🚀 go-pugleaf

Okay, several people wanted me to post the People article on Aids in
Figure Skating. Amazingly, several stated exactly the same words -- there
cannot be too much discussion of this problem. 

Fear on the Ice, People magazine 1-25-93

Their sport ravaged by more than 40 deaths, North America's top figure
skaters agonize over the loss of their friends and the grim toll of AIDs.

First page is two pictures of John Curry with caption: Stricken British
Olympic gold medalist John Curry (at St. Mary's Hospital, London, last
October and, right in 1977) said recently, "My whole circle of friends
died from AIDS."

Beginning of text:

Much as he loved Calgary, Canadian figure-skating star Brian Pockar had put
off returning to his childhood home as long as possible.  Calgary was where
he had begun the brilliant career that led to three Canadian amateur
championships from 1978 through 1980, a place on his country's 1980
Olympic team, two bronze medals at world competitions in 1976 and 1982 and, 
later, the 1985 world professional title.  But for Pockar, Calgary also 
represented the end of a life-and-death struggle.  "he was afraid to 
come home.  He knew he would die in this city," says Brian's sister 
Leanne, 30, a freelance television producer. "he stepped off the plane 
and said to my mom, 'You know, this is the last stop on the tour.'"

Four months later, in April of last year, Brian Pockar, 32, died from
complications of AIDS. Pockar's was the fourth AIDS-related death among
top-ranked Canadian skaters in the last five years. Dennis Coi, 26, a world
junior champion, died in 1987; Rob McCall, 33, 1988 Olympic bronze medalist
in ice dancing (with his partner, Tracy Wilson), died in 1991; and Shaun
McGill, 30, Canada's 1988 world professional silver medalist, died last
march, jsut five weeks before Pockar. The mounting death toll has stunned
Canadians, who rank figure skating close to ice hockey as a national
pastime.

Canada, however, is only the most visible locus of the AIDS crisis among
figure skaters.  This week, as the top amateurs convene in Phoenix for
the U.S. FIgure Skating National Championships, the extent of the disease is
becoming grimly apparent. "I could name more than 20 people in skating
who have died from AIDS," says Randy Gardner, 35, a Los Angeles resident
who won the 1979 world pairs championship with partner Tai Babilonia and
is now a producer and choreographer of professional ice shows.

"It's a shock," says 1990 world champion Jill Trenary, 24, of Bloomington,
Minn. "We don't like to think of AIDS as being any worse in our sport than
others. But it's here, and all of us are beginning to say, 'Whoa, this is
serious.'"

The Calgary Herald, in an investigation late last year, found that at least
40 top male skaters and coaches from the U.S. and Canada have died from AIDS
in recent years. While no similar study has been done in Europe, it is 
known that Ondrej Nepela, the 1972 Olympic gold medalist from Czechoslovakia,
died of AIDS-related cancer in 1989. And last October, Britain's John Curry,
43, the 1976 Olympic gold medalist, announced that he too had full-blown AIDS
and was returning home to live out his days.

Pictures: one of Brian Pockar and one of his sister Leanne with caption:
"Brian skated from the heart," says Leanne Pockar of her brother, Canada's
national champion 12 years before he died of AIDS. "I don't want people
to stop skating," says Leanne, "You don't catch AIDS from lacing on skates."
Two of Shaun McGill -- one greeting Nancy Regan and one with his companion
Regis Gagon in 1987 who says "Shaun had no shame about AIDS." Picture of
US pairs skater James Hulick (with partner Cynthia Lee Van Valkenburg in 1971)
who coached Kristi Yamaguchi in the '80s. Hulick died in 1989. Picture of
Tim Brown, a four-time national silver medalist (1957-1960) went on to
perform with the Canada Ice Dance Theatre in the 1970s. Brown died of AIDS
in 1989. Picture of John Carrel, a skater who later danced with the National
Ballet of Canada for seven years, died of AIDS in 1989. Picture of Czech
skater Ondrej Nepela, the 1971 world champion and 1972 Olympic gold medalist,
died in 1989. Picture of Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall who died in 1991, Tracy
says "He didn't waste a minute complaining."

