Judge This

Surya Bonaly is not a champion; she's just a three-time World Silver Medalist. But Bonaly is performing in the John Hancock Champions on Ice Summer Tour because she's better than a champion -- she's a skating rebel, and not in a Tonya Harding way.

In perhaps the only women's sport left where girls are practically required to be sweet, petite, dolled-up and gracious, Bonaly is her own woman: big, black, a little edgy and extremely athletic. But most significant, she skates for the crowd and doesn't give a flying flip about scoring and judges.

In fact, at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, after receiving what many in the business saw as undeservedly low scores for her short program, Bonaly thumbed her nose at the judges by performing her intimidating, not to mention illegal, back flip (and landing gracefully on one foot, mind you) in her long program. As if her point weren't already clear, she bowed toward the crowd's standing ovation -- with her back to the judges. The disrespected judges bumped Bonaly back to tenth place, but Bonaly doesn't regret her decision. "I had nothing to lose," she says.

Bonaly, the only woman to incorporate such acrobatics into her exhibition programs, doesn't understand why back flips are off-limits. "I do sport," she says through her thick French accent, "because you're supposed to go higher and higher ... and I don't like it when people tell me I can't because it's a rule." She speculates on the reasons behind the rule: Perhaps it's because the skating powers-that-be think it's too dangerous, or maybe it would give out-of-favor Bonaly too much advantage. "Everything's political," she concludes. "It's nice to get away from all this."

She means it's nice to tour with Champions on Ice, where judges aren't allowed, back flips are welcome and the only competition is a non-cutthroat quest for the crowd's affection. But despite the family feel of the tour, Bonaly's not teaching the likes of Michelle Kwan and Oksana Baiul how to do their own acrobatics. Even if someone paid her a lot of money, she says, she wouldn't tell. "This is personal, homemade ... my secret recipe."

-- Lauren Kern

The Champions on Ice Tour comes to Compaq Center Friday, May 21, at 8 p.m. Call (713)629-3700 for tickets, $40 and $55.