Brian BOITANO

He describes his own exploit at the Games with the following words: “I felt like angels were lifting and spinning me.”

A tie before the big win

Going into the free skating portion of the men's figure skating competition in Calgary in 1988, Brian Boitano and Brian Orser were in a virtual tie for first place. Boitano then gave a stunning performance despite the enormous pressure. The judging could not have been closer with three judges voting for Boitano, four for Orser and two scored it a tie.

“I almost felt guilty feeling great”

The judges who gave Orser and Boitano equal marks broke the ties by choosing the score for technical merit as the tiebreaker. As both awarded Boitano higher marks for technical merit, he ended up winning 5-4. Because he was actually a friend of Orser's, he had mixed feelings about his victory. “I almost felt guilty feeling great”, Brian said. “I tried to hold it back, so me feeling great wouldn't make him feel worse”.