikkeie's tendon that's been stitched together. She's called a muscle. She's on painkillers. She competed for France in 1994 and just missed the podium. She's never metaled at the Olympics before. This is her, probably her last go in front of the world.

And it was during this performance that Sarie Bonnelly did something that had never been done by anyone, anyone, ever. And you could either see it as a kind of middle finger to the establishment, it's like this huge FU. Or... Oh, it's a spiky old record! Oh! Hello. Just this beautiful moment of self-affirmation.

What did you do? Uh, we'll get there. Hello? Hello! How are you doing? Pretty good, thanks. I laughed out loud when I heard you say that you would call me on your Zamboni break. We'll get there. Hello. Hello. How are you doing? Pretty good. Thanks.

I laughed out loud when I heard you say that you would call me on your Zamboni break. Yeah. I know it was like this all the time. And I guess it was a little bit more. Okay, so to really understand just the context of all this and the stakes of that moment, we got to go all the way back. So how did you first get in discating? Well, I did start skating because of my mom, actually.

So, Syria was actually adapted as a baby by this white couple in the South of France. She grew up in Nice. My mom was a sport coach and she was able to be like a volunteer for a gymnastic club and skating club. So, even though I was small, tiny tiny, she just put me on the ice and say, hey, just hang around and chill on the ice and spend lots of hours there, just waiting for my mom. And one day I get to find out that some skating boots would fit me. some skating boots who fit me. And... She started skating.

Yeah, fortunately I was good at it. Pretty thin. She had a coach from the local ring. I guess a coach can of call and have a meeting with your parents and say, hey, you know, it would be nice if you could come like two times a week. It would probably be nice if we could do maybe four times a week. Well, how about every day? I was like, oh, okay.

Here we go. And so by the age of 10, she decides she wants to spend her life figure skating. time's a week. Well, how about every day? I was like, oh, okay. Here we go. So by the age of 10, she decides she wants to spend her life figure skating. It was my dream to, you know, to do it and I know I can. So she would go to these ice shows. Like, holy day or nice. When I see the show, I love the bling-bling. I love the showtime and just, you know, those fantastic costumes. She would see all these vane skaters, and my eyes gluoned those skaters. They would just be flying through the air.

I thought it was like amazing. And she would go to practice, and she would practice all of the things she saw, all the double axles, and the triple toe loops, and split jumps, and the south cows, and the double south cows, and the, you know, quadruple double triple axles. Do you have any idea what you're saying right now? No, no, no

These are all just words to me. It was very fast and proved like every week every month. You can see a difference And speaking of difference, you know if we fast forward a little bit and here she is on the world stage Suria, but I leave in 1989 when she appears at the world championships The thing that becomes really apparent is that she is different. Yeah, because I was black, so I was like, what? French, black. So I'm black. And I definitely remember when she was about to skate, my mom would be like, the black girl skating. So we all had to like pay attention.

And so people started to be kind of curious. This girl is very different. Oh, it was, it was arrested. That's John at Howard. Can you write it for yespian.com. So your bummerlea is a striking and exotic figure on the ice. She just arrested your eyes when she skated. The contrast of her skin on the ice was beautiful.

And then there were these fanciable stories that sprung up about where she came from. We are now taking you about as far away from the skating world as possible. Pretty much as soon as she hit the scene, you started hearing these rumors that she had been adopted from a coconut-strune beach in reunion island off the coast of Madagascar.

And unlikely place to find a world-class figure skater. And that she had, that she, what was it? That she never cut her hair. So, you have not cut her hair since her birth. That she existed on a diet of bird seed and all these things. Yeah. I think she's some kind of black bird seed and all these things. Yeah. I do like she saw a kind of black forest princess or something. Exactly.

Yeah. Seria says, you know, at that age, she really didn't know too much about what was going on. I know, a kid I was like whatever, my coach Gillett, you know, he's a one who's speaking English. She could barely speak English. She was barely 16. Yeah, she was still a young baby. I, you know, I did talk to the guy who was coaching her at the time, a, this guy named Didier Gaige. And, and he told me he planted these stories.

