Secrets of Skating. - book reviews

Dance Magazine, July, 1998 by Susan Elia

Secrets of Skating, with photographs by Simon Bruty, (Universe Publishing $29.95) is a lop-sized art-picture book. It chronicles Baiul's career from her beginnings as an orphaned young skater under the U.S.S.R. Communist regime to her Olympic gold medal win over U.S. front-runner Nancy Kerrigan in 1994. The book also touches on her experiences as a professional skater on tour, her battle with burnout, and her artistic renaissance.

Until Lipinski's win this year, Baiul was the youngest Olympic skating champion, having won the gold medal at Lillehammer in 1994 at age 16. Only a few years later, living in the United States and touring with Stars on Ice, Baiul began to look pole, tired, and out of shape. Her skating lost its sense of freedom and joy. Admirers around the world were shocked when they learned that their figure-skating sweetheart was responsible for a drunk-driving accident. (No other cars were involved and Baiul sustained only minor injuries.) Baiul admits in her book, "I think I had that car accident because I got to the point where I was taking time off only for moments at a time--and in the wrong way. I felt so much pressure, so much responsibility to the audience. I reached the point where I didn't want to skate anymore."

Baiul describes fighting her way back to skating after an off-ice hiatus, realizing she couldn't keep training in the same way she had done as a young competitor. That regimen, with its requisite triple jumps, was too hard on her body and would eventually cause irreparable knee and hip damage, "I become a professional figure skater because I didn't want to be a sports person anymore. I wanted to be an artist. Now I am free to learn something new." Through archival and new photography, the book shows Baiul's metamorphosis from girl champion to womanly artist. While the photographs and edgy graphics will appeal to younger devotees of Baiul and of figure skating in general, more sophisticated readers may be disappointed at the lacking text.