Pair of Olympians keep their edge training in SM
There is little hope among figure skating analysts that the U.S. will take home a medal in Pairs this week at the XX Winter Olympics in Turino, Italy.
Pairs, which opens the Games’ skating competition on Saturday, is the weakest link for American skaters. The last U.S. couple to medal was Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard, who secured a bronze in 1988. Since then, duos have not even come close to reaching the podium.
But if any couple has a shot this year, analysts said, it’s Santa Monicans John Baldwin and Rena Inoue, who are going into the Games fresh off their come-from-behind victory in the 2006 U.S. Nationals, at which they became the first duo to successfully land a triple axel mid-air spin during competition. That move, which observers called “extraordinary,” helped catapult them from fourth to first and secured the two a spot in Turino.
“We want to put our mark on the sport and push pairs figure skating to the next level,” Baldwin, 32, said in an interview after the Nationals win, the duos’ second. “I don’t want it to be just like dust in the wind.”
Oppegard now coaches Baldwin and Inoue in Artesia, Calif.
“I saw a lot of performances at Nationals, and one of the highlights was John and Rena’s,” he said, taking his bias into account. “I think things like that make people look at pairs and say, ‘This is something I want to do.’”
A couple on and off the ice, Baldwin and Inoue have been skating together since 1999, according to www.nbcolympics.com, an official site of the Olympic Games.
The two met after Baldwin’s father, a figure skating coach and former U.S. champion, insisted that Inoue, 29, skate with his son. Inoue, a two-time Olympian singles skater from Japan, had other plans. At the time, she had just recovered from a six-month chemotherapy treatment in Los Angeles after being diagnosed with lung cancer. “(After chemotherapy) my OLYMPIANS, from page 1 immunity system was so low that I was getting colds easy and getting tired easy,” she told reporters in Turino on Tuesday. “I had a higher chance of pneumonia, but I recovered really quick.”
With a new lease on life, Inoue, who started skating at the age of 4 when doctors told her it may help with her asthma, decided to compete in singles for one more year and then return to Japan to pursue a career in medicine.
But Baldwin’s father persisted and after a few months she agreed. The two moved to Santa Monica shortly afterwards, where they currently reside after a brief stint in Arizona. The two had moved from the west coast to follow their coach, Olympic medalist Watson, who was running an elite skating program at the Desert Schools Coyote Center.
Feeling homesick, the couple moved back to Santa Monica in February of last year and have since worked with Watson’s former partner, Oppegard.
“To get the right kind of training, it’s important to be in the right frame of mind,” Baldwin told U.S. Figure Skating in an interview shortly after the move back to Santa Monica. “Our friends and our family and our life are out here. It’s important to be happy.”
Baldwin was born in Dallas and graduated from Mesa College in San Diego in 1995. Inoue was born in Hyougo, Japan, and graduated from Tokyo’s Waseda University with a degree in education.
She recently became a U.S. citizen, allowing her to compete for the country in the Winter Olympics.
Off the ice, the couple, who are not married, enjoy hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains, water sports, gardening, playing poker and caring for their cat, Madonna.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 10, 2006. Read the original PDF.