We used the press very well. Wait, what? He said that he made up the beach thing, he made up the hair thing because he was trying to, she was a star. And what do we want to hear? Stories, right? So we made some stories, some good ones. Do you know what I mean? I'm just saying that we're making up stories

because you want to hear them. That is just creeped out. Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's shady as f***. But I can kind of see where he was going because what he was trying to do was that he was trying to present her to the world as this radically

new kind of skater. Because females skating at that moment were nice cute girls. Especially for ladies, they like to keep girls pretty. Flowers for Catarina. Those famous skaters like Catarina, the ravishing Catarina, oh. Sonia Henny. Sonia Haney. And then we're like totally like woman, you know, pretty graceful, who makes those men,

you know, crazy when you're watching it. You know, they were also... Why? How would I say? They had a certain conception of female skating. We didn't have the same one. And it wasn't just that she looked different, she also skated different. Lee. It was a totally different approach.

Surya was always very like explosive. Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis Stoiko is in the builder. Every time World Figure Skating Champion met Surya, Junior's 1990. For me, it was sort of a new face on the scene. That is the like the fresh stick of y'all. Tiny 15 year old French girl who's captured everyone's imagination. Like say a Tanya Harding style skating. She was so exciting and there was just no boundaries for her. This is Tanya Harding.

Mm-hmm. And she and Seria were friends. The strength and the power. She'd step on the ice and people would go crazy. Surya, follow me. She'd strike a pose and then just take off. Surya would go from one end to the other, did speed across the ice.

Flying, with powerful stroking. Her opening, a triple-lice and a triple toe. She'd come hurly into these jumps. The lad! Soaring through the air. Triple toe. She come hurly into these jumps. Triple-lice! Soaring through the air. Triple-towel. With powerful spin, both of these. And she took jump back to jump.

Really was a cool cut. She really is amazing. Combination after combination. I had her triple-towel. I prefer to hit a triple-triple jump, because I'm just to do a pretty spreading goal. And she would attack everything. It's a very fast step sequence. She had the stepping, the gliding, the running.

She had it all. What a talent! And the crowd here appreciate it. With such jumping ability. And there's no end to what she might achieve. Outside of competition, she would do these ice shows and exhibitions. and there's no end to what she might achieve. Outside of competition, she would do these ice shows and exhibitions and that's when you would see like what she can really do.

She would just do all kinds of other jumps that weren't even allowed in competition. She would do back flips, she would do back flips. Yes, back flips. It's very first time that I ever saw her do a back flip. I mean, my mouth just dropped open. That's tiny harding again. I was like, how did you do that?

Because it's really dangerous. Elvastoyko told us that one time he tried it and it did not go well. I came down right on my face and I split my eye open and almost broke my neck and I was just like, you know what? I don't think this is gonna be a good thing. You know.

But this little teenage girl, Seria Bonley, no problem, just doing it. Like it was not that. Yes, she was just absolutely fearless, and the crowd loved it. People, like, when it's turned up and it's self-making nose and top of the feet, and it's all grown, I can feel like the whole building's,

building's, I'm like, I swear, it looks like an earthquake. But, here's what happened, and this is where things kind of get confusing. As Saria blows up, and all these people who never, like, figure figure skating fall in love with her, over and over. The judges don't. Artistic impression.

And you can see, the disparity from the judges of 5-0. Oh man, they crowd do not like the mocks. Up, 7, no doubt. 7, 5, 1, even with 5 seconds. So, she doesn't get high scores? No. The whole time I skate good, but somehow, it's not for me.

So the judging system and figure skating goes from 0 to 6. And on Seria's artistic marks, she would get scores like 5-0, 5-1. Yeah, you get your low 5s, which sounds like it's a good mark, but that's not a good mark. Would you say there? She said, never mind, that's life, I'm used to it. I thought it still sports, sports mean challenge. Every day I try to do the best that I could do, you do your best, it's fine. But clearly there were sometimes where I got to her, there was this one time we found on YouTube where she... She boozed the judges after she gets her score. The whole crowd is booing. Well, you say, why was she getting bad marks to begin with? What was the judges? What? After she gets her score. The whole crowd is bullying. Well, so why was she getting bad marks to begin with?

