Skating stories that would make good films

So, this news about the Tonya Harding movie (http://deadline.com/2016/03/margot-robbie-tonya-harding-movie-i-tonya-nancy-kerrigan-1201724075/) and now the Tara Lipinski-produced Hulu series has me thinking about what real-life stories I'd love to see on film, biopic style.

There are so many reasons I am not at all excited about I, Tonya; but I won't go into them. I think there's a thread somewhere on here that talks about that anyway. Instead, positive things!

I recently finished reading Joy Goodwin's The Second Mark (about the 2002 Salt Lake City pairs event) and I would absolutely LOVE to see a film adaptation of it. All three of the podium finishers had such incredible stories to bring them to that point, and it was such a complex intersection of stories. I wouldn't want to see it take a position or focus on the scandal, actually, but, as the book does, show three amazing pairs who ultimately were so much better than the hardships around them and the disservices done to them.

Alternatively, you could do it as a Roshamon-style story, showing the same events from each of their perspectives.

Anyway, what do you guys think? So many amazing figure skating lives and stories. Almost any of them would be a better movie than a distorted and prurient revisiting of the Harding/Kerrigan scandal.

Has there ever been a film about Rudy Galindo's life?

This, of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8f0gDVtoc8

Thing is, you'd need actors with tons and tons of Charisma, Presence, Personality. A pair of typical teen idol pretty boys wouldn't work. We were talking/joking about this on the Plush thead a while back, and I suggested Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston. They are too old of course, now, but.. along those lines.

ETA - Make an Epic, not a Teen Soap.

When Javier Fernandez retires, somebody has to make a film about him! His story is so inspiring...who could have thought when he debuted at the WC that he would become a 2time world champion (for now). He isn't my favourite skater, but I really admire him... I also find his relationship with Miki Ando adorable( their interviews on TSL are hilarious!)

• Platov/Grishuk/Usova/Zhulin/Navka....their dangerous liaisons will be a great story for film
• Yagudin/Plushenko/Mishin/Tarasova/Morozov - drama! drama!
• Morozov's affairs with various female skaters
• Surya Bonaly - iconic figure regardless of whether you do or don't appreciate her skating.
• Gordeeva/Grinkov and Kulik
• Katarina Witt - third participation in Olympics as two time Olympic champion after the unification of her country.
• Yuna Kim - her life and journey to the two Olympics and thereafter
• Rudy Galindo - his epic success in 1996
• Lu Chen and her coach Mingzhu Li
• Bin Yao - saga of how to make Chinese pairs strong from the scratch
• Shen/Zhao - finally winning the OGM after all hardship
• Pang/Tong - their fairy tale-like retirement at home
• Artur Dmitriev - two OGMs with two different partners and coaching
• Nicole Bobek and Christopher Bowman - wasted talents and beauty
• Delobel/Schoenfelder - finally rose to the top, but what a misfortune
• Miki Ando's motherhood
• Tiffany Chin's life with her tiger mother
• Shizuka Arakawa - her journey to Torino and thereafter
• Suzuki Akiko - anorexia and late booming as a skater
• Ashley Wagner - broke out the long drought of U.S ladies in Worlds. Her domestic rivalry with Gracie, Rachael, Mirai, Alisa and coaching changes
• Debi Thomas - if she is out of the current slump, her story will be a great source for film
• Joannie Rochette at Vancouver

Each skater has their own intriguing stories, so other people would like to say about others as well.

I want a fictionalization of the Team WISA story, stay.

Since that team has not yet produced any notable seniors, it won't happen. Arctic Edge circa 2008-2014 feat. D/W and V/M would be awesome. And I was thinking that a Yuna Kim biography would be cool.

Also, I would literally give SO MUCH MONEY to anyone who could make a totally unbiased movie about the Sochi ladies event. Seriously.

Also-also, the Joannie Rochette story would make a great movie.

USFS just shared a story about Ashton Miller. I think it would be a nice film - growing up in a family that loves the ice and going to sectionals and then choosing between soccer and skating. Here is the article: http://www.goduke.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=5503705&db_oem_id=4200 Anyway there ar a lot of girls in the same place - choosing between x and skating. Some choose skating and some choose x. It would be good to see a movie that explores that choice.

While I like a good drama movie....while also loving the idea of anything with skating, I think any attempt at any storyline, from real life, will all end up being a rather large cheese fest.

However, without reading the intro and just going by the title of this forum, I did venture the idea of Harding-Kerrigan being a good movie. Not just with the knee incident but also the fact that Tonya Harding came from a difficult background which could give a backdrop of her upbringing (while juxtaposing with the somewhat contrasting background of Kerrigan), and also from the psychological standpoint, how she (from what I have seen from recent documentaries) is in constant denial with excessivey high estimation/narcissism of herself. But alas, I feel such films might tend to have a bias for one girl or the other.

Personally, I'm happy with Blades of Glory.

Yeah, Javier Fernandez with all the rags-to-riches story, drama with Morozov, early rivarly with Florent, romance with Miki, bromance/rivarly with Yuzu would make a great movie.

The whole Chinese Pairs switcheroo needs a good dramatic ending involving the Olympics and it's movie-ready.

The wonder baby Yuzu following the footsteps of his idol Plushy, his ups and down sounds pretty dramatic too (but then as it's very likely this is exactly the plot of the anime that's getting made, we can pass on the movie).

Already mentioned, but Plushy vs. Yags and Mishin vs. Tarasova would be excellent material too.

Hopefully the drama that's in the works will incorporate some of this stuff.

Lubov Iliushechkina and the Chinese pairs mess are the first two that come to mind for me.

