I think the OG will always be the best🤯 #figureskating #backflip #sports #thenvsnow

In the long program at the White Ring in Nagano, Surya Bonaly threw herself into a flip the rules did not allow. She landed on one blade. In the air she held a split. The edge held.

She is the only woman to land a backflip in competition.

Ladies’ singles at the 1998 Winter Olympics ran from 18 to 20 February at the White Ring. Tara Lipinski won gold. Michelle Kwan took silver. Chen Lu earned bronze. Bonaly finished tenth. She had already fallen. She was skating on an injured foot. Because the backflip was illegal under the rules then in force, it received no credit in her technical merit score. She was the fourth person to land the element in competition and the only skater to finish it on one blade with a mid-air split. The move is now colloquially called a Bonaly.

That landing still moves on its own. On YouTube, the channel One More Edge sets the Nagano backflip beside later attempts by Eloisa Merino Sola and titles the cut with a flat claim that the original will always be the best.

Bonaly was born Claudine on 15 December 1973 in Nice, France. Suzanne and Georges Bonaly adopted her at eight months. Of the children left behind by other families, Suzanne Bonaly said, “they are the babies no one takes.”

Didier Gailhaguet coached her through the seasons that built the public record. In 1995 Johnette Howard, writing in Sports Illustrated, called Suzanne Bonaly “domineering” and wrote that she held “near-total control” of her daughter’s training and career. In 2019, on BBC’s Outlook Podcast, Surya Bonaly said they had been “almost homeless.”

She reached Nagano already loaded with titles. She was a three-time World silver medalist from 1993 to 1995. She won the European championship five times, from 1991 through 1995. She took the World Junior title in 1991. Between 1989 and 1997 she became French national champion nine times.

The backflip she showed the Olympic crowd had already appeared in public, outside the scored program. At the 1990 Goodwill Games she attempted a quadruple jump and landed on two feet. She still left with her first bronze medal at an international competition. During the awards ceremony she performed a backflip for the audience. Randy Harvey of the Los Angeles Times called her free skating program easily the most ambitious of the competition and noted that she was the only woman there to try a quad.

She chased the quadruple jump again at the 1991 World Championships. The rotation came up short. Certain she had landed it cleanly, she threw her arms up in celebration, then tripped and fell. The New York Times wrote that she “belly flopped on the ice.”

Albertville in 1992 gave her a first Olympic stage in her own country. As representative of the host nation’s athletes she took the Olympic Oath. Christian Lacroix designed her costumes. In a practice session before the short program she landed a backflip near Midori Ito of Japan. The Baltimore Sun reported that Ito was “forced to interrupt the final rehearsal of her program” and that she “never regained her composure.” Ito fell in the short program that followed.

The Nagano free skate was not a climb toward the podium. Lipinski and Kwan both skated clean free programs; six judges placed Lipinski ahead of Kwan and three placed Kwan ahead of Lipinski, enough to give Lipinski the gold. She became the youngest competitor to win gold in an individual event at the Winter Olympics. Chen Lu held bronze. Bonaly’s program had already been shaped by the fall and the injured foot when she chose the flip the judges could not score.

What the score sheet omitted, the ice kept. She rotated backward, held the split through the air, and arrived on a single blade. No other woman has landed that combination in competition. When One More Edge places Eloisa Merino Sola’s attempts next to the 1998 recording, the title does not soften. It says the original will always be the best.