What was the problem? Well, that's a question, and it's kind of complicated. Yeah, well. I think there's several things. John had Howard, that ESPN writer. Yeah. She says, the first thing you got to know, and just to take a quick little dive into the weirdo world of figure skating, that's dive.

Is that there's this fundamental tension in the sport of figure skating between artistry on one side and athleticism on the other. Powerfulness for his prettiness. They want these people to look like little ballerinas, but leap into these jumps like predators. And at the time skating was sort of locked in this loud and fractious debate about what

do we want to be? And Syria was sort of the epitome of almost the end point. What could happen if somebody with unrivaled athleticism and no aversion to risk was willing to go after it? And I think there were a lot of people in skating that didn't want it. I went through it. I know all about it. Now Tonya Harding, she said that she had this issue.

I didn't want to skate like what they wanted skating to look like. I'll just stoic-o-to, but in Sriria's case, there's a lot of work to be done on the choreography yet. There's a lot of work to be done on the grace. All those words used to criticize her skating. There's a lot there to be fixed. I'd like to see her stop jumping for six months and then disgate. We're just a little bit more loaded.

They would say things like, oh, roll a town out there. There's a lot of raw talent, but it's not fully kind of hasn't been refined. And it's for us, non-skaters, that's been one of the challenges of this story, I guess, is trying to see, is that a legit criticism? Or is this just a way of saying that she's black? It was racism. I have the courage to say it because she was black.

So this is Marie-Ren Laguna and she is a former French figure skating official and she was part of a team whose job it was to decide which girls to send to the World Junior Championships and we have to choose to only two girls and we had three possibilities She said that she backed Syria and The majority of the people didn't didn't want the black skaters Were they saying it out loud look we don't want some back We don't want her because she's black. No, it was a very subtly, in fact, according to her, what they would say, they would say the kind of things like she was too muscular or she wasn't elegant enough.

Oh, yes, I have to say that word, elegant. Many times I have heard that word. She's not elegant. Marie Ren is an outsider in the figure skating world these days because of an unrelated scandal and so we weren't totally sure what to think about that but... Wait, how did Seria feel about all this? Well, I asked her. Did you feel like any of the difficulty was because you're black? No. If you feel like any of it was about race, no.

No, no, no, no. But then moments later, she said, Well, you know, when you're black, you know, everybody knows that you have to do better than anybody else who's white. Well, I think the idea that she was held back in her marks for any other reason other than the quality of her skating, I think, is incorrect. That's Sandra Bezik. I'm been involved in the skating world my whole life

as a competitor, as an Olympian, a commentator, and actually as a commentator. I'd like to see her stop jumping for six months and learn to skate. She was kind of hard on Syria. Yes. And when we asked her why, this is what she said. Everything about skating is built on circles.

The radius could be huge, but it's still a circle. Everything is about edges and leaning into those edges and leaning into the turns and carving massive circles on the ice. And that is our sport, which leads to Syria. I mean, if you watch your jumps there they were on straight lines and if a jump is on a straight line then it can't land with flow because the idea is to land your jump with as much speed and flow as you had going into it and that's something that she couldn't do because she was jumping on straight lines and and then the other thing about skating that you don't necessarily get on camera

is the sound of the edge. The sound of a beautiful skater going from edge to edge, from lean to lean. What does that sound like? It's a beautiful sound. It's a sound that we all love. It's a gentle carving. It's a clean sound. The camera having in my head is like a hockey stop, but that's probably not the sound. No, no, no, no, because I can tell you, there are no scratches.

