Netflix 'Losers' series features Surya Bonaly

I think Surya's skating would have looked a lot different under COP. She didn't spend much time working on her SS because she didn't have to skate well to medal at the biggest events; during her 3 year peak (92-93 to 94-95), she won more events than she lost. As talented as Surya was, if she found herself buried in the standings due to low PCS scores she would have spend a lot more time on areas in which her assessments were weak.

DSQ said:

I don’t think that’s really a fair question. Perhaps a different point of view on Surya’s skating wouldn’t have changed her overall placement or perhaps it would of made her a three world champion, we can’t say. What we can say is that Surya certainly felt that she was placed at a disadvantage by her race and her more athletic style of skating.

I certainly feel that skating does have a not all too positive relationship with black skaters going by some of the things I’ve heard said about the few black skaters competing today but perhaps I’m too sensitive. I tend to dwel on these things a little more as I’m black myself.

(I hope to watch the program soon.)

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I must respectfully disagree. If the charge is that racist judges denied her the gold medal at major championships, then I think it is perfectly fair to ask, "Which one?"

And, again, we're talking about an athlete who won 9 French championships, 5 (I think) European titles, and 3 World silver medals. It's not as though she continually had the door slammed in her face.

Did Surya face racism in her life? Almost certainly. Was/is there a strain of racism in the sport? I don't know that for sure, but I'll concede that there probably was/is.

Was Surya denied any particular major title because of racism? No - in my opinion -she was beaten fairly at the ones she lost. Again, I'm willing to revise my opinion - but I'll need an example to do that.

I do think it's probable that the judges just had no idea what to do with her score-wise. I recall one of her programs. She was at a dead stop - I mean no movement across the ice whatsoever - and she just launched herself into a 2A. It was outrageously athletic. Of course, since there was no flow going in, there was none coming out - no glide at all - she may as well have done the move on the floor. How does a judge score that? It was jawdroppingly athletic, and entirely the antithesis of skating (gliding), all at the same time.

TontoK said:

I must respectfully disagree. If the charge is that racist judges denied her the gold medal at major championships, then I think it is perfectly fair to ask, "Which one?"

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I don't think that is the charge. You claimed the show 'implied' it. But the way I saw it was more that the racism took it's toll on her. I saw it like she felt she deserved first and that's why she got so frustrated and wouldn't wear the medal or stand on the podium and why she had some conflicts with her coach. Racism (and other isms) can make you feel like you have to work twice as hard for half as much. Whether or not you can prove that's the case in this or that instance isn't the issue - the issue is that it does truly wear someone down. It takes a toll and we saw that toll in her face in that moment when she felt she should have won first. And we saw the toll it took when she retired from competitive skating. At least, that's how I understood the show.

I think if the show were trying to prove bias then it would have done a bunch of interviews with judges and experts and it would have broken down the program elements and really gone into more detail on it. I think it was simply trying to explain the toll that racism took on her skating. In the first episode of LOSERS about boxing it goes into some depth on the toll that parental pressure can put on young athletes as well as the toll that the sport itself takes on the athletes and how there's not much in the way of career options when someone retires from fighting.

But also, it just fits with the general perception of figure skating that the judging is extremely subjective.

I wasn't a skating fan back then. I'm barely one now. I'm not going to pretend I should be a judge or that we should go back in history and re-score things.
I have seen her skate in person and I like her skating - she's got a sense of style and rhythm that's very advanced and professional and unique. You can tell she was an elite competitor and performer. But I can't judge the past. Nor would I want to

Cringeworthy title aside, I know what I’ll be watching in the next two minutes. Thanks for the tip! :ageee: *launches Netflix app*

TontoK said:

Did Surya face racism in her life? Almost certainly. Was/is there a strain of racism in the sport? I don't know that for sure, but I'll concede that there probably was/is.

Was Surya denied any particular major title because of racism? No - in my opinion -she was beaten fairly at the ones she lost. Again, I'm willing to revise my opinion - but I'll need an example to do that.

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I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. For her WSMs, I believe she lost 5-4 to Baiul, 5-4 to Sato, and either 6-3 or 5-4 to Chen. Whether she deserved to win or not, if any one of those judges who voted for the winner did so because they didn't want a black world champion, then racism did prevent her from winning a major title. By COP standards she should not have beaten those other skaters, but skating well wasn't really a requirement to get great marks under 6.0. Sasha Cohen was getting high scores well before the rest of her skating caught up, whereas Ito never really got enough credit for her mastery merely because her artistry wasn't what the judges wanted to see.

