Surya Varuna Bonaly (born 15 December 1973 in Nice, France) is a French retired figure skater and coach. She is a three-time World silver medalist (1993–1995), a five-time European champion (1991–1995), the 1991 World Junior Champion, and a nine-time French national champion (1989–1997).
Bonaly is the first Olympic figure skater to land a backflip on one blade; she performed it at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, and retired soon afterward. She had a long and successful career as a professional figure skater, performing in ice shows all over the world and winning many professional competitions. She became a coach in Las Vegas, Colorado, Minnesota, and Switzerland.
Surya Varuna Bonaly was born in Nice, France, on 15 December 1973. Her birth name was Claudine; she was adopted out of an orphanage at the age of eight months by Suzanne Bonaly, a physical education teacher in Nice, and Georges Bonaly, a draftsman who worked for the French government, who named her after the Hindu deities Surya and Varuna. Suzanne Bonaly said that they adopted a poor, nonwhite baby because "they are the babies no one takes". They initially wanted to adopt a baby from India, but received a call from an orphanage in France. Bonaly was educated at home by her mother. Bonaly's coach, Didier Gailhaguet, told reporters early in Bonaly's figure skating career that she had been born in Réunion and was abandoned as a baby on the beach, that she had been raised on a macrobiotic diet, and that the 17-inch ponytail she had at the 1992 Olympics had never been cut. Gailhaguet made up these stories about her early life "as a way to contend with better-established" skaters. Bonaly later found that her biological mother was from Réunion and that her biological father was from Ivory Coast.
Bonaly began gymnastics training from her mother when she was two years old and won a silver medal for the trampoline in team tumbling at the 1986 Tumbling World Championships when she was 12 years old. She began figure skating at the age of 12, when she successfully completed her first triple jump. Suzanne Bonaly was her daughter's first skating coach. In 1995, Johnette Howard of Sports Illustrated called Suzanne Bonaly "domineering" and stated that she had "near-total control" of her daughter's training and was intimately involved with her daughter's career. In 2016, reporter Susan Du described Gailhaguet's false stories about Bonaly's birth, the press' reactions to Suzanne Bonaly, and Gailhaguet's unsubstantiated accusations that she had abused her daughter.
Gailhaguet discovered Bonaly and invited her to train with him in Paris; her mother accompanied her there and her father stayed in Nice. Bonaly later told BBC's Outlook Podcast in 2019 that they lived in her parents' van and were "almost homeless". She made the French national team within a year.
Bonaly came in seventh place at Blue Swords, a junior-level competition in Germany, in 1987. At the 1988 World Junior Championships in December 1987, she came in 14th place.
At the 1988 Trophée Lalique, Bonaly came in seventh place. She came in third place at the 1989 World Junior Championships and won the gold medal for the first time at the 1989 French National Championships in December 1988. She came in eighth place at the 1989 European Championships and in 10th place at the 1989 World Championships.
In the fall of 1989, Bonaly competed at the Nebelhorn Trophy, where she came in second place, and at Skate America, where she came in sixth place. She again won the gold medal at the French Nationals and came in second place at Junior Worlds. She came in seventh place at the 1989 Tropheé Lalique, in fourth place at Europeans, and in ninth place at Worlds.
1990–1991 season: World Junior and European titles
In the summer of 1990, Bonaly came in third place overall at the 1990 Goodwill Games, after coming in fourth place after the short program and third place during the free skating program, when she attempted to accomplish a quadruple jump, although her landing was two-footed. Gailhaguet later stated that it was the closest she had come to landing a quad jump and that she was accomplishing them easily during practice. She was the first French female skater to successfully complete five triple jumps out of the seven jumps required in the free skate. Randy Harvey of the Los Angeles Times reported that she was the only woman to attempt a quad jump during the competition and that it was her best effort in three attempts, completing three-and-one-half revolutions, and called her free skating program "easily the most ambitious program" of the competition. Bonaly later told reporters that it was the first time she did not fall while attempting the quad. It was also the first time she won a bronze medal at an international competition. She performed a backflip for the audience during the awards ceremony.
Bonaly came in fifth place at the 1990 Skate America, in third place at the 1990 Skate Electric, and won the gold medal at the 1990 Grand Prix International de Paris and at the 1990 Nebelhorn Trophy. She won the gold medal at the 1991 World Junior Championships in Budapest, Hungary, her final junior appearance. After earning her third national title, Bonaly competed at the 1991 European Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she won the gold medal. The world press "first took note" of Bonaly after the competition. She came in fifth place at the 1991 Worlds Championships. She attempted a quad jump during her free skate, but it was underrotated; she was so sure that she had landed it cleanly that she threw up her arms in excitement, tripped, and "belly flopped on the ice", as The New York Times put it, "for no apparent reason".
1991–1992 season: Second European title and first Olympic appearance
In 1991, Bonaly won Skate Canada and the Grand Prix de St. Gervais. She came in second place at the NHK Trophy, in third place at Skate America, and in fifth place at the Grand Prix de France. In January 1992, Bonaly again won the gold medal at the European Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, with "a cautious performance that was still good enough to win". She finished before German skaters Marina Kielmann and Patricia Neske, who came in second and third places, respectively. Bonaly did not attempt her quad jump during the free skate, when she portrayed a bullfight in which the bull is spared, but was able to successfully complete five clean triple jumps. She also won the gold medal at French Nationals again.
In February 1992, Bonaly competed in the Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. She said later that it was her favorite Olympics because it was her first one and because it took place in her home country. As a citizen of the host country, Bonaly was chosen to represent France's athletes by taking the Olympic Oath during the opening ceremonies. An Olympic pin was made in her honor and her costumes were designed and donated to her by French fashion designer Christian Lacroix. Before the Olympics, The New York Times reported that Bonaly and her mother "engaged in a series of disputes" between her coach, Didier Gailhaguet, and Annick Dumont, her choreographer, which the French federation helped mediate. Susan Du later reported that Gailhaguet never lodged a complaint against Bonaly, but blamed Suzanne Bonaly for their dispute.
During a practice session a few hours before the short program in Albertville, Bonaly landed a backflip near Midori Ito from Japan; the Baltimore Sun reported that Ito was "forced to interrupt the final rehearsal of her program" and that she "never regained her composure", ultimately resulting in a fall 40 seconds after starting her short program during competition, replacing her planned triple Lutz jump for a triple Axel jump, and coming in fourth place. Shortly before the practice for the free skate, the referee of the women's competition at the Olympics gave Bonaly's mother "a rare warning" because officials had suspected for two years that Bonaly used the backflip in practices to intimidate other skaters. Her mother was furious about the warning, but passed it along to her daughter, who obeyed their demand.