I have been competitively figure skating since I was 10 because when you live in Alaska, you pick a winter sport. Skating certainly isn’t easy. It’s cold. You fall a lot… and it’s been way more than once that I’ve gotten on the ice with guards on and landed flat on my face. However, when it comes to competition season, through all the nerves and cold, one thing rings true: Figure Skating is one of the most beautiful sports, not because of the dresses or jumps, but because we are so nice to each other. In my experience, Figure Skaters, or any performance-based sport for that matter, have a very strong section of the media dedicated to a catty or diva-like portrayal (think of any of the skaters in Ice Princess). In truth, the rink is usually full of really close friends that compete against each other and still give a happy “Congratulations!” when the medals come out.
During one of my first competitions, while I waited for my turn to skate, a girl tapped me on the shoulder and asked me “Hey, could you help me with my tights? The buckle came unclipped.” Naturally, I fixed her tights for her and upon checking the event order again, we realized we were competing against each other. What followed was a discussion on how much kinder skaters are to competitors compared to other sports (hockey, in particular). I think the reason I still remember every detail of that moment is because it truly was a fascinating example of the sportsmanship within figure skating. I had never met this girl before. She didn’t skate at my rink, but instead of approaching one of the coaches around, she was plenty comfortable asking me for help. Even better was the next year when I competed against her again and the same conversation happened when we recognized each other.
At the same competition one year, there was a skater who was from Russia, didn’t speak much English (to my knowledge) and was incredibly talented. She honestly scared me a little with how good she was and I wasn’t even skating against her. Despite all this, she approached me at one point in her competition and her coach told me that she was giving stickers of nesting dolls to all the skaters there. Once again, this was somebody I had never met before but there was a level of camaraderie among skaters that I feel is not common in most sports. I think the reason for this is because of a certain attitude in skating that it’s meant to be fun. Sure, there is competition but if a skater doesn’t enjoy the sport, they won’t do well. As Kimmie Meissner, the first American woman to hold the World, Four Continents, and National titles puts it…
“If you don’t have fun, it’s hard to do your best.”
Figure Skating is not about competing. It isn’t about being better than the people you’re up against. There isn’t even a rivalry with the judge’s table in most cases (I have been judged by my own coaches on multiple occasions and there was only ever jokes made). What it is about is growing and being better than yourself. Figure Skating is about flying across ice on blades and still smiling when you’ve had to push through bruises, cold, and an audience watching it all. It might seem that these examples come from a place of naïve youth, but the friendship among competitors extends into upper level events. Skaters spend so much time together and are often competing against the same people so at a certain point it’s difficult not to make friends. It’s difficult not to cheer on the others that you may have competed against two events ago. Oftentimes, nobody applauds louder when you land your most difficult jump than the skaters that have seen you fall on it during practice.
I came to this realization when I was getting my program cleaned up for the upcoming competition and my coach said in passing “I think you’re competing against Kayla.” The Kayla in question, I have skated on a team with for years and consider her a close friend. We called ourselves the “wall buddies” for an entire season because we spent so much time waiting on the wall for our sections of the choreography to be done. We’ve competed against each other before, and we surely will again, but this moment recently caused me to fully notice the sportsmanship in the rink. We support each other no matter how many times we skate against each other. No matter how many times we end up on different levels of the podium, life goes on and we continue to be happy for each other after every competition. In discussion with some friends that do other performance sports, I learned that skating really is an outlier… and if I’m being honest I couldn’t tell you why. Now, I know that my sport is not a monolith and so of course, some people within it are spiteful or mean, but in general, we’re kind. We don’t do this because we want to prove that we are better than everybody else, or at least I don’t. I skate because it’s beautiful. It’s creative, and if I’m being entirely honest, I like being applauded. And nobody applauds louder when you get up from a hard fall than your fellow skaters. I leave you, reader, with a very true statement on why my sport is the best. We don’t compete for the sake of putting others down, but for the sake of lifting ourselves up and making ourselves better than we were at the last competition.
“My skating is a very emotional thing that comes from the heart, never doing it for the medal.”
Debi Thomas