VegMom said:

I don't think that is the charge. You claimed the show 'implied' it. But the way I saw it was more that the racism took it's toll on her. I saw it like she felt she deserved first and that's why she got so frustrated and wouldn't wear the medal or stand on the podium and why she had some conflicts with her coach. Racism (and other isms) can make you feel like you have to work twice as hard for half as much. Whether or not you can prove that's the case in this or that instance isn't the issue - the issue is that it does truly wear someone down. It takes a toll and we saw that toll in her face in that moment when she felt she should have won first. And we saw the toll it took when she retired from competitive skating. At least, that's how I understood the show.

I think if the show were trying to prove bias then it would have done a bunch of interviews with judges and experts and it would have broken down the program elements and really gone into more detail on it. I think it was simply trying to explain the toll that racism took on her skating. In the first episode of LOSERS about boxing it goes into some depth on the toll that parental pressure can put on young athletes as well as the toll that the sport itself takes on the athletes and how there's not much in the way of career options when someone retires from fighting.

But also, it just fits with the general perception of figure skating that the judging is extremely subjective.

I wasn't a skating fan back then. I'm barely one now. I'm not going to pretend I should be a judge or that we should go back in history and re-score things.
I have seen her skate in person and I like her skating - she's got a sense of style and rhythm that's very advanced and professional and unique. You can tell she was an elite competitor and performer. But I can't judge the past. Nor would I want to

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I wrote that it was implied and that it was outright stated by some people in the program.

In a final remark on this topic let me say that I believe she was an incredible professional skater where she was unencumbered by rules and conventions. Definitely a crowd pleaser.

I'm planning on watching tonight. I hope it will be nuanced. I remember many people assuming that you would have to be either against Bonaly if you preferred some other skater winning. For me personally, I admired Bonaly as well as the other skaters. Especially in those days skaters had more different styles. There was something to admire in all of them.

Weird to call a 5 times European Winner as a "Loser".....
She was an "anti-Christ" of figure skating. Having athleticism in an era where edges, elegance, femininity and grace was (rightly) awarded and she lacked most of these features... Why to make her looks like a "victim" . She really achieved a lot and she deserved everything she achieved.

Watched it and was disappointed at how little nuance it had. The documentary had some interesting things on Surya personaly: her background, her family, how she got into skating, her struggles with her coach and her mom. But the figure skating part of it is really weak and disappointingly superficial. I hoped for more.

Oh dear, thanks for the warning. I won't be expecting much objectivity then. The title is already strange. I first thought it was a joke. As some have pointed out, she won multiple European gold medals and winning a Worlds silver isn't bad either. Many would be happy with what Bonaly achieved. Hardly a loser.

To be fair about the title of the series, Netflix says: "In a 'winning is everything' society, how do we handle failure? This series profiles athletes who have turned the agony of defeat into human triumph."

The episode about curling is all about how ONE loss led to a huge series of wins for one guy and the team he built and how all those wins led to major changes in the game. But also, how winning was so boring that the crowd actually started chanting BORING over and over. Another episode is about how a long distance marathoner got lost in the dessert and almost presumed dead. His story was one of triumph and survival, the race was merely the setting where this occurred. It wasn't about 'losing.' It's not really calling the athletes profiled in the show 'losers' in a derogatory way.

Allright, thank you for the explanation VegMom. I will be watching this with more interest then.

I have seen Surya skate in person and what struck me was the curved and circular patterns that she skated on (easy to see when looking down from the higher seats). It was obvious that she had come from the era of "Figure" Skating when Figures were still a part of the sport (Surya performing School Figures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSW5JVynU90). This was in stark contrast to skaters I have seen perform live that skated on straight lines like Sasha Cohen (yet Cohen was never vilified for her lack of edges).

Surya also took off the correct entrance edge in her jumps (never Fluzted or Lipped) something a whole generation of skaters (post-Figures) have not been able to do. What was unorthodox, was the set-up for some of the jumps (axel, flip) where she could launch herself up into the air without first gaining speed on the ice. She would just spring up (from a stand still). She approached those jumps like a gymnast, very upright, using a lot more upper body than the technique that's usually taught.

Yet unorthodox technique alone does not justify the negativity and outright hostility that Surya faced from (some) judges and commentators. The coded language used to describe Surya and the constant remarks about her looks and/or costumes created a climate of bullying and negativity, that skaters who were cut from the preferred cloth were not subjected to. I have always been impressed with Surya's grace under this kind of relentless criticism and rejection.

She seemed to spark some strange outrage. I remember Czech commentators yakking through her whole programs "it's just jumps!!!", don't recall if they were so critical to other skaters. Surya was actually who gotten me into skating when i was about 8 or so. My father called me to go watch her, because to him she was a best of all times.

Anyways, she is one of the people from the era i rewatch the most. And I do not agree it was "all jumps". She did have a great sense of performance...

Yes, I think Surya Bonaly definitely encounterd racism during her career (whether implicit or explicit)
How could she not?