Elena Berezhnaya's story would be an interesting movie: from an abusive first partnership, an accident that almost left her paralyzed and required extensive brain surgery, to two Olympic medals with Anton Sikharulidze.

obviously, the rigged judging scandal in SLC could be done... but I am not sure i'd watch it

Tatsuki Machida may not be an important figure to be considered but I think his story would be worth mentioning in someone else's biopic, most likely Yuzuru Hanyu's.

He was born a premature baby and the doctors told his mother his chances of survival were slim. She spent her time in tears next to his incubator. He overcame that critical time and was a healthy child so his mother named him Tatsuki (tatsu = to stand; ki = tree in Japanese; interpreted as "stand tall like a tree"). He started skating when he was 3 but wasn't interested in becoming a top athlete; he would spend his time playing video games up until middle school when he started to be inspired by Daisuke Takahashi. He went to the same high school and university as Takahashi. He'd take trains just to get there, from Hiroshima to Kurashiki and that's when he started to read books to pass the time. He watched Takahashi compete at the 2006 Olympics and wanted to become a skater like him. Some months later he became the Jr National champion. He was friends with some of the skaters of his generation like Takahito Mura and Akio Sasaki, but also younger skaters like Keiji Tanaka.

Around that time he met 12 year old Yuzuru Hanyu, with whom he started a friendly rivalry for 3 years. In 2010 they were both known as future talents; Yuzuru had won Jr Worlds while Tatsuki was first substitute for the Vancouver Olympics and silver medalist at 4CC. They made their senior debut at the same time and became good friends. In 2011-2012 their roads split as Yuzuru climbed up the ranks and later moved to Canada, while Tatsuki's career was affected by economic shortcomings. His mother, who was working 2 jobs almost 24 hours a day to help pay for his skating, became ill and was hospitalized. Tatsuki told his mother he would start working harder in order to get invited to more skating shows so he could make money of his own. His maternal grandmother was an important emotional support for him; she made an amulet for him and he started wearing it underneath his costumes from then on. His grandmother died of cancer shortly after that.

He interrupted school at Kansai University and moved to the US with Anthony Liu. He had met Liu a few years prior at a training camp. Liu took care of him like a father or older brother, as Tatsuki described him. Whenever he was asked about the Sochi Olympics he'd shrug with a smile and say "I'm the 6th Japanese guy at the moment, I highly doubt I'm gonna make it". In 2012-2013 he started showing signs of improvement when he won his first GP medals; but crumbled at Nationals and finished 9th. He had never made the World team and failed once again. He decided to restart everything from scratch. He shaved his head and worked on a new program during the remaining part of the season. He started taking Phillip Mills' advices. He showed up at the off season skating shows with short hair and a self-choreographed program called "Byakuyako".

Once the 2013-2014 season started, he was jumping consistent quads and beat his team mates to get a ticket to the Sochi Olympics, finally going back to the place where he left from - Yuzuru Hanyu's side. Once Daisuke Takahashi was included in the team he saw his dream of competing at the Olympics and competing with Takahashi coming true. Sochi was the first major competition he was going to, and finished on a respectable 5th place. After that he almost won his first Worlds. His rivalry with Hanyu was back; except this time it was covered by the media. Hanyu was thrilled and would keep saying he wanted to become a skater like Tatsuki and giving performances that would be remembered by people, such as Machida's East Of Eden. On the other hand, Machida wasn't used to the spotlight and he felt pressure to upgrade his technical content. He trained 4Lz and 4T-4T in the off-season. He initially planned on continuing his career until 2018, thinking he could manage skating and school at the same time, but the fatigue caught up with him and he got sick. What was considered by many an abrupt retirement was something he had been planning for weeks.

Tatsuki Machida was an important figure in Yuzuru Hanyu's life. They had opposite personalities but were nonetheless inspired by one another. I posted a lot of pictures of them together in the friendships thread. While most people know and prefer the Hanyu-Fernandez friendship/rivalry, Brian Orser himself said they spend their free time separate from each other. But the truth is that there was (and probably still is) more to the Hanyu-Machida duo than their short rivalry at the top.

Hanyu, who could've died in one of the most devastating natural disasters of the past century.

Mathman said:

Has there ever been a film about Rudy Galindo's life?

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That was my first thought, too.

Warwick360 said:

While I like a good drama movie....while also loving the idea of anything with skating, I think any attempt at any storyline, from real life, will all end up being a rather large cheese fest.

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I feel ya on this. While I was reading about Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze in The Second Mark I kept thinking that if the story were fiction one would say it was in incredibly poor taste. And there were a ton of fluff pieces during the time they were competing that just came off as creepy and exploitative. Berezhnaya herself must be made of absolute steel, which comes through so beautifully in the book but certainly not in the NBC TV commentary.

It all comes down to how it's represented, though. It is possible to do real-life stories that are moving without being cheese-fests. The Woman in Gold springs to mind for me.

ioanna said:

Tatsuki Machida .

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thank you for this...<3

Anissina and Peizerat's story: her letter, their meeting, their clashing temperaments and their success.

I'm sorry, but I need to say it ... a movie is not "My favorite skater and his awe inspiring moves and how he changed the sport forever coming from a humble background" yadeeyadee

Rudy Galindo for inspirational, for sure.:agree:

For tragic, a skater whose vids I have been bingeing on lately, Christopher Bowman.

That much talent, that much drama, that much conflict, and a life ended young by drug addiction: what a tremendous waste.

And for those who don't know Bowman the Showman, here is his free skate at 1990 Worlds, where he pulls it out of his hat in the last two minutes, throws in a jump that Frank Carroll didn't choreograph, and then tells Carroll in the KnC that he is "all head and no heart". I've never seen Frank so pi$$ed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q3LST_EkA0