It's a glide. It's just a, it's a hum. I wish I had a good word to describe it. And there are different sounds. I mean, like there's the sound of Brian Botano's back crossovers that, you know, used to, like, excite me when I was in the rink with them. But then there's also sort of the gentle, almost soundless quality of say a Yucasato or a Katiagordieva where they're like a whisper across the ice and yet they're

You know flipping from one edge to another edge and And forward to backward and it's almost it's just that this glide I haven't got a good word for it. Damn. So when when cereal was skating and it's almost, it's just that this glide, I haven't got a good word for it, damn. So when, when Surya was skating, would she have that sound? No, she would be scratchy. Yeah. Yeah. Now we should say that wasn't the sound of Surya skating

or any of those other people, we just like, mic'd up a whole bunch of like pretty good figure skaters. With a professional skaters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are legit skaters. They're professional figure skaters and we sent the clip to Sandra and she was like,

yes. So she gave you the thumbs up that we got it right. Yeah, but see, I don't necessarily hear whatever it is she is hearing and think, yes. I mean, they sound different, but not even that different really. So that's exactly the problem. I, I skating is largely about aesthetics. So as far as sports go, it's, it's like kind of in its own category. Like if you're talking about Serena Williams who's facing a lot of these same kinds of criticisms, it doesn't matter. There's a line on a

court and inside their inside or outside. There are rules. Whereas there aren't these rules when it comes to beauty. It's super slushy. And that makes someone like Seria much more vulnerable. So what ended up happening? Well, after a couple of years of getting these kinds of marks, she does some soul-searching. I mean, I was a bit more mature. In 1992, at the age of 18, I had new choreographed, changed my whole skating walls, you know, I changed coaches. And she decided to take the note.

She actually travels to California and works with Frank Carroll, who's like this legendary American coach. And what she's doing is that she's trying to, you know, be more graceful, more beautiful, more... More circle-y. More circle-y, yeah. And after that, you kind of see a difference. Yeah, you can watch the YouTube videos from that period, and it's like she's a different skater.

Huh. Yeah. Does it work? Yeah. In 1993, in the World Championships, she comes in second. Oh, and then by the time 1994, World World's Round, she is a favorite. She is, she is probably gonna win.

And what happens? Things take a really strange turn. We'll be back. This is Radio Lab. Let's get back to our story about Serea Bonnelly, or Bonnelly, as it said in French, from producers Tracy Hunt and Lot of Nasser. I was, I'm really curious what what happened at that at that metal ceremony in 1994. Oh is a World Champion? That was the World Championships are the second most important event in figure skating after the Olympics.

And at the Olympics, which were just a month before, the top three ladies. 16-year-old Oxana Bail. Oxana Bail got gold. Nancy Kerrigan is physically good. Nancy Kerrigan got silver, Chen Lu got the bronze, and fourth place was Syria. Now those top three ladies, Aksana Nancy Lue, out of the picture. Out of the picture.

For various reasons. Injuries and some turn pro and stuff, but whatever. Okay. The point is, at these world championships, the highway had been cleared for Syria. She was going to take it. It was hers for the take-ins.

It was her winning season. Will it be gold? So jumping forward to the final day of the championship, Soria is in second place. She takes the ice. When she is old from Nice in the South of France. Starts her program. Immediately starts with this double axel.

That's very incredible. After that is just... Triple, triple, triple, triple, triple, triple. The man in the middle was still a little bit. It was just one of the best skates of her life. I knew I did my best. I did everything. It was not perfect because nobody is perfect, but pretty good.

Come to show an overall. Eventually after about 4.5 minutes, she finishes her skate. Sir, you're going to lay to the Waldeys four seasons, loads and loads of technical difficulty. The question is, how will they see her artistic effort? And she goes over, after the side to a bench with her coach to await her result. We're going to perform our studio now. Technical mirror. to await her results. The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The the The The The The The The the the The The the The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The The the The The The The The The The The The The The the the The The The The The the the The The the The the the The the the The翂 The the the the The the the the the the the the� to first place and there's only one skater left.

It's a skater who usually finishes below Suria in competitions. Yucasato. Again, that's Sandra Bezik. We all know Yucas skating. She's the kind of skater that puts a smile on your face. Yucca was one of these really lyrical skaters making his return, Elvastotko. And Yucca had this very beautiful, style and grace to her skating.

This gentle, almost soundless quality, like a whisper across the ice. Basically, her skating style was the exact opposite end of the spectrum, from Sarias. And now Yuka Sata, the 21-year-old, from Tokyo, this is the... So she gets up. Yuka Sata, the 21-year-old, from Tokyo, does her final skate in front of the home crowd? So she gets up.