More Text:

As skaters, coaches and officials privately mourn the deaths of ther friends,
they remain confused and fearful about dealing publicly with AIDS and with
the issue of homosexuality in skating. Skaters, who for years have privately
acknowledged a significant number of gay males in their midst, are reluctant
to discuss the subject. "Just like the majority in life, the majority of
people in skating are straight," argues 1988 Olympic gold medalist Brian
Boitano, who recently lashed out at the Calgary Herald investigation,
calling it "a witch-hunt."

Scott Hamilton, 34, gold medalist at the 1984 Olympics, understands the
reluctance to make an issue of the disease. "More people need to talk
about AIDS," says Hamilton, who lives with his fiancee, Karen Plage,
in Denver. "But we don't want to cause unnecessary alarm. If AIDS is
attached to skating, parents might not want to allow their kids to get
involved in the sport."

HIV-positive skaters, many of whom continue working and remain healthy for
years, are concerned that divulging their illness could cost them travel 
opportunities and chances to compete--and even provoke violence against
them; HIV-positive coaches fear that they would be unable to attract clients.
They cite U.S. laws, for instance, that ban HIV-positive noncitizens from
entering the country unless they declare their medical status and
obtain a temporary visitor's waiver.  Tracy Wilson, 31, says that was one
reason partner Rob McCall chose not to reveal he had the AIDS
virus.  "At the time, [someone with HIV] couldn't travel accross the border
[to the U.S.]. Rob wanted to continue skating and choreographing," she says.

Only now are friends, families and a handful of the skaters themselves
starting to talk publicly about their experiences with the disease.

"He was very calm," recalls Regis Gagnon of skater Shaun McGill in 1989 after
McGill was told he had AIDS. Gagnon, 32, a program adviser at the Ontario
Ministry of Health, lived with McGill in Toronto for four years prior
to McGill's death. "I kept informed about the latest AIDS treatements.
Shaun said to me, 'Just tell me what I need to know. I'll take the
pills I'm supposed to take. But don't bother me. I've got work to do.'"

Gagnon claims McGill did some of his finest choreography and skating after
his condition was diagnosed. "There was an intensity, a real need to
produce," says Gagnon of his friend, who never won an Olympic medal but
was regarded by his peers as one of the most creative skaters of
his generation. "He wanted to get his work out because he knew his
time was finite."

McGill, who spent a lot of time traveling, was one who kept his condition
secret for fear that he would not be allowed to enter the U.S., where
most professional skaters find work with various ice shows.  One spring
day in 1991 his secret was nearly revealed. On his way to Baltimore, home
base of the Next Ice Age, a professional troupe he was working with, he was
stopped by U.S. imigration officials in Toronto. "He didn't look totally
well, so they took him into a room and interrogated him [about whether
he had AIDS]," says Gagnon. "He had to tell them something so he'd be
allowed to cross the border. So he told them he had cancer."

The officials told McGill that they would have to confirm his statement and
asked for the name of somebody they could call. He gave them Gagnon's.
then, while the officials left him momentarily unattended, "Shaun sneaked
out of the customs office, found a phone and called to tell me what
kind of cancer he'd told them he had," says Gagnon. "It was pretty
traumatic."

Picture of Barry Hagan with caption: "The sport will endure," says former
U.S. ice dancer Barry Hagan (in Los Angeles), who admits he is HIV positive.

Only when McGill grew too weak to skate, shortly after that incident, did
he stop performing. McGill's Friend Tim Murphy, a cofounder of the Next
Ice Age, remembers McGill's final performance with the company. "He said,
'I think this is the last time I'll do this,'" Murphy recalls. "We had a
little cry and a hug. It was the only thing I ever heard him say about
how he was affected by AIDS."

John Curry, the British skating legend and the most celebrated skater with
AIDS, learned he was HIV positive on Christmas Day 1987. In a first-person
account he worte last October for Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, Curry
recalled that his doctor telephoned him with the news in Switzerland,
where he was staying alone in a friend's apartment. "I didn't know what to
do," Curry wrote. "I put down the phone in a daze and stayed in the flat for
two days on my own trying to take it in."

