“You have inspired generations of skaters and you still inspire them”. This Friday, December 20, the town of Champigny-sur-Marne, where the sportswoman cut her teeth, paid tribute to its historic champion.
Surya Bonaly's adopted town, Champigny-sur-Marne, honored the five-time European figure skating champion by naming a street after her, this Friday, December 20. A Nice Christmas present for the 51-year-old sportswoman, who started attending the city's ice rink at the age of 12. It is also at the heart of this infrastructure – which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year – that the evening continued alongside Mayor Laurent Jeanne and several personalities from the world of sport such as the president of the Ligue d Île-de-France ice sports Annick Dumont or the journalist and commentator Nelson Monfort.
“Everything changed as soon as I set foot on this rink,” Surya Bonaly admitted to the crowd, visibly nostalgic. Originally from Nice, the Bonaly family had in fact settled in the Paris region after the coach of the French figure skating team, Didier Gailhaguet, noticed the young girl's abilities, while still a child. “I always think of Champigny. My heart is heavy. This is my adopted city,” then confided the one who now lives in the United States, before demonstrating her talents on the ice.
A difficult recognition
Talents which allowed the young Surya Bonaly to quickly make a name for herself in the very closed world of skating, establishing herself where she was clearly not always welcome. Racism, classicism, grossophobia… The skater suffered all this discrimination, despite exceptional performances, which were not fairly rewarded, in particular, because of her skin color. Moreover, the judge of the 1994 world championships Anne Hardy-Thomas publicly estimated that “Surya Bonaly should have been world champion. At least once, if not twice”. An assertion corroborated by the main interested party who recently declared in the Eurosport “Belle Trace” podcast, “If I had been white or American, I might have won a gold medal at the Olympics or the world championships”.
It is for this reason that in 2004, she officially became an American citizen, and that she distinguished herself, alongside her career, through her activism, becoming an ambassador for several associations, such as La France talents and colors, and by speaking out publicly to denounce all forms of discrimination. Over the past ten years, the figure of skating from the 1990s has been rediscovered by young people thanks to numerous documentaries and reports paying tribute to him.
Merci Surya!
Of Rebel on Ice (produced by Eva Longoria in 2014) to the documentary Blacks in France (Aurélia Perreau and Alain Mabanckou for France 2, 2022) via the podcast in six episodes Surya Bonaly : Corps et Lames (Binge Audio, 2018) and the special episode of the Netflix series Losers (2019), the figure and legacy of Surya Bonaly are more celebrated than ever. The testimony of a changing world? “You have inspired generations of skaters and you still inspire them” summed up the president of the Île-de-France Ice Sports League last Friday by naming a street in the name of the champion. The ultimate symbol for a whole new generation of black sportswomen.
December 26, 2024