Does her final skate in front of the home crowd? You guys one of my favorite skaters, but she doesn't have the combination jumps like Bonnelly did, so she's going to need all her jumps opening up with her triple left. And see, hits her first jump, crowd loves it. She did girl, she did girl. She had maybe less triples than me, but she was maybe more prettier. In her routine, there were these moments

where it just looks like she was just sort of skipping across the eyes. Just very belletic moves. I know, she's good, you know. Face-Tand is one here at Mako Hari event center for the local favorite Yucasato. Now it's down to the judges as to whether the gold medal belongs to Sato of Japan or Bonnelea France. So you could, you know, get off the ice, she goes to wait for her marks. First marks of course for technical merit, Bonalise string, Osato, Stadled and jumped so well,

and every one of those marks except the finished judge, go to Bonalise. She wins 8 out of 9 technical merit. But when it came down to the artistic marks, just the opposite than the technical marks, 8 out of 9 judges, all but the French judge giving her higher marks, those go to Yucasada. Boy, this is going to be close. Those go to Yucasada. Boy, this is going to be close. It actually ends up being a tie.

So it goes to being a tiebreaker. And that's when the judges basically pick for a second and third. And in a five-four decision. Artistic compression. There it is. She's good. Five to four.

Sato is the new world champion. Unfortunately, the truth is heard. Off to the dressing room for the new champion. She'll be back and so will we, the medal ceremonies. What happens next is one of these moments that really defines Syria's story for a lot of people. So what happened was that,

right after all the results were out, they set up the metal ceremony that called out the skaters, they first called out Yuka. She comes out from this tunnel backstage onto the ice. What a moment. Waves, smiles at everybody. And then after about a minute, they called out Suria.

But... She didn't come out. Not immediately. She skates out onto the ice. She waves but her face isn't smiling. No. And then when she gets to the podium, she congratulates Yucasato. But then...

Well, Bonnelly has chosen not to stand on the podium. She just stopped before getting on the podium. She just stood right next to the podium. I think this is a form of protest. I really hope she doesn't go through with this. She wouldn't stand on it, she was crying. Elvis actually was in the crowd watching. I felt bad for her, because I know what she was going through, where you know you outskated

your competitor and they just wouldn't give it to you. And I was like, Syria, just get on the podium take the medal. The figure skating official who's giving out the medals. He gives Yuka the gold puts it around her neck but then when he turns to Saria he just sort of stands there looks at her he says something but you can't hear what it is. She shakes her head. He puts the metal around to her neck, shakes her hand, and then he pulls onto her hand. It just kind of like pulls her onto the podium.

Well, this is the first for me, that's for sure. Just hard-working. Oh, and she takes off the metal. She takes the silver metal off of her head. Like, oh my god, holy s**t, she's actually doing this. It was huge. It was a huge deal. The camera zooms in on her face and she is just leaping. Oh, what's going on inside that young woman?

So after the metal ceremony is over, she just gets mobbed by reports. Sorry, sorry, why did you not accept the medal? What was the problem? It was in my place. And just the disappointment. Are they unfair to you, Siria? What? Are the judges unfair to you?

It's a lie. Do you feel you were robbed tonight? Is that what you're saying? Did you deserve the gold medal, Siria? And eventually what she says is... I'm just... I'm just... I'm not thinking. I'm just not lucky. What was going on? Like what happened?

I think it was more like a point of say, this is it's top now. You know, when you put your fist on a table and say, okay, no. Enough, it's enough. That's it. And say, hey, you know, I'm not dumb and I'm getting sick and I'm sick of it. I keep my eyes open, that's not fair. We have to stop. And it was just so depressing and it was so not fair.

Mostly it was not fair. And what about it felt unfair? Just that, you know, up and over and over so many times, that's every time it's never me because whatever I can do, how many triple, I can be pretty, I can have the best choreographer, I can, so everything was made to be on the top. And still, I'm like, what do you need more of me to do at this point? You know, how many triple triple you want me? If I don't do, you kill me.