I remember in just about every facet of sports, the usual "meme" from sportscasters in the 1990's....
And that was that a successful white athlete was often seen as "brainy" and "hard working", while a similar black athlete was seen as "physically gifted" and "athletic".

Heck, even now I sometimes see descriptions of Simone Biles or Venus Williams that are cringe-worthy.

As for her missing World Titles, I don't know.
The only one I saw was 1994, and it certainly could have either way. But I saw nothing controverisial about it.
She obviously had higher "technical content" but had some problems with the jumps.

Like Irina Slutskaya, Surya Bonaly had an impressive array of jumps.
But also like Irina, she sometimes had problems executing them cleanly with step outs, awkward landings, etc....

And her skating was so unique, that whether she was Black, White, or from Mars, no one else was even comparable to her.
Midori Ito was also unique in a lot of ways, but her programs were still constructed in more of less the same way as others.

I do agree with the people that say she was a truly exciting performer.

And I believe she is still the only skater that can land a backflip on one skate????

Suraya's backflip...superb. And she did triple-triples in het exhibition programmes. I remember her doing that (together with the famous backflip landing on one leg) at the 1994 olympics exhibition (where she was fourth, but I don't think there was anything controversial in the judging in her case because she had just not skated and jumped to her ability at that competition). I always loved watching her, despite the lack of edges.

So I was able to watch now, and as a documentary, it was enjoyable and entertainingly made. Mostly it was lovely to see Surya again, and looking happy, she was always a sweet girl. But I didn't get from this doc particularly that she was a victim of racism at all. Our sport is full of people who lost out on close decisions, and results are disputed for years after - eg. Yuna losing Sochi Gold - and discussions can be had, but I don't agree that racism played a part in Surya never winning a World title, having lived through her amateur career, or now in retrospect having watched the documentary. Scott Hamilton expressed it all really well, I though he made some wonderfully sympathetic points.

Re certain clips: There was one from when Surya first came on the scene and the British reporter was from ITV, who had the contract to broadcast Skating in the UK then (not BBC as I said in my previous post). Simon Reed, the commentator always introduced her as "born in the Reunion Island" which the doc doesn't mention at all, that she was actually born in an overseas French territory, but her parents adopted her from Nice. It would've been nice to hear more about her heritage, as I assumed all those years ago, that her parents were hippies and travelled to the Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean and brought Surya back to France.
The interview with British Judge Vanessa Riley talking in disparaging terms about her costume for the Compulsory Figures was nothing to do with Surya being black. Vanessa Riley was a strict Judge, she criticised and penalised the costume of a Russian man at the same competition, 1989 European Championships in Birmingham.

https://youtu.be/D8ECupWBess?t=154

I'm glad Surya had a successful Pro career in America afterwards. I didn't get to see much of that, as there was no internet back then. And I'm delighted to see she's happy in her personal life. Mostly, it's just really great to see a whole documentary about Surya rather than the usual suspects - Tonya & Nancy. But it should be noted that someone considered a Skating Legend and all time great, ahead of his time John Curry, won his Olympic title in 1976 by a 5/4 split decision. That's how it often was, and still is, in the sport of Figure Skating. I do appreciate however that some commercial endorsements and sponsorship decisions may be affected by prejudice towards those who are different.

layman said:

I have seen Surya skate in person and what struck me was the curved and circular patterns that she skated on (easy to see when looking down from the higher seats). It was obvious that she had come from the era of "Figure" Skating when Figures were still a part of the sport (Surya performing School Figures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSW5JVynU90). This was in stark contrast to skaters I have seen perform live that skated on straight lines like Sasha Cohen (yet Cohen was never criticized for her lack of edges).

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That was another great clip! I see the documentary researcher must've spent the time looking up all of ITV's 1989 Birmingham Europeans clips on YT. So obviously I'm speaking as a British viewer, but I never heard or saw any of the hostile "relentless criticism and rejection" that you and others refer to.

I can’t say I’m surprised, but the complete ignorance on this forum is astounding sometimes. It’s very obvious Surya was looked at as ‘other’ for being black by the media, the commentators, and the judges. Not to mention she refused to do what would probably have gotten her better favor with the judges - kiss their you know what and keep her mouth shut. I will always admire her for knowing her worth and remaining true to herself.

I see no “complete ignorance” on this forum, let alone astounding

Surya Bonaly was a terrible skater. Truly terrible. Skating skills just weren’t in her toolbox.:noshake: Many other skills were.:agree:

Do I think that Surya faced racism in her life? You betcha. Do I think that may have factored into some person’s viewpoints on her skating? Yepperdoodles. Can I say that racism was the determinative factor in any result she achieved in her competitive career, or was the determinative factor that she just didn’t seem to want, to, you know, skate?

That’s a toughie.