78 Facts About Tara Lipinski

1.

Tara Kristen Lipinski was born on June 10,1982 and is an American former competitive figure skater, actress, sports commentator, and documentary film producer.

2.

Tara Lipinski is the first woman to complete a triple loop-triple loop combination, her signature jump element, in competition.

3.