And if I do, you don't care. And anyway, you took somebody, you choose somebody else. Do you think that that's a little unsportsman like? Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Yeah, but if she, all these other girls that work just as hard as she has one presumes, sure, but okay, so picture yourself. If you're at that position, you're in that position, you find yourself getting second, second, you feel like you're not, you're not.

She came in second. That's okay. The margin was so close it was so close it's always close yeah like can I yeah yeah go go go I I just more like felt empathy for heart for her I can't imagine what it must be like well I can't imagine what it must be like be like, well, I can't imagine what it must be like. But I, you know, in that kind, on that scale, to be the only one. And there is this, I think for, you know, a friend of mine once told me that racism

can make black people crazy. Which is very broad way of looking at it. In the sense that you kind of almost never know why people are reacting to you the way that they do. And it's kind of, you're always sort of second guessing, was that, did they, that guy just came in and he said hi to everybody in the room, but he did say it to me, what is that, what was that about?

And so there's no obvious thing about it, but it can make you feel a little paranoid, a little crazy. Now I cannot put myself, I can't imagine how, you know, Syria felt in that moment. But I didn't necessarily like think that, you know, these preaches people had denied her this.

If anything, I felt more like, man, it really must suck to be the only black woman skating at that kind of level and not really understand why things are happening or maybe it must be like a very confusing situation to be in. And that is when, and it was more like empathy. I don't know, you know, if there was racism. Quite frankly, Yucasato is an amazing skater. And I think you're right, it's very legitimate to feel like you can't put your finger on this feeling,

which never goes away. No. And never resolves. And is always there and always makes you feel weird. That happens after the, that's our producer Matt Kielte. After the ceremony. I think the, I think the, the wrap that she got after this moment

was that she was a sore loser. And that she was defiant. that she had a bad attitude. And does she quit at this point? No, she keeps going. She competed again in the World Championships in 1995 the very next year and she came in second again. For three years in a row. In a similar pattern was there like just one sort of that one wasn't as close but she was second again for the third year She's skating a lot of other competitions after 95. I think yeah the various you know European championships You know skate America. Yeah, she was doing a lot

Not at the Olympics not at the world championships. No, so she never gets first. Oh What I guess it depends on how you define first. What do you mean? Well, you'll see. So that actually takes us right back to the beginning. We're here live at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning in Japan. So to jump forward, but rewind, we're in Nagano, Japan, 1998, Winter Olympics. I knew it was my last Olympics in and my last major, major big competition. And everything was fine until the day before the short program.

I pulled a muscle. Her left leg. And I couldn't lift, I couldn't do anything. To make matters worse, Surya, at that moment, was already recovering from a rupture that Kille's tendon. People had to carry me to walk stairs because I couldn't get stairs so they have to lift me to go to my room because I don't want to be village, I couldn't walk. You know, even broken, I'm damaged, I'm like a used car that's really good for trash.

I was like, you know, really, I was so messed up between my legs and my killiles, I was like, oh, the disaster. And the doctor said, maybe we should withdraw. I'm like, no, I'm already here. I don't want to just maybe retie. It's probably my last condition. I don't want to just retire like that. Just give me anything you can. I have to keep going.

And so on the final day, she says that she, you know, between medicine, my size acupuncture pills. She goes back out on the ice. There's now getting ready to skate for her country. She's in this golden blue sequined outfit and she starts her routine. You can tell she's favoring one leg, but she manages to... Ah! Land a few jumps.

Didn't work for the sailboat. Then she falls. She gets back up. She keeps going through her routine. There's the triple sailboat. And then she says, she just got to this point where she just knew she could do it. It was so much in pain. And Jose and I was a programmer,

I was supposed to go two more triples, and I said, no, what? I'm not good. I don't feel it. I know I'm gonna crush. I can do. I'm not capable. My leg is not with me anymore.

And then what comes to her is that there is this move that she has in her repertoire that you can do, but it's illegal. I had a special thing in my backpack and say, hey, I can do it. It's my last, it's my last competition. With this all going through your mind as you were skating?

