by Johnny Weir
I thanked all of them for the thoughtful and helpful gesture. Amid the group of bowing women, I saw the fan who had made me the bedazzled cell-phone cover. She and I bowed a couple of times before she approached me.
“Johnny, it would be my honor to give you special gift,” she said.
“You’ve already given me more than enough,” I said, starting to feel a little worried.
“No, please,” she said, guiding me to a small seating area off the lobby.
I wasn’t sure what was happening but reasoned that she probably wouldn’t come on to me, or chop me into little pieces, in front of the hotel staff. What happened next astonished me more than if she had actually wielded a machete.
She handed me a beautifully wrapped box that I tentatively opened, upset about messing up the perfect paper, ribbon, and paper flower. I fished around the tissue for a second before I hit upon something cool and delicate. I pulled out the breathtaking object as if it had just been born. It was a gold and blue enamel Fabergé egg. As she had explained in her faltering English, she had flown to Moscow to purchase one in an authentic shop after reading about my love of Fabergé eggs in a magazine article. I did love the precious eggs but never imagined I’d actually own one. Not even counting the travel expenses, the gift must have cost her a small fortune. And in exchange for that treasure, she asked nothing in exchange except my happiness.
Being a “celebrity,” albeit in a very specific world, was pretty wonderful. It was a bit strange to have my photo taken by strangers while walking out of the hotel or buying my fourth Starbucks coffee of the day, but I wasn’t complaining. I enjoyed being adored.
The love fest continued when I arrived at the competition and went through the process of accreditation. The Japanese skating officials in charge greeted me warmly and said that coaches in their country were teaching young kids to skate like me—the biggest compliment I could imagine receiving. My porcelain skin and big eyes appealed to Japanese tastes for sure. But the way I skated—into myself and quiet—also resonated with their culture. The realization of my popularity in the country gave me quite a boost going into the event.
When I got on the ice for my long program, a new one created by Tarasova to “Otoñal” by Raul Di Blasio, it was so quiet you could have heard a program rustling. I had already skated well with my new short program to “Rondo Capriccioso” by Camille Saint-Saëns for the pleased and respectful audience. But by the time I had finished the free skate, people were standing and screaming. I even saw women crying. In a country that prides itself on being calm and quiet, the audiences usually barely clap. So this kind of raucous appreciation at the end of the program, very rare for Japan, marked a tremendous debut.
My scores were announced, and I was far and away the winner, beating the runner-up, Timothy Goebel, by more than twenty points. That night, exhausted and elated in my hotel bed, I called Alex to say good night (or maybe it was good morning for him). “It’s starting to happen,” I said. “I can’t believe this. Everything’s coming together.”
That was pretty much the extent of my celebration, since a few days later I arrived in Paris, where I had to forget the gold medal I had just won and start training for the next Grand Prix a week later.
I’d been to France but always to compete in little towns. Paris was completely new to me and, living in Delaware, a complete treat that I planned to enjoy. Every day after practice I walked the crooked streets, enjoying the intoxicating aroma of buttery croissants and fluffy baguettes (that stuff didn’t exactly fit into my skating diet) and lots of luscious dark coffee.
But far and away my favorite cultural delight in Paris was the fashion. Beautiful clothes have always been something I adored and followed like a moth to a flame. But I previously had to relegate my passion to reading fashion magazines since I wasn’t able to afford anything much nicer than a pair of designer jeans. But since the Champions on Ice Tour, I had been saving my pennies for this very moment—a shopping trip in the fashion mecca that is Paris.
I walked down the Champs-Élysées and skipped on the Rue Saint-Honoré. It was everything I had imagined. Each boutique window screamed beauty and luxury with clothes by Gaultier, Lacroix, Galliano, Christian Dior, Chanel, and Hermès. Inside the hushed stores, I joined the ranks of chic ladies in fur-trimmed tweed coats with delicate “CC” buttons and men in slick suits that screamed European glamour. I’ll never forget my first big purchase: a pair of caramel-colored Yves Saint Laurent ankle boots with little heels, aptly called the “Jonny.” I never dreamed my feet could look so beautiful and almost danced back out onto the street where the scent of cigarette smoke, Chanel No. 5, garlic, and apple napoleon mingled in the air with the angst-ridden soundtrack provided by a lonely violinist and decrepit accordion player. As a fashion addict on his first binge, it was the most erotic time of my life.
