Chinese Figure Skating Coach: DFL in 1984
Nancy Toby points to the story of Chinese figure skating coach Yao Bin. Right now he coaches powerhouse figure skaters Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, but in the early 1980s he was one half of the China's first-ever pairs figure skating team. As might be expected, it didn't go very well for Yao. From the NBC Olympics site's bio of Shen Xue:
Shen and Zhao's coach, Yao Bin, was a member of the first-ever pair that China entered in international competition. Bin and his partner, Luan Bo, made their international debut at the 1980 World Championships, where they finished 15th and last, and Yao says he remembers the audience laughing at their performance. Luan and Yao were also last at the 1981 and 1982 World Championships, and last at the 1984 Sarajevo Games. Since then, however, Yao has developed a powerhouse Chinese pairs program.Laughing at the performance -- good Lord, how bad was it?
Labels: china, figure skating, history, profile, sarajevo 1984, torino 2006
3 Comments:
At 3:46 PM, February 12, 2006 ,
nancytoby said...
There's a nice Wikipedia article on Bin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao_Bin
At 6:31 PM, February 14, 2006 ,
Sara said...
On that silly "Olympic Moments" schpiel on NBC last night, they showed some old footage of their skating, and it was pretty darn pitiful.
I distinctly remember the commentator: "He just keeps dropping her!"
At 6:48 AM, November 24, 2007 ,
grrromp said...
This guy was the first to represent China in 1980. There were totally no resources (videos or coaches) in China at that point and he learnt the moves by studying pictures of other skaters' performances. Now, that is courage!
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