Yeah, oh yeah, totally. You know, me, it's like a computer. You know, if I would have missed something or jump, I was like, okay, here. I can fit a triple here. Obviously, I can do combo triple triple. I know I need to fit something. You're like the GPS lady.

You're like recalculating. Yeah, totally re-routing. Okay, re-routing, we have to do it right now. So in her rerouting, she turns around from getting forwards, just getting backwards, picks up speed, just like she's about to do a triple, but instead, she does, he backflip.

But not any old backflip. She swings one leg over. Does the splits in the air? Upside down? Yeah. And then she lands on one foot. Whoa! Oh!

Oh! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip!

Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! Backflip! backflip, do your skates go up towards the ceiling and then come back down underneath you? Yes! It's a backflip! I just don't know how I'm doing. Wait, wait, why was it illegal? Well, it's illegal because it's so dangerous.

Also, she says, you're supposed to land all your jumps on one foot, but she did that here. Well, like, oh, well, good. You did it on one foot, so just hold, hold, hold, at this point, just hold. And you couldn't be like totally illegal because, say,. You did it in one foot, just hold, hold, hold. At this point, just hold. And it couldn't be like totally illegal, because as long as Len on one foot, maybe we'll think about. And she finishes her program with her back to the judges.

And usually you skate, you perform, you smile in front of the camera, boom, it gives you the mark, next skater. For me it took like 10 minutes, seriously, 10 minutes people think about what should we do. It was like oh my god, they didn't know what to do with me. And I say whatever, just put a zero and so we can move on. Here are the marks, did you get nailed? Absolutely, 4-8-5-2, She knew. How do you get noticed in Olympic competition? Do a backflip. So they didn't change their mind about the backflip in the end.

Nope. So she ends up finishing tenth. I don't like it. Yeah, I finished it. It was okay. Now afterwards a lot of people interpreted that backflip as a big fat middle finger up to the entire skating world. I know you don't want me to, but I'm going to do this anyway. But when I asked Saria if that's what was happening, she said... No, I don't know why people keep saying me that. You know, I was just trying to be happy. She said she just wanted something that was hers.

Yes, yes. Had anyone ever done this backflip onto one blade before? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm the one who created this one. It's why he calls it Bunali. Oh, that's called the Bunali? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm the only one who did it.

Wow. You're the first person in the history of the human race who has done that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not gonna would, I hope, you know, I'll be able to die in peace. Don't steal my backflip, it's mine. I'll do my best.

Yeah, that's, yeah, it's mine. So I'm just curious, like, what has happened since this story ended? Well, she retired from figure skating after the 98 Olympics. She continues to do, I shows occasionally, but right now I think the main thing that she's doing is she's coaching, she lives in Minnesota, and she's coaching in skaters, yeah.

But like when we asked people, like, oh, did she change the sport? Did she change figure skating? The answer they would keep giving out to us was no. No, she did. Yeah, a lot of people were like, eh, you know, it's not like all of a sudden, you know, figure skating rinks across the country,

across the world, are flooded with little black girls learning their sock house and their luts and things like that. I will say from what I can tell, for the first time that there's more than one black skater competing at the same time internationally at least. What about back flips?

Are there back flips in the middle? No, no back flips, sadly. Are they still illegal? They are still illegal. Yeah. Yes. So she was just this sort of like almost this sort of blip on the skating scene where she was just, you know, no one was like her before and there hasn't really been anyone like her since. But there is this kind of ironic thing, I guess, which is that if you took her and you put her in competition today,

if she was competing on the world stage today, she would probably do better than she did back then. They've changed the scoring system. So now you get points for doing the kinds of power moves that she was doing way back when and even if you spill, even if you fail at those moves, you still get points. You get points for trying. Yeah, just for daring. And Surya was daring. She was a derror. Produced by the Produced by the

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and a very heartfelt thanks to Marilyn Wiggins. I'm Chad Abumrod. I'm Robert Kohlwich. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm Maureen and I'm calling from Charlottesville, Virginia. Radio Lab was created by Chad Abumrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lula Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-host. Dylan Keef is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Brassler, Rachel Kusik, Aketty Foster Keys, W. Harry Fortuna, David

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