French skating icon Surya Bonaly revealed on Instagram that her Las Vegas home was burglarized and her collection of medals from world and European championships was stolen.
The 51-year-old, best known for her iconic one-footed backflip at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, asked residents and pawn shops to contact police if they see foreign gold and silver medals for sale, according to Cleveland.com
“You see, all those medals that I won in the past while competing in different worlds and European championships are sadly gone. Several days ago someone I mean a couple burglarized my home and stole all my valuable,” Bonaly wrote in an Instagram post that featured photos from her competitive caree
The five-time European champion won 13 medals across the World Championships, European Championships and World Junior Championships during her career.
Bonaly, who now works as a coach in Las Vegas, competed at three Winter Olympic Games across the 1990s, earning fifth place and fourth place finishes.
Iconic One-Footed Backflip
Bonaly made headlines by performing the first-ever backflip on one foot at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. The move had been banned in competition since 1976. She performed it during her free skate, knowing it would result in a deduction, but to fulfill her own desire to perform it despite a lingering Achilles injury. This was the only time a backflip was landed on one blade in the Olympics and it has not been repeated since.
Moving Through Adversity
While the quadruple jump and flip made her a standout, Bonaly’s perseverance in the face of adversity during the 90s is equally admirable.
Bonaly, an orphanage adoptee by a white family, realized early on that she was the only black female skater at many event in Europe.
At the World Championships, Bonaly took second behind Japan’s Yuka Sato. She was booed by the crowd and then immediately rushed by reporters thrusting microphones into her face and asking if she was going to give up the sport.
Figure skating coach Joel Savary, 37, the author of “Why Black and Brown Kids Don’t Ice Skate” and the founder of the Diversify Ice Foundation, elaborated on the emotional moment.
“I feel that was the beginning of the judges really wearing her down through this sort of attrition of not giving her what she truly deserved,” Savary told TODAY. “The feeling that I felt was it paints another negative picture of a person of color. You oftentimes think of it as the angry Black woman stereotype, but honestly, that was the only voice that she really had to share that this was unfair.”