Surya Bonaly

Surya Bonaly is a French figure skater of Guadeloupean descent who became one of the most technically gifted and electrifying athletes in the history of the sport — and one of the most unfairly treated. A five-time European champion and nine-time French national champion, Bonaly was the only figure skater in Olympic history to land a backflip on one blade, a feat she performed at the 1998 Nagano Olympics in an act of defiance that became one of the most iconic moments in sports history.

Born in Nice, France, in 1973 and adopted by a white French couple, Bonaly was a prodigious athlete who initially trained as a gymnast before switching to figure skating. She brought an athletic power to the ice that was unlike anything the sport had seen — she could land triple jumps with ease, and she was the only woman to ever attempt a quadruple jump in competition. But the figure skating establishment, which valued a particular aesthetic that Bonaly did not fit, consistently refused to reward her technical superiority with the scores she deserved.

At the 1998 Nagano Olympics, skating in what she knew would be her final competitive performance and suffering from an Achilles tendon injury, Bonaly landed a backflip on one blade — a move that was technically illegal in competition. She did it knowing she would be penalized, as a final statement to judges who had undervalued her for her entire career. The crowd erupted. The moment became legendary — a Black woman, on the biggest stage in the world, choosing defiance over compliance. Bonaly retired from competitive skating and became a coach and performer, but that single backflip on one blade remains one of the most powerful acts of athletic protest ever witnessed.