I returned to my hotel room laden down with those crisp, life-affirming shopping bags from the world’s most beautiful stores, ready to put everything away properly and perhaps try on a few incredible pieces again. Opening the door, I discovered to my abject horror that someone, who had strewn his clothes all over the small room, was showering in the bathroom. It wasn’t an intruder but simply another skater. In my mind, the two were equally upsetting.
By this point, I understood some things about myself. Number one: I didn’t eat in the cafeteria the organizing committee created for these events, preferring to venture out to the cafés or restaurants of the host city, because everyone would stare at me while I consumed lunch. And number two: I didn’t have roommates. These competitions are expensive for federations, so they require skaters to bunk together in order to save costs. But one thing I can’t abide is sleeping in the same room as somebody else, especially a stranger. I need my space, and when I’m competing, I definitely need my space.
After enough whining to my reluctant federation (and enough medals around my neck), they let me buy out the other half of the room when I traveled the circuit. It wasn’t like I was asking them to pay for it. I had enough extra money to make myself comfortable. I knew other skaters would be jealous and call me a diva, but I didn’t really care what they thought. I wanted to get a good night’s sleep and win.
Although I had paid to have the small, spartan room with two single beds pushed together to myself, the federation had booked somebody else in there while I was out. My luggage barely fit in there (I do not travel lightly). So I started collecting the stranger’s underwear, socks, T-shirts, and pants and stuffing them back into his duffel bag until he emerged from the shower with a towel around his waist.
“I’m really sorry,” I said, folding his things a little more neatly. “But I’ve paid for this room myself. You can’t stay here.”
“Johnny, when they put me in this room, I knew I shouldn’t be here. But there’s no other place for me to go. I just had to get a shower and need a little sleep.”
“You had your shower, but you can’t sleep here. I’ve packed your luggage again. Please get out.”
The poor guy, a pairs skater from Connecticut, threw on jeans and a shirt and fled the room, still soaking, to avoid the effects of my full-on tantrum.
Having a diva fit wasn’t my finest moment, but if my federation wanted me to be a star, they would have to start treating me like one. Or at least giving me a room to myself when I had paid for it. The federation found the pairs skater another home, and I held up my end of the bargain, winning the gold a few days later at the French Grand Prix, much to the chagrin of local fans who whistled (the French form of booing) at my victory over their champion Brian Joubert. Beating the world silver medalist from the year before in his own country signaled my ascendancy on the international stage.
Having conquered Paris, it was directly on to Russia. The only problem: I still didn’t have my tourist visa to get into the country.
Priscilla and my mom, who traveled with me wherever I went, had dutifully gone to the Russian consulate the day after we arrived in Paris wit
h my official letter stating that I was set to skate in the Russian Grand Prix two weeks later. Because Russians are big figure skating fans, a lot of the people that worked in the consulate knew who I was. It seemed like we would have the visa well before the typical weeklong waiting period.
But we quickly found ourselves caught up in red tape. Every day my mother, who didn’t speak a syllable of French, took the Paris metro to the Russian consulate, where she would line up at eight o’clock in the morning and wait for hours until they told her the visa still wasn’t ready. We steadily got more nervous until the situation turned into full-on panic when I still didn’t have a visa the day before I was supposed to leave for Moscow.
Priscilla, my mom, and I heard rumors the Russians were engaged in a game of payback for what happened to Evgeni Plushenko at the World Championships, held in Washington, D.C., two years earlier. The Americans had held up his visa (perhaps because they had a champion threat with Timothy Goebel) so that Evgeni had to come to the competition a day late. I had no idea of it was true, but my visa process was going so slowly, we weren’t sure if I’d make the Russian Grand Prix at all.
