Their careers started nearly 30 years apart and were separated by the Atlantic ocean but that’s where the differences cease and the intriguing connections of these two enigmatic sports figures come to light. The delightful and apparent epiphanies start on the surface with their skin color and initials but Simone and Surya go far beyond that. Here are seven facts that could be explained, shall we say, coincidence or providence? You decide….
THEY WERE BOTH ADOPTED.
Surya was born Dec 15, 1973 and just six months later was adopted by a French couple. Simone was born March 14, 1997 and grew up with her birth mother until she was three years old when she was adopted by her grandparents who could better take care of her.
GYMNASTICS CATAPULTED THEIR CAREERS.
Surya’s first brush in athletic competitions came when she was apart of the 1986 French tumbling team. Although Surya branched off to dedicate herself fulltime to figure skating at the age of 12, her foundation in acrobatics on ice was undoubtedly attributed to her early childhood involvement in gymnastics . It laid the groundwork for her famous back flip on ice she would become known for. Now I wish I could say Simone dabbled in figure skating early on and then decided to go do gymnastics but as far we know she didn’t partake in any skating: she started doing gynmastcs right out of the gate and here we are today.
THEIR EXTRAORDINARY SKLLS RIVALED THEIR PEERS.
They were not only anomalies as far as their being so few black people within their perspective sports but they were known for their remarkable feet’s. Surya was the only female skater ever to do a back flip on ice and the only skater ever to land it on one foot. Only three other male skaters have done back flips. She accomplished her first in public at a gala in Annecy in 1986. 35 years later in May 2021 Simone became the first woman to ever land a Yurchenko double pike vault. The new vault was given a preliminary value of 6.6, making it the most appraised vault in women's gymnastics.
THEIR LAST COMEPETITIONS WERE THE JAPANESE OLYMPICS.
What are the odds: since 1940 Japan has only won the bid to host Olympics 4x (two winter and two summer) and both of the women’s last Olympics coincidently were in Japan, Surya’s in Nagano and Simone’s in Tokyo. Surya had a hurt ankle going in and finished 10th; while Simone had some mental health issues so she opted out of several performances.
THEY BOTH ENDURED PUBLIC SCRUTINY.
While Simone’s criticism came from opting out of the Olympics for the sake of her health, Surya’s criticism was speckled throughout her skating career from what some would deem a passive aggressive attitude after being treated unfairly by the judges. The most notable was at the 1994 National Championships when Surya took off her silver medal in an act of defiance when she lost to Yuka Sato by a miniscule half a point in her total skater scorecard. The nuances of scorecarding figure skating is a little more subjective then that of gymnastics. I believe both sports are a little petty around the edges: Simone was asked to not smile so much—there was this unspoken rule of stoicism that gymnasts were to maintain in their face (perhaps inspired buy the Russians who ruled gymnastics for so long). Simone didn’t experience any undertones of racial prejudice in her scorecard but Surya may have: her hayday was in the late 80s and 90s when she could have experienced some covert racial prejudices from some of the judges due to the sport being so traditionally northern European in looks. Surya shook up the norm with, not just her skin color but her style—she had more of powerful form of skating in comparison to the elegant and demure style of her other competitors like Yuka Sato who out beat Surya’s technical jumps over Yuka’s footwork artistry. Another episode that may have impacted Surya’s standing with the judges was during the Nagano Olympics. She was getting over a broken ankle and felt the only arsenal she had left to wow the public was doing a backflip which was illegal and judges could have taken points away for that. If Surya was a gymnast like Simone she would have been a gold winner since gymnastics, although graded on artistry, was graded more on technical feets which Surya excelled in on ice.
BOTH ENDED THEIR CAREERS AS “LOSERS.”
Even sarcasm is blushing on the public claim these two ended their perspective careers as losers. They accomplished so much beforehand which can never be cancelled out just because of the way an athlete left their sport. It is essentially mocking the general spectator looking at the athletes who’s brush with the gold was so close. In the 2019 Netflix documentary “Losers,” Surya was one of the five athletes featured. I believe her story will always generate discussion surrounding the motives of judges not giving her a higher score. Did she have skating flaws at times? Yes, and that impacted her score. Did her race ever have anything to do with some of the judge’s scoring? Especially Surya performing her backflip during competitions which is banned. Did the judges give her a lower score because of her feisty behavior on ice?” They were losers but they had the same mental grit and skill to get to the podium. Sometimes an athlete is just having a bad day. It’s too bad there isn’t another name for loser. Like Surya, Simone had her hey day mid career—she didn’t end her competitive career on the highest note but she did end it in the smartest.
BOTH HAD A HUNGER.
What I love about athletics is the objective nature. You can really only succeed through unadulterated merit: no glamour behind it, just long hard hours of training, blood sweat and tears. So refreshing in a world of nepotism where guy or girl gets a leg up in their career because of who their parents are, models like gigi, kendel and kaia come from super priviledged upbringings. These skating girls came from normal backgrounds, if not completely disadvantaged. It created a hunger to persevere and accomplish something great. Simone and Surya represent beacons of hope and resilience in their perspective sports. Perhaps that is the greatest soul connection they carry between eachother which has captivated their audiences for a combined 35 years. Surya was never considered to be the proverbial ice princess—and I have to agree. I think she was in fact an ice queen. Princesses are many, queens are few. The judges were playing the scorecard on their conservative ways of a qualifying what makes an ice princess and not a queen.
