Kristi Yamaguchi Reflects On Her Olympic Career and More
Kristi discusses How The Tokyo Games Postponement is Affecting Today’s Athletes
Once upon a time there was little girl named Kristi Yamaguchi, who wanted to ice skate. She started skating and competing when she was about 6 years old. She had her first big international win when she was 16. At that point she set her sights on the Olympics. At 20, her dream came to fruition by representing her country at the Olympic Winter Games and the icing on the cake – she won gold.
That’s a pretty broad version of what happened. As you probably know from most athletes, every Olympic dream has its own journey, its own story.
To start at the beginning, did you know that the little girl, who went on to be an Olympian, wore casts on her feet for the first year of her life?
I was born with severely turned in feet and legs, tangled up kind of like criss-cross applesauce. The few baby pictures I have you can see the little casts. It didn’t bother me; I didn’t know any better. But it was a lot for my parents. The casts were replaced every couple of weeks because of the rate of growth at that age. Once I was out of the casts, I was moved into corrective shoes with a brace. I remember learning how to walk with the metal bar between my feet, forcing them to turn out. It was frustrating because I knew how to walk, but it was often easier to crawl to get from point A …
Kristi Yamaguchi talks Olympics
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