Although the entire U.S. team and the rest of the international skaters had already left, I continued to train in Paris, trying not to let geopolitics divert me from my run-throughs, until finally, two days before the Grand Prix, my mother came tearing into the hotel as if she were being chased by a couple of gendarmes: she had our visas!
We were ready to go—our bags had been packed and waiting for two days. Now we just needed a flight. The U.S. Figure Skating Association travel agent could book us on a direct flight the next morning from Charles De Gaulle for Sheremetyevo on Aeroflot, but at the time the Russian airline’s fleet of old planes had more than its fair share of crashes. So we took a pass and opted instead for a Lufthansa flight that connected in Frankfurt.
When we landed in Frankfurt the following day after a little hopper flight, Team Johnny was a little weary from the drama. Priscilla, my mom, and I sat silently in our own little world as we waited on the tarmac for the plane to debark. We sat and sat and sat and sat until eventually the pilot got on the intercom to say that our gate had experienced some sort of mishap and it would take hours for us to get off the plane.
We missed our flight to Moscow.
After a night in a hideous airport hotel in Frankfurt, where terrorist cells were certainly forming and I didn’t sleep a wink, we left for Russia, landing (after a snow delay, of course) just in time for me to make the draw party that decided the order of skaters the next day. I wasn’t on the official ice in Russia until the practice hour the morning before the competition, which left me feeling totally unprepared and terrified. Already a control freak who likes to have his skates laced and tight half an hour before I perform, I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect since this was my first time returning to Russia since 2002, when I’d withdrawn from the same event, claiming I was “sick.”
The scheduling screwup was the last thing I needed for an event that would take all my confidence to win. Russia is a rough place for foreigners to compete. Not only is figure skating one of the country’s most popular sports, but in general their nationalism is off the charts and makes American pride look downright unpatriotic. From a very early age, Russians are taught that they are the best. Representing America, I was already at a severe disadvantage and the lack of practice time didn’t help.
But when I got on the ice, a small weary speck in the middle of this massive Soviet-built stadium called Luzhniki filled to the last row, I was treated to a wholly unexpected surprise. Huge banners with “Johnny We Love You” and “We’ve Been Waiting for You” written in Cyrillic letters waved in time to chants of support. The Russians welcomed me like one of their own. Tarasova, the grand doyenne of the skating world and a living legend in her native land, waited at the boards in her large fur poncho, physical proof that she stood by me.
The audience pushed me through a few mistakes and, before the last run of the straight-line footwork sequence in my long program, screamed and clapped to the music. Just like in Japan, I was floored by the fan response, although in Russia the experience was even more special because after all these years of trying to speak Russian, understand the culture, and take the best from their history of skating, its people, in a rare show of affection, accepted my performance. I wasn’t perfect and got second, by a wide margin, to Evgeni Plushenko, world champion, Olympic silver medalist, and not a bad person to lose to.
The night after the Russian Grand Prix exhibition skate, I was ready to celebrate. I had the highest point total of any skater on the circuit, which meant going into my first Grand Prix Final, two weeks later in China, I was number one in the world. But first I needed to get my drink on. The Ukraina Hotel, where all the skaters were staying, one of seven famous Stalinist buildings known as the Seven Sisters, was incredibly high, incredibly old, and incredibly rundown. It didn’t have computer access, the TV only received two channels, and you had to shower on your knees in the bathtub. But the grand hotel, with twenty-foot ceilings in every room including the bathrooms, was tailor-made for debauchery.
Sitting in one of the hotel’s many bars, surrounded by friends I had made during summers training with Tarasova, I treated everyone, including myself, to champagne. A heavy cloud of smoke hung over the room’s thick red curtains and red velvet chairs as the drink went immediately to my head. I was rail thin, hadn’t touched alcohol since the Grand Prix started, and was already giddy from my current standing on the circuit. The combination made for a pretty cheerful evening.
