Kristi Yamaguchi

Kristi Yamaguchi, who would become known to America and the world for her ethereal grace and superior athleticism in figure skates, spent the first year of her life in casts and special shoes to correct her bilateral clubfoot. But by the time she was five, she had become mesmerized watching Dorothy Hamill skate to gold at the 1976 Winter Olympics. The rest, as they say, is (figure skating) history.

Childhood

Yamaguchi was born and raised in California, the middle child of dentist Jim Yamaguchi and medical secretary Carole Doi Yamaguchi. Her mother was born in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. After struggling to learn to walk, Yamaguchi became captivated with seeing both Peggy Fleming and Hamill skate. Doctors agreed that skating could help strengthen her legs.

Early skating career

Yamaguchi began skating when she was about six years old. She was a shy child, and skating was an outlet that let her be herself: “There was a feeling of freedom, of gliding on the ice, where I could express myself in a way I had never felt.” By the time she was in sixth grade, she was rising at 4 am to get practice time on the ice before heading to school. Her mother would travel with her to weekend competitions.

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As a preteen Yamaguchi began pairs skating with partner Rudy Galindo. From 1983 to 1990 they skated as a pair and as individuals in competition. The singles skating experience made each of them uniquely accomplished, and they won gold in the pairs event at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1989 and 1990. But after that Yamaguchi decided to focus exclusively on singles. In 1991 she won silver for the third time in a row at U.S. nationals, and she had a breakout performance at the world championships, winning gold ahead of fellow American skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan—who would later make their own history.

Going for Olympic gold

Yamaguchi won her first U.S. national singles title in 1992, securing her spot on the Olympic team for the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France. Yamaguchi’s classically elegant skating style coupled with strong technical skills made her routines look effortless, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Her longtime coach, Christy Ness, instilled in Yamaguchi a relentless work ethic, which Yamaguchi recounted in a 2010 interview with Working Mother magazine:

She was an amazing coach and an amazing judge of drive. She saw enough times that the person with the most talent wasn’t necessarily the most successful. It was the person willing to go the extra mile, to put in the work, time and effort.

As Yamaguchi prepared to take the ice in France to skate for the gold, she got a visit from her idol, Hamill, who told her to have fun. She seemed to listen to the advice, executing a nearly flawless performance to take gold and becoming the first Asian American to win a Winter Olympics gold medal and the first American to win the women’s figure-skating competition since Hamill in 1976.

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Yamaguchi ended her amateur skating career by winning the 1992 world championships in front of a hometown crowd in California.

Life after skating

Yamaguchi skated professionally in various competitions and exhibitions for a decade before retiring. In 2000 she married professional hockey player Bret Hedican, whom she had met at the 1992 Olympic Games. The couple has two daughters, Emma and Keara.

In 2008 Yamaguchi traded skates for dancing shoes when she appeared on Dancing with the Stars, recording a perfect score on her final dance with partner Mark Ballas. (She took home the Mirrorball Trophy, not the gold medal, for that performance.)

Yamaguchi also created a foundation devoted to childhood literacy and has written several children’s books. She also found a reason to team up again with her former partner Galindo. He has served as skating coach for Yamaguchi’s daughter Emma. And, yes, Yamaguchi admits to being that kind of mom, saying with a laugh in a 2021 interview with U.S. Figure Skating:

He’s probably the only coach that would tolerate me texting him in the middle of the lesson.