I wrote about the GOAT in Men’s figure skating in Italian and in English. For what I’ve read on internet I fear, however, that someone hasn’t clear ideas, so I will add some other details.

To win an Olympic medal is difficult. One of my favourite skater of all times is Kurt Browning. Kurt won four gold (three consecutive) and a silver in his last five World Championship, from 1989 to 1993. In 1988 he was recognised as the first skater able to complete a quadruple jump (he was also the first skater to do a 3S+3Lo combination, and the first to do three combination of two triple jumps – 3A+3T, 3Lo+3S, 3F+3T – in a free program). In his time he was among the best (for some time the best) technically, and the best artistically, and even now that he is 54 years old, his step sequences are wonderful. But yet, despite three Olympic participation, two times as the favourite for gold, he won a total of 0 Olympic medals.

Sometimes someone win aided by luck, but to win is really difficult. To win an Olympic medal at the first participation is more difficult. To win an Olympic gold is yet more difficult. To win an Olympic gold at the first participation is enormously more difficult. To win two Olympic gold…

So I asked to me who (among Men) won an Olympic medal after World War II. At first I made a series of screenshots about the competitions of all the medallist, but it was too much confusing, so I made a table. I’ve put in the seven columns, from left, the names of the skaters who won an Olympic gold in their first participation, in their second (I haven’t repeated the names of the two skaters who won both in their first and in their second participation), or in their third. After, distinct by colors for silver and bronze, there are the names of the skaters who won a medal in their first, or second, or third, or fourth competition. If a skater (there are three) won a medal in his first Olympic games, and the gold in his second, I wrote his name in both the columns. The names are highlighted in italic.

To win at the first Olympic Games is really difficult because the pressure is really strong, and the skater lack of experience. Let’s see closer at the most significative skaters.

Ilia Kulik’s career was really short. He won gold when he was 20 years and 267 days old, only Dick Button (18 years, 202 days), Yuzuru Hanyu (19 years, 69 days), Alexei Urmanov (20 years, 94 days) and Wolfgang Schwarz (20 years, 155 days) were younger than him. Before he competed only in three World Championship, and won a silver. He won also a gold and a bronze at the European Championship, and a gold at the Grand Prix Final. Probably if he competed more, he would have win more. He was a champion, deserves praises, but he was the best skater for a time too short to be truly dominant.

Viktor Petrenko’s career lasted more, even if we don’t consider his last Olympic Games, where he competed after a year in which he did only ice shows. Petrenko won a gold in his second Olympic Games, but in his first he won a bronze, so he was able to skate well from the first time. He also won a gold, two silvers and a bronze at the World Championship, and three gold, a silver and two bronzes at the European Championship. The Grand Prix Final didn’t exist at his time.

Petrenko won more than Kulik, but from 1989 to 1991 the World champion was Kurt Browning, not Petrenko. Petrenko was a serious rival, but he wasn’t the best. In 1991-1992 season, a month before the Olympic Games, Browning injured himself to the back. He shouldn’t had compete at the Olympic Games but… well, they were the Olympic Games, so he competed. Browning’s free skate was a mess. The competition was really poor, and according to several books that I read, Paul Wylie, the silver medallist, he too not perfect, was better than Petrenko. Petrenko won, and won also the World Championship a month later, ahead a Browning in better physical condition but not completely health. He was strong, he was the best at some competition, he wasn’t the best of his time.

David Jenkins and Evgeni Plushenko were much more closer to a GOAT status that Kulik or Petrenko. David’s family has dominated figure skating. His older brother Hayes Alan Jenkins won 4 consecutive gold medals at the World Championship, and the gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1956, the only time that two brothers go on the same Olympic podium. In 1961 Hayes Allan married Carol Heiss, five times gold at the World Championship, and silver in 1956 and gold in 1960 at the Olympic Games. But, as I wrote here, to be a skater among a strong tradition – David Jenkins was the third consecutive American skater to win the Olympic gold, Plushenko the fifth consecutive Russian skater to win the Olympic gold – is easier than to be the first, as were Dick Button and Yuzuru Hanyu.

Jenkins won an Olympic bronze, then dominated until the Olympic gold, and retired without go even to the World Championship a month later. Plushenko won an Olympic silver, then dominated until the Olympic gold, and took a stop. He has also some injuries to deal with, but he stopped because for a time he was satisfied of his wins.

Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean, two of the best pair ice dancer ever (probably only Tessa Virtue/Scott Moir are better than them) wrote in their autobiography Our Life on Ice:

Winning is both motivating and addictive. It becomes all-consuming. Once you get your first taste of success it pulls you in, like a huge magnet; and before you know it, it’s taken over your entire life. But that’s precisely what every sportsperson in the world strives for. You have to dedicate yourself to a sport if you want to be the best.
Even more demanding than becoming a champion is remaining a champion. When you’re at the top there’s only one place you can go, and that’s down. We were always very conscious of that. You have to keep moving forward if you’re going to keep ahead of the pack.

