First Experiences with FS/When You Became a Fan?

Interesting topic. I remember from time to time watching European Championships with my grandmother, it was the time when Elena Glebova was competing for Estonia, so I'm guessing somewhere between 2008-2010 is when I started to watch some competitions. Laura Lepistö was one of my early favourites.

I remember 2010 Olympics ladies free skate and Yuna Kim winning, but I was not really involved back then, didn't know much about the scores. I started liking Evgeni Plushenko after he won Eurovision in 2008 with Dima Bilan so I also sometimes followed him - I was crushed when he had the restriction on competing and very happy when he won Europeans in 2011. I also remember waking up in the middle of the night to watch 2013 worlds because of Yuna Kim.

I think 2014 Sochi olympics was the changing moment for me. I watched a lot of skating then. The next season after that 2014-2015 would become the first season when I decided to get more involved and started watching GP series. A year later I was completely into it - I watched almost all senior competitions and familiarised myself with the older ones, learned more about the scoring. It was also then when I got more into pairs (loved V/T and later S/M) and ice dance (because of Shibutanis), which I didn't really find engaging before. 2016/2017 was the first season I got into junior skating.

It has been a very step-by-step journey for me. First I was just a casual fan, then some of my favourites made me watch more, now I'm watching almost everything. When in 2014 Olympics I didn't yet understand much about the scoring and didn't know all the skaters then by 2018 olympics I was a self-proclaimed expert and woke up 3am for 2 weeks to cheer on all the skaters. And I'm only getting more involved in skating, can't wait for the olympics in 20 years when I can tell everyone about the memories of 2018 Olympics and how the grass was greener back then

el henry said:

1970. (71?)

On Wide World of Sports.

First skater I remember and whose magic drew me in: Janet Lynn.
Skater whose magic made me a fan for good: Toller Cranston.

And that, children, is why medals matter less to me

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Like you I was spoiled from the start as Janet Lynn was my first view of skating. I cannot remember the year or the color of the dress as the tv was black and white. I then saw Peggy, Dorothy, Dianne deLeeuw, a young Linda Fratianne, John Curry and Toller. I really fell for it when I saw a baby faced pair team Tai & Randy in 1976.

My first memory is of T&D's Bolero in Sarajevo, I was a wee girl but I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I became a casual fan, loosely followed the sport. I do remember some of the greats from the era from the latter half of the 80's to the period of Albertville (1992) but to my eyes no one surpassed the impact when I saw T&D.
Then came 1993 Worlds in Prague, Alexei Urmanov appeared on the TV screen, looking like a perfect prince charming coming out from a Disney animation, and skated to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto #1 like a perfect prince charming coming out from a Disney animation. T'was a love at first sight and that was the moment I shifted from a casual observer from an obsessed skating stan forever.

My interest about the figure skating has started in 2015, when I accidentally saw Lipnitskaya's FS in team competition in Sochi on youtube. I was quite amazed and asked myself why I ignored this sport till that time even when my mom and my wife were fans. Since then I gradually started to be interested in that, slowly tried to understand the rules, learned about skaters etc. First whole competition I've watched live was european championship 2016.

Winter Olympics 1976. Toller Cranston. 'nuff said.
Kept my interest until 1988, but had other interests following the disappointment of Brian Orser not becoming Olympic champion. Watched briefly in 2002 'cause Yags was hot.
After a long pause, I came back to it around Sochi time and started properly again in the second half of the 2014/15 season and became more obsessed than ever.
But, Toller will always be God to me.
It's not necessarily among my three favourite sports (I'm hockey mad!), but I find it fascinating what (most) skaters can do on the ice and I love watching them. I also love their personalities...and a lot of eye candy around : (yeah, I'm that shallow).

Great thread idea! :agree:

How long has everyone been a fan of figure skating?

As in, a big fan who rushes to the TV when FS is on and reads boards and such - since Sochi or shortly before I think. I started following FS (more or less) after 2010 Vancouver when I was enchanted by Virtue/Moir (but ended up preferring Davis/White from the year after, lol).

When did you first see it?

Probably Holiday On Ice; I was a small kid back then.

What was the first event or who was the first skater you remember?

Consciously, it must have been a Michelle Kwan photo in the newspaper. That was way before I watched skating. I also have some vague and confused memories of rooting for Anissina/Peizerat against Navka/Kostomarov, that's probably my first conscious watching.

Winnie_20 said:

And two days later my whole family and I were mesmerized by Arakawa... I think that's where my love for Japanese figure skating comes from.

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OT, but I remember watching the performance live on TV! Shizuka must have made a deep impression on me as well. And to this day, the words 'she performed elements of utmost difficulty (or 'highest difficulty', as in the highest in the field, hard to tell without the context) by our commenters about her performance, are engraved in my memory. I wish our TV did something like the Japanese FSTV with their 'I want to see this again' show, to release old vids on demand. It would be nice to revisit that coverage.

And for the record, who made me a fan of Japanese skating in particular: Mao and Yuzuru. ^ ^

My love for figure skating started in 2010, when I saw Queen Yuna's James Bond Short Program. I fell in love with this sport and never turned back!

