figure skating podcast interview
figure skating podcast interview
JULY 2007
An interview with Susie Wynne. Former US Ice Dance Champion, 1988 Olympian, member of the Torvill & Dean Face the Music tour, commentator for ESPN and ABC, coach, and choreographer. 55 minutes, 47 seconds.
Thanks to Fiona Mcquarrie for transcribing these interview highlights:
On her most embarrassing skating moment: It was during one of the Champions on Ice tours and I had just worn fishnet stockings for the first time, and I wasn’t used to things getting stuck in them, like, you know, the hook of your skate. I had my engagement ring on – it was a month before I was to be married – and Joe Druar and I were doing those goofy disco spins on our backs. And my engagement ring got stuck in my fishnet stocking. And it was at the beginning of the show, when all the skaters were coming out doing that skating montage thing, and there I am on my back with my engagement ring stuck on the other side of my body. And I think Joe had to carry me off in a fetal position before Brian Boitano came out and did his beautiful death drop [laughs].
On her early days in skating: I failed a lot in the beginning. I remember failing my first figure test – I was pulled. In those days it was – “excuse me, ma’am, you’ll have to leave the ice, because your figures are atrocious” [laughs]. I was pulled from the test, and I told my mom, I don’t want to fail like that again. I would go to the rink at five o’clock in the morning – I think my mom gave the Zamboni driver a bottle of Jack Daniels every week [laughs] – and I did patch from five to seven before anybody got there. And I did that for my first, second and third figure. I’m not like that now – I’m the laziest person you’ll ever meet now – but then there was just a force. “How will I do that? I’ve got to find out what this is about. “
On moving and changing coaches: We [she and Joe Druar] were in Philadelphia and had been stuck in sort of the fourth place, fifth place position in senior nationals. And Richard [Callaghan] said, you know, I think you guys have probably lived out your life here in ice dancing [laughs], I’ve talked to some Ice Capades people, do you want to turn professional? And it was 1986, and Joe and I, we just felt that we wanted to try to make the Olympic team, although chances didn’t look good.
Around that time, it was funny, I just kept running into people outside of skating who were helping change my thoughts about skating. I had a friend named Pam Lloyd who used to take my aerobics class, I used to teach aerobics, and she said, “Well, why aren’t you going to try to push for the Olympics? It’s just two years out.” And I said, “Aw, our coach kind of thinks it’s done, and I kind of agree with him.” And she said, “No! Look to the coaches that are developing the skaters with the style and the technique that you want to copy, and go to them. And go now! Don’t wait around! Try to make it. You’re young! “ And I thought, “Wow. I hadn’t even thought of that!” So it’s interesting how God put her in my life at that very tender time…so I took my friend’s advice, Joe and I felt that we weren’t finished, and two years later we made the Olympic team.
Susie Wynne and Joe Druar
On quitting before the 1992 Olympics: We had done the Goodwill Games in 1991 in Tacoma, and we had skated the program of our lives there, and beat Evgeny Platov and Oksana Grishuk. But we skated so well and had a standing ovation, and we both thought, we won’t be able to keep this up. I just felt that there were too many people coming up, and I just didn’t have the heart to overcome our physical….let’s put it this way, I thought that Joe and I were very talented performers and very solid skaters, but we didn’t have the artistry or the flexibility or the line that the Russians behind us, Grishuk and Platov, had. And it’s just…I don’t know, I didn’t have the drive. I could feel it. I thought, I’m getting lazier, and I had met Tyler Barth, w[...]
