Anyone watching Kristi Yamaguchi skate her way to Olympic gold at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, would have guessed that the 20-year-old World Champion had been athletic from the moment she was born. Both graceful and powerful, Yamaguchi was the kind of skater who made the most difficult moves seem effortless. But the truth is, she was born with a condition that can make walking nearly impossible.
Yamaguchi was born in 1971 in Hayward, California, with bilateral clubfoot, a birth defect which causes both feet to twist out of their usual position.
"I was born with clubfeet, and I had plaster casts on my legs from when I was a couple of months old until age one," Yamaguchi said in 2010, per CNN. "When the casts came off, I wore corrective shoes connected by a brace to turn my feet until I was about two."
"The braces hurt my legs a lot, and I remember trying to walk with a bar in between my feet — I had to shuffle," Yamaguchi continued. "I was lucky they corrected it when I was so young. Skating wasn't assigned to me, but when I wanted to skate, the doctors said it would help."
According to Yamaguchi, she expressed an interest in skating after seeing the Ice Follies and the Ice Capades when she was around four or five.
"I remember seeing Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill and wanting to capture the magic of those shows," she explained.
By the time she was in junior high, Yamaguchi was already competing. She won the junior pairs title at the U.S. championships in 1986 with her partner, Rudy Galindo, according to Biography; the pair did the same at the World Junior Championships two years later (where Yamaguchi also won the singles event). Not long after, Yamaguchi decided to focus on singles skating, moving to Alberta, Canada, in 1991 to train with Christy Ness. This turned out to be a wise decision, of course: That same year, she won the World Championships in Munich, Germany.
It was no surprise to figure skating fans when Yamaguchi ended up at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, on the same U.S. team as Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. While Yamaguchi's competitors, including Harding and Japan's Midori Ito, were known for their ability to land extremely difficult jumps (namely the triple Axel), Yamaguchi had a reputation for being a more well-rounded skater who focused on artistry. Her strategy proved to be a winning one when she made history that year as the first Asian American woman to win gold at the Winter Olympics...though the significance of the moment didn't fully hit her at first.
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"Honestly I just felt like another California girl that grew up (here), and I had to land a triple Lutz-triple toe,” Yamaguchi explained later, per the official website for the Olympics. “I think it was after when I received so much support and outreach from the Asian American community is when it hit me. ‘Oh wow, what’s going on here?' I was able to really appreciate what it meant, particularly to the Japanese American community. I also gained a deeper appreciation for my family, my ancestors and everything that they had gone through in order for me to live the American dream.”
Though Yamaguchi retired from competing not long after winning the gold medal, she didn't stop skating. She toured with Stars on Ice for over a decade, going on to be inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1998, the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1999 and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2005.
In an interview with the Nob Hill Gazette earlier this year, Yamaguchi reflected on how skating has changed over the years, noting that today's young skaters face a different set of challenges.
"I think it’s harder nowadays because of social media, with how accessible the athletes are and anyone in the spotlight is these days," she said. "We were pretty insulated back in the ’90s, though the traditional press was overwhelming. Still, I can’t imagine nowadays. You see a lot of athletes building their social media presence and getting endorsements and sponsorships, which is great because that helps offset some of the training expenses and things like that. But they have a lot more to deal with in this day and age."
Related: 1988 Olympic Skating Legends, Paired as Teenagers, Became Figure Skating's Greatest Love Story
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