My mother was an adult skater who loved to watch skating competitions on TV, and though I would watch with her, I never had any interest, until the moment I happened to catch Torvill and Dean’s Bolero at the 84 Olympics. I’ve loved ice dance ever since.

My interest faded a bit during the 90s-early 00s, I think because I was less a fan of the teams of that era, but was reignited circa 2008 when I chanced upon a broadcast of US Nationals featuring a very young Davis and White, skating to Eleanor Rigby. I thought they had something special and began to follow their ascent through the dance world. And the Vancouver Olympics was another big moment for me; the talent on display there was so varied and amazing that it caused me to branch out to start to follow the disciplines other than dance.

Barbara Ann Scott started me.
Donald Jackson brought me back for a while.
Toller Cranston brought me back for good!

This was all due to my mother who was a fan. I skated for one year (I was terrible) and was in the 1959 Brantford Flashing Blades!

I followed figure skating from Kristi Yamaguchi through Irina Slutskaya... Then sort of lost interest for a while, post-Slutskaya. Finally, a few years ago, YouTube randomly recommended a video of a young Marin Honda competing in Juniors. Wow! I was very impressed and kept watching videos, including other skaters. It all spiraled out from there. (Sidenote: I'm not a big fan of Honda's senior skating so far, but she certainly does have a special "It" factor! )

Incidentally, I've thought about buying tickets to attend Worlds next year. Without YouTube videos of performances, I'd have zero interest in the sport and would never spend that kind of money. I think whoever is behind the video deleting is extremely misguided. The audience you depend on to fund your sport needs to first find out about it and be able to watch it, to become invested in the various sportspeople.

First experience: Torvill and Dean Barnum and Bailey. My grandparents recorded it and I watched it again and again pre-bedtime when I was allowed a "video" (not that often) the following summer. when I lived with them.

When I became a fan: I was living in Alberta at the time of the 1988 Olympics, and my father over-ruled my mother who didn't think we should watch TV (we had only recently acquired one) and let me watch as much figure skating as I wanted - what a great intro: Battle of the Brians, Battle of the Carmens, Liz Manley and Midori Ito, VIktor Petrenko, Wilson and McCall whose freedance I still remember better than either of the winners (I still like other B and B and K and P programs better); a tiny Gordeeva doing the most amazing feats, and Kurt Browning bursting onto the scene.

Watching Kristi Yamaguchi when I was in first grade. But I was obsessed in high school and would spend my Sundays watching whatever competitions were aired and poured through results in Skating magazine, the way my sister kept up with tennis.

First Experience;

2006 Olympics Pair Skating and Ice Dancing

When I became a fan;

2014 Olympics

Yulia's FP Team Event
Yuzuru's FP

First time：
Yuna Queen on TV NBC 2009 worlds
First ice show:
Yuna Queen 2011 EWC

I knew that FS was an olympic sport when i read an article about Kim Yuna (it talked about Mao Asada too). That was after Vancouver and i read it in a magazine which was distributed in some African countries only. Countries where it doesn't snow.....so most of people are not really interested in winter sports. No wonder why she became so famous with such media coverage....

But i became a fan of FS some years later when i saw Yuzuru's free skate at Nice worlds. A very convincing skate

First experience. When I was a little boy my parents took me to the Ice Capades. One act was a giant yellow dog skating. At the climax of the act the dog fell apart into two pieces, and it was two men in a dog suit! What could be cooler than that!

By the time I was teenager, living in a smallish western U.S. town, the Ice Capades came every year around Christmas and was the hottest ticket in town. If you took your girlfriend to the Ice Capades you were a boyfriend among boyfriends. I pitied all those losers who only took their girlfriends bowling.

Scrufflet said:

Barbara Ann Scott started me.

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Barbara Ann Scott was the first elite skater I ever saw (at an ice show). I was a little boy, but she looked so tiny on the ice, like a little doll. She was as pretty as the ballerina that spun around on the top of my sister's music box.

Elvis! Nagano 1998! The whole fam was rooting for him. I think I was around 10 years old.

rugbyfan said:

First experience: Torvill and Dean Barnum and Bailey. My grandparents recorded it and I watched it again and again pre-bedtime when I was allowed a "video" (not that often) the following summer. when I lived with them.

When I became a fan: I was living in Alberta at the time of the 1988 Olympics, and my father over-ruled my mother who didn't think we should watch TV (we had only recently acquired one) and let me watch as much figure skating as I wanted - what a great intro: Battle of the Brians, Battle of the Carmens, Liz Manley and Midori Ito, VIktor Petrenko, Wilson and McCall whose freedance I still remember better than either of the winners (I still like other B and B and K and P programs better); a tiny Gordeeva doing the most amazing feats, and Kurt Browning bursting onto the scene.

Click to expand...

Like you I loved the 1988 Olympics. VCRs were finally affordable and this and 1988 US Nationals were the first things I taped beginning a collection that continues to this day.

1992 Albertville Olympics. Kristi Yamaguchi's Blue Danube short program. I was five years old and that was IT.