From then on, he said, "every day was a gift." He performed, choreographed
and taught skating--and told no one about his condition. From his experience
as a competitor, he knew he had reason to fear recriminations. "Some judges
said quite openly they wouldn't put me first because I was 'queer'" he
wrote. "I knew other [skaters] who were HIV positive, but people were terrified
of being exposed. I was afraid people would throw bricks through the window."

Curry, who had lived and worked for the last 16 years in the U.S., was in
New York City last summer when he discovered a small brown patch on his
arm; it turned out to be Kaposi's sarcoma, and AIDS-related cancer. It
was only then, after returning to his mother's home in Binton, England,
on July 2, that he told his family -- and finally the rest of the world --
of his illness.

Brian Pockar learned he was HIV positive in 1989 after a bout with the flu.
Although he told his family, he too decided not to make his illness public. 
"He battled with the decision right from the beginning," says his sister
Leanne, "I know his biggest regret was that he wanted to got to schools to
talk to children about the illness and what it does. But he didn't want
the people he loved to look at him with sorrow."

Pockar, who lived alone in Toronto, continued to skate for nearly two
years after his diagnosis, but by the summer of 1991 he could no longer
handle the physical stress of the sport. The following January, he finally
returned home to Calgary. "Brian wanted to spend time going back and
seeing the people who had contributed to his life and to his career,"
says Leanne.

At least one former U.S. skater is willing to speak bluntly about his
illnes. "I'm gay and contracted HIV sexually," says American Barry
Hagan, 35, who skated with Kim Krohn for 12 years during his amateur and
professional career that lasted from 1970 to 1986. "I don't have anything
to hide." Hagan, who shares a two-bedroom apartment in L.A. with a male
friend, noticed swelling in his lymph glands, in 1982 but didn't learn he
was infected with HIV until 1986, when he first had himself tested. Today
he looks trim but has lost muscle tone. A bout of meningitis in 1987
impaired his sense of balance, and in 1991 he experienced hearing
loss. "Skating is a fantasy world, and [the skating community] wants it to
be perfect. That's why they're defensive about this," he says. "But if
you keep your illness private, there is nothing anyone can do to help you."

Pictures: Olympic medalists Brian Orser, Katarina Witt, Brian Boitano and
Tracy Wilson take time out during a recent benefit in memory of Rob
McCall. "I cried through the whole show," says Rob's mother Evelyn,
in a 2nd picture with son Steve and Tracy Wilson.

For all the controversy surrounding the media's airing of the AIDS crisis
in their midst, many of the world's finest skaters turned out for Skate
the Dream, a benefit last November in Toronto that honored the memory
of Canadian skater Rob McCall. The event, featuring such stars as former
Olympic gold-medal mwinners Katarina Witt, Scott Hamilton, Brian Boitano,
and Kristi Yamaguchi, raised some $500,000 for AIDS research at the Toronto
Hospital. The show of support was also an emotional balm for McCall's mother,
Evelyn. The night before the benefit, which her son had helped plan even
as he lay dying, she awoke in her hotel room and felt compelled to go to
the window. "The mist was rising, and it was sort of illuminating the
street lights," she recalls. "I saw all these red and yellow blinking lights,
and I thought, 'This is like an arena.'"

"Then I felt Rob by me, and I just sort of broke down. Tears were streaming
down my face, and I couldn't move. I don't know how long it took, but cars
started moving, and I became aware again. I went back to bed and prayed.
That's the first time I've been able to pray since Rob died."

For ther performers themselves, the benefit was the beginning of a
recognition that AIDS has hit skating hard -- and that the stricken
need their help and understanding. "We wanted to show that because
someone is HIV positive, you can't put them aside," says Katarina
Witt. "They are part of us. We are a community."

Susan Reed
Fannie Weinstein in Toronto and
Lorenzo Benet in Los Angeles