The current Olympic figure skating competitions will produce heartbreak, triumph and a new sweetheart as if by script.
The reality of top-tier skating as it played out for two figure skaters for whom a legendary rink in Yonkers was home ice tells instead of personal and professional success absent breathless commentary by Dick Button.
Joel Fuhrman today is a board-certified family physician specializing in nutrition, the author of six books and the founder of a web-based nutritional healing practice that treats thousands.
The Yonkers P.S. 32, Roosevelt High School, NYU, Columbia University and University of Pennsylvania Medical School graduate is also principal of Eat Right America, whose aggregate nutrient density index (ANDI) program is featured at the likes of Whole Foods and software giant CQG. “We do a lot of cool stuff,” he said, including attacking a broad spectrum of diseases via nutrition. The website is Drfuhrman.com.
When he was 19 and his sister Gale was 13 in 1973, they placed second in the U.S. national pairs competition. In 1974, the Fuhrmans were ranked No. 1 in the nation, propelled there by the retirement of the couple who had beat them in ”™73. “We expected huge things,” he said.
A year on crutches ensued instead. “I split the bone in my heel through the bottom of my skate,” he said. It was a year in which “we could easily have won the nationals.”
The Fuhrmans placed fourth in the 1976 Olympic trials in Colorado Springs ”“ the top three went on to the Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria. Bothered by the mile-plus altitude Fuhrman said, “It wasn”™t my best performance.”
He skates no more, saying if he did so the urge for speed would be too great and “I would kill myself.” He skis instead. He and wife Lisa are married 29 years. They live in Flemington, N.J., where Fuhrman”™s practice employs 18. They have three girls and a boy.
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Figure skating five hours a day, six days a week through her teens, Stacey Orfini ranked ninth in the nation. In 1983, she beat Nancy Kerrigan. She turned pro at 19 and joined the Ice Capades, opting for its East Coast arm so as to annually play the hometown venues, so to speak, of Madison Square Garden, Nassau Coliseum and the Meadowlands for friends and family.
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Orfini this day speaks with skates on, breezing across the glassy, untouched surface of the Yonkers Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation”™s Edward J. Murray Memorial Skating Center ”“ simply “Murray”™s” to generations of skaters, including Joel and Gale Fuhrman, since 1960 ”“ where she trained as a youth and where she has coached figure skaters since 1987. Skating infuses her life.
Via several sanctioned and hierarchal skating programs at Murray”™s, Orfini coaches some 100 skaters. Two of Murray”™s four synchronized skate teams ”“ all girls ”“ have qualified for national-level competition this year. “Boys are welcome in synchronized,” she said. “It”™s just that none have shown up.”
In a few minutes, Orfini would be putting Francesca Casareale, 9 and lacing up beyond the glass, through her paces. The presence of a camera makes Orfini laugh, she says, but she seems to laugh a lot anyway and confesses: “I am basically a very happy person.”
Orfini and her skates themselves are testaments to antiburnout. The skates are adorned with girlish flair ”“ bright beads ”“ and she talks of gliding across the ice as if she just discovered it: “There is a special feeling when the skates are on: of gliding, of freedom and of passion. I am so glad I found that.”
Orfini still lives in Rockland County, where she grew up, is married and the mother of two: ages 2 and 4, both of whom skate. “And they dance around to the music when I have skating on TV. I enjoy watching it and I”™ll be watching the Olympics.”
A champion skater on ice presents the opportunity to ask why they don”™t get dizzy spinning around like that, when for most of us three quick twirls and we”™re nauseous.
Orfini refers to “the whole physics of skating, a lot of centrifugal force at work” as she talks about the spins. “You don”™t get dizzy when you spin. But you don”™t spot like a ballerina does, either. A ballerina will lock on an object with each pass. Skaters are going too fast. It”™s all a blur. You don”™t get dizzy because you get used to it.” Like a good coach, she quickly demonstrates with a slow spin that becomes tornadic as she draws in her arms.
Voila! ”“ she was not dizzy.