Even more demanding than becoming a champion is remaining a champion. How many skaters retired, or at least stopped for some times, after the biggest triumph? Until Alina Zagitova in 2018, Yuzuru Hanyu was the only Olympic Champion who participated (he also won, but it’s something more, in 2014 the simple participation was something that only him did, and when Zagitova did the same in 2018, she won the silver, not the gold) in a Grand Prix Final in the same calendar year of which he won the Olympic gold. Even Virtue/Moir didn’t do that. True, Tessa had a surgery, but Hanyu’s season wasn’t more easy. We remember the crash with Han Yan? It occurred only a month before the Grand Prix Final. And the surgery done for the urachus? At the Grand Prix Final he already feel some pain, the surgery was less than three weeks later, and he should have done it before, but he didn’t said anything about the pain because he wanted to compete at the Japan Championship.

At Button’s time the Grand Prix Final didn’t exist, but Button and Hanyu are the only skaters that, after an Olympic gold, never stopped. Hanyu hadn’t stopped even after the second Olympic gold, only he has done this.

In the ’40s and ’50s figure skating was much less widespread in the world. At the 1947 World Championship competed only five skaters. Button never had to face more than 15 skaters, from very few nations. I coloured in yellow the nations from which came Button’s rivals.

I did the same from the nations from which come Hanyu’s rivals.

Perhaps Hanyu has much more rivals than Button. And I don’t accept any attempt to reduce the importance of this reality with the assertion that the Brazilian skaters – I have chosen a nation at random – are too weak to be considered Hanyu’s rivals. In 1948 and 1952 the only idea of a strong Spanish skater was ridiculous. Spanish skaterd didn’t existed. In 2010 Javier Fernandez was the first Spanish skater to compete in an Olympic Games after Dario Villalba in 1956. None, in his first World championships, would have said that he will become a champion.  We can’t say in advance from which nation a strong skater can emerge. Question: how many World Championship Hanyu would have won if among his rivals there weren’t Spanish skaters?

To better understand how much is exceptional that a Spanish skater is strong, I’ve watched the results of all the Spanish skaters at the World Championship (columns B-D Men, columns F-G Ladies, columns H-I Pairs, columns J-K Ice Dance) and at the Olympic Games (same order). I highlighted in italics if the skater has ended the competition in the last or in the penultimate position. From 1986 was established that only the better skaters could do the free skate. From that date I’ve highlighted in bold the skaters who did the free skate.

This say that sometimes even from a small country can come a champion, but if in small country none skate, none skater can born. Dario Villalba, the first Spanish skater, was the son of a Spanish consul. He started skating in Philadelphia at 11 and, after returning to Spain at 14, continued to train in Chamonix because the only rink in his country was small and poorly maintained. Two years later his only Olympic and World competitions. After, it needed a lot of year before a Spanish skater go again to a World Championship.

Fernandez trained in Spain until summer 2008, after he was coached by Nicolai Morozov in the United States, and he become stronger. Now for the skaters (if they can sustain the expenses) it’s possible to go to the best coaches, regardless the nationality. In the past it wasn’t so easy. Among the nations that has send at least a skater at a World Championship or at an Olympic Games at Button’s time, there is Japan. I’ll watch the results of the Japanese skaters until the first medal, Minoru Sano’s bronze in 1977.

I wrote these lines almost two years ago, but I never published them. We must remember that non only internet didn’t exist, even the television didn’t broadcasted the competitions. To know what was done in another country was difficult, and for a weak nation, without coaches, was almost impossible to train their skaters.

The first skaters appeared on the international scene in 1932, with Kazukichi Oimatsu 9° at the Olympics, where he held the role of Japanese flag-bearer, and 7° at the World Championship, and Ryoichi Obitani, 12° and 8° respectively. Oimatsu fell in love with skating after discovering it by chance, thanks to an invitation from a friend, and he started practicing it self-taught by studying a manual written by Nikolai Panin, the 1908 Olympic gold medal winner in special figures. At that time there was only one very small rink in Japan and athletes trained in winter on frozen lakes. For Oimatsu and Obitani, the Olympics was a revelation. Seeing Gillis Grafström, Karl Schäfer and Sonja Henie made him understand the potential of skating, making them feel at the bottom of a valley, intent on looking at the summit, and inspiring them to move forward. In 1936 a new Japanese delegation presented itself to international competitions. Toshikazu Katayama finished 15° in the Olympics and 13° in the World Championship, ahead of Oimatsu (20° and 15°), Zenjiro Watanabe (21° and 16°) and Tsugio Hasegawa (23° and 17°). The twelve-year-old Etsuko Inada did better, 10° in both the Olympics and the World Championship. In 1950, at her second World Championship, Inada was placed 21°. Together with her, representing the colors of Japan, was Ryusuke Arisaka, 11° among men.
The war had turned the country back several years, creating a gap between the generations. In 1952 the Japanese federation invited Hayes Alan Jenkins, bronze medalist for the second time in the World Championship that year, and Tenley Albright, Olympic silver winner, to go on an impressive exhibition tour. Nobuo Sato recalled that they did not know anything about skating because all they could see was a few fragments of the program from the television services, a theatrical documentary and some photos made in the early 1930s by Iehide Tokugawa, son of the Japanese ambassador to Canada. The Japanese admired American athletes, filmed them and learned as much as possible.