At a certain point I spotted Evan Lysacek with a few other Americans sitting in the corner and decided to approach him in a moment of good sportsmanship.
“Having a good night, Evan?” I asked.
He wasn’t a fan of Russia and had placed fifth in the event, so I didn’t imagine it was the time of his life.
“Yeah, great,” he said.
“I think it would be a good idea to have a handstand contest,” I said out of the blue. I was pretty tipsy.
“You’re on.”
Upstairs in the hallway on the floor where all the Americans were staying, Evan and I competed in handstands. I was losing terribly when I came down wrong on one of my very pointy gray leather boots (I enjoy a pointy shoe because I’ve got small feet, and I think pointy shoes make them look bigger). In retrospect, it wasn’t the most practical footwear in which to carry on a handstand contest. With a sprained ankle, I decided to call it a night and hobbled back to my room.
Getting on the bus to the airport at four o’clock the next morning, I winced at the pain in my ankle. I was still a little tipsy from the night before and reasoned the pain, which I kept to myself, wasn’t all that bad. I’d be fine by the time we landed in the States. But the tipsy feeling wore off during a deep sleep on the bus ride. And when I awoke, my ankle was so stiff I couldn’t put any weight on it. Trying to get off the bus with my two giant suitcases, a small rolling bag, a purse, and my throbbing ankle, I ended in a jumble on the snowy street. The injury was so bad I knew I would never make it to the Grand Prix finale in China.
“Mom, I’m out. I can’t. I can’t,” I said, covered in snow like an idiot. “I hurt my ankle . . . doing handstands.”
My mom just looked at me and said, “Oh, Johnny.”
Waiting for my turn in the exhibition skate after the 2005 World Championships in Moscow, I sucked fiercely on a cough drop to try to rid myself of the taste of bitter disappointment. I had worked so hard to create a special Russian number for the exhibition—the gala of champions where the top five finishers from every event performed one last time for the crowd—because I went into the competition thinking I would earn gold and become the best skater in the world. In the end, I hadn’t even earned a medal.
I had returned to Moscow for the event in March cockier than ever, having just won my second national title, which firmly crowned me the best skater in America. Going into the National C
hampionships in Portland, Oregon, as the favorite, the pressure was intense. Winning a national title is one thing, but defending it is quite another. The stress was two hundred times greater than anything I had ever experienced. The media hounded me, hoping, praying, and waiting for me to say something stupid like I had the year before.
I just kept my head down, training harder and harder and harder every day. It paid off: I beat Timothy and Evan to become the first person in several years to win two national titles in a row, and I was only twenty years old.
Going to the World Championships, in one of my adopted home cities, no less, everything was amazing. A few people waited for me at the airport, which is really rare for Russia. And some of my fans from Japan traveled to Moscow to watch me compete. Skinny from months of hard dieting and even harder workouts and fortified by my clear international support, I was ready to be world champion.
And then, a few days before the competition, my body decided to rebel.
I’ve always had trouble with the bottom of my foot where a calcium deposit flares up on occasion. The condition, known as sesamoiditis, is unpredictable and embarrassingly painful. As an ice skater, there is so much pressure on your body when you land that everything has to work properly or it hurts like hell. Even a toenail that’s a tiny bit too long can kill.
By the third day of practices, I just couldn’t pull myself together and the pain had shot up into my knee. I considered withdrawing but couldn’t stand cutting short the best season of my life because of a goddamn calcium deposit. So I said, “Fuck you, foot,” and tried to forget the hurt and just do my job.
I was so nervous because, if nothing else, I didn’t want to let my audience down. After Evgeni withdrew because of a bad back, the Russian media told me, “Johnny, you’re the highest ‘Russian’ right now.” No pressure. Apart from the American doctor, Priscilla, and my mom, nobody knew about my sesamoiditis—it’s not exactly a sexy injury—plus in figure skating, people could care less if you are hurt. If you make excuses for bad skating, you just come off as a whiner. You might have suffered a concussion or your dog just died, but all that matters is your performance on the ice.