Reply #28: Well, you may know what you like, but...

[VelmaD]

I can guarantee you that yes Okana Baiul was THAT much better than Surya Bonaly (the black woman you mentioned). Surya lacked grace and had lousy edges. Edges are really important in skating. Her basic stroking on the ice was not particularly good. She had neat tricks sometimes but the inbetween skating was lacking. Her spins and footwork were not up to par for a world class skater. She telegraphed her jumps rather than having them flow out of her skating. All that said, I actually liked her quite a bit. I still think she's just gorgeous. I just know enough about skating to recognize her deficiencies. Her biggest problem was that the judges told her repeatedly what her problem areas were and what she needed to do to win and she never listened and never did anything to make the needed improvements to her basic skating technique.

And actually Kerrigan was a contender before the knee-whacking. She had won a couple of world championship medals prior to the 1994 olympics.