So Arisaka competed against Button, but they were on two really different levels, figure skating in Japan didn’t exist, and this remained true for several years, at least until Nobuo Sato. Button had very few adversaries, coming from few nations. If we delete Spain, a nation non existent in the skating world at Button’s time, he and Hanyu will have almost the same win. The wins aren’t done by ifs, but to win now is much more difficult, so a real confrontation made only by numbers it’s impossible. We must consider also other things.

By the way, without skaters from Spain, Russia and Kazakhstan, three nation that didn’t exist in the skating’s World at Button’s time, Hanyu would have had these results:

• 3°, and not 5° [RUS, RUS], in his first Junior Grand Prix competition, the Merano Cup, when he was 13 years old (+1 bronze)
• 10° [RUS, KAZ] and not 12° at his first Junior World Championship at 14 years (two skaters and not only one for Japan at the 2010 Junior World Championship)
• 6° and not 7° [RUS] in the 2010 Rostelecom Cup
• 3° and not 4° [ESP] at his first Grand Prix Final in 2012 (+1 bronze)
• 2° and not 4° (KAZ, ESP] at 2013 World Championship (+1 World silver)
• 1° [RUS] and not 2° at the 2014 Cup of China (a gold instead of a silver)
• 3° [RUS] and not 4° at the 2014 NHK Trophy (+1 bronze).

Beside the most obvious differences, the change from silver to gold in two World Championships, there would be also four more medals, among them a silver at the World Championship, and a gold more in the Grand Prix competitions. A wider World make more difficult to win.

Ok, let’s see the situation after World War II.

Arena availability was a major factor in the first golden age of North American skating. In contrast to war-torn Europe, rinks in Canada and the U.S. not only survived World War II, but most of them remained open during the conflict. Only one complete Canadian Championships was cancelled (1943), while only women competed in 1944: the United States cancelled only the 1944 and 1945 men’s championships. (Steve Milton, Figure Skating’s Greatest Stars, pag. 117)

The rinks closed in Europe, the lack of national championships, weren’t the only problems. There were also deaths, and I suspect that in the War were killed more skaters in Europe than in America. Freddie Tomlins is the only one really strong that I know, but probably a lot of promising skaters never had the possibility to partecipate in international competitions:

Before the war ravaged many corners of Europe, figure skating had been dominated by Europeans […]. But when the fighter planes bombed the land and political strife took its toll over the six years from 1939 to 1945, the sport was devastated in continental Europe.

In many countries, some athletes faced starvation. Rinks disappeared, and so did the coaches. In more-peaceful prewar times, top American coach Harold Nicholson, who trained Sonja Henie, had moved to England to be closer to the major teaching opportunities in Europe. But when the war ended, the coaches fled in the opposite direction – to Canada and the United States – just to make a living.

“Nobody skated, nobody,” says Ellen Burka, who had been a Dutch national champion and emigrated to Canada in 1951. “Europe was dead for five years. There were no good coaches. England might have had some rinks, but they didn’t really have any skaters until the 1950s.

“North Americans were very lucky. They could continue skating, and they had no competition from Europe.” (Beverley Smith, Figure Skating. A Celebration, pag. 29).

So probably for Button it was easier to emerge than for Hanyu. Let’s see who were his rivals. When I wrote a number that seems a fractions, I wrote two numbers. For example, in the 1948 Olympic Games for Ede Kiraly I wrote 5/2. He was fifth in the Men’s competition, and won the silver (with Andrea Kekesy) in the Pairs competitions. And to compete in two disciplines, as did several skaters, is more demanding.

I listed the skaters by age, but for some of them I don’t know when they were born. At the 1948 Olympic Games Button was almost 19 years old, Gershchwiler, who has already competed at the World Championship in 1939, was almost 28 years old. Those who should have been his best years were cancelled by the war. In those years he, after going in England, was able to train only a day a week. Two of three only skaters who were more experienced than Button, were old (for a sport). Button didn’t have much experience before the 1948 Olympic Games, but this is true for almost all of his rivals.

