Ex-skating star Bobek facing ten years for Meth
Posted on July 8th, 2009 by Austin
When 17-year old Nicole Bobek won the US Figure Skating title in 1995, she was the darling of her hometown in Chicago. Her iconic spiral was so unique in its grace and perfection, Olympic skater Michelle Kwan used it as her inspiration for what became her signature move. The world beat a path to young Nicole’s door, and her future seemed glaringly bright.
On Monday, she was arraigned in a New Jersey court and faces ten years in jail for dealing in drugs.
According to Kearny chief prosecutor Edward DeFazio, Bobek, now 31, was one of 19 people arrested, and “was actively involved in the upper echelon of a drug-ring engaged in the distribution of methamphetamine.”
Sadly, this is not Nicole’s first brush with the law. Even her 1995 triumph was achieved during a two-year probation for breaking into the home of one of her competitors. And being just a year after the Tonya Harding / Nancy Kerrigan scandal that cost Harding her 1994 US title, the press just went wild with the news.
The major source of her problems was training – Nicole hated it. She burned through eleven coaches in only nine years, and when her favorite mentor, world-renowned Carlo Fassi, died of a heart attack at the 1997 world ice-dancing contest in Lausanne, Switzerland, Nicole – the child of a one-parent home – was so crushed by the loss of her surrogate father, her career just went downhill from there. “He was always here for me,” she said at the time. ”He always cared.”
Her swansong in skating was at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Without Carlos at her side, Nicole’s routine was a discordant mess and she endured the humiliation of seventeenth place. One season later, when her eleventh coach quit, she left competition for good.
If she’d focused her talent, by now Nicole could be a millionaire. Instead, she needs someone else to put up $200,000 so she can get out of jail.
Source: LA Times
I thought that this article was about Nicole Bobeck. Why do you keep referring to her as Michelle? She is nothing like Michelle Kwan!