For Hanyu I watched only the skaters who ended among the first 10 in a World Championship or in a Olympic Games until the first Hanyu’s Olympic season. Almost all were much older (but not so much old, at Sochi Daisuke Takahashi was 27 years old, the same age of Javier Fernandez at PyeongChang, the same age Hanyu will have at Bejing, if he will compete there). Hanyu hasn’t faced inexperienced skaters like him, he has due surpass strong skaters more experienced than him, and it’s difficult. A lot of skaters at their first Olympic Games make mess because they can’t control their emotions.

In the last months, after the reopening of the rinks closed for the pandemic, several skaters from all the World has spoken about the difficulty to return to skate, to feel the confidence with their body. They all regained the control of the body, but they needed time. All the skaters now has faced this problem. But Hanyu had already lost his rink before, two times. When he was 9 years old his rink closed for financial problems. He was forced to to change the rink (and the coach), and this isn’t an easy thing to do. And when he was 16 years old the Great East Japan Earthquake destroyed his rink and for several months he was forced to skate in Ice shows, the only way to have a (bad) rink in which he can train. Button has overcome skaters who had problems with their rinks, Hanyu was the skater with the problems.

In the last quote there are some words from Ellen Burka, who in the years was coach, among others, of Olympic or World medallist as Petra Burka, Toller Cranston, Dorothy Hamill, Christopher Bowman, Elvis Stojko and Patrick Chan, so if she say something, it’s better to listen to her. Nobody skated in Europe, and there were no good coaches. Europeans adversaries has big difficulties, no rinks and no coaches. Where were the coaches? Button was coached by the Swiss Gustave Lussi, but it was Lussi who was gone in the United States (in 1919, way before the War). Shortly after his World’s debut, Hanyu was coached by Brian Orser. It was Hanyu, who didn’t speak English, who goes in Canada. It’s a bit more difficult.

Button won more, true (even if, without a Spanish skater, they would have won the same number of World championship). But there is really someone who think that wasn’t Hanyu the strongest skater in 2015-2016 season? What he did among the end of November and the first half of December were the most impressive programs of the season. In the NHK Trophy he was so overwhelming, both in the short program and in the free skate, his programs were so much better than anything that anyone has skated before, that he changed completely figure skating. Two weeks later he tweaked all of his records. There was him, and after, far far away, there was the others. Even the best Fernandez, which we’ve seen in the World Championship three months later, wasn’t comparable. Talking of a whole competition (SP+FS), none was really comparable in the history of figure skating, to those two competitions, even if after, on a single program, he was able to surpassed himself. There are competition that mark the sport, as Donald Jackson’s free skate (the first 3Lz of figure skating, but the program was much more than a single jump) at the 1962 World Championship. In less than a month Hanyu has changed figure skating forever, even if in that season he didn’t win the World Championship.

For two consecutive years the World champion was Javier Fernandez but all, Fernandez included, know that he won only because Hanyu did several mistakes. In the 2015 we knew that Hanyu was returning to the competitions after a surgery, and the difference among the first and the second place was small. In 2016 we believed that Hanyu was healthy, only after we knew the truth about an injury that would have ended the career of almost all the other skaters. The difference among the first and the second place was big, but we all knew that the stronger skater, despite a wonderful performance by Fernandez, was Hanyu.

The most important competition is the Olympics, we all agree, but we’re really sure that the most important competition in a non-Olympic year is the World Championship? The first World Championship was held in 1896, only the European Championship, born in 1891, is older. The Grand Prix Final (with a different name) was born in the 1995-96 season. If we talk about history, there’s no comparison. But if we talk about difficulty? It’s easier to understand what I think if we watch at the ladies competition now.

How many strong Russian skaters there are? At a World Championship there can be only three Russian skaters. But at the Grand Prix Final the nationality isn’t important, so in 2019 both among the senior than among the juniors four skaters (Alena Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova and Alina Zagitova among seniors, Kamila Valieva, Daria Usacheva, Kseniia Sinitsyna and Viktoria Vasilieva among juniors) were Russian. Some strong skater, that could win a medal at the World Championship, could not partecipate at the competition because in his nation (or, in this cases, in her nation) there are a lot of strong skaters. At a Grand Prix Final the skaters are only six for discipline, but they are the strongest. So, if in a season a skater win the Grand Prix Final, and another skater win the World Championship, which skater is strongest? In the last years the most important skater isn’t always who win the World Championship, sometimes a performance is so overwhelming that can overcome all the rest.

For several decades Button was rightly considered the GOAT of Men’s figure skating. Now the GOAT is Hanyu, and none of the skaters that are competing now can hope to surpass him, independently by the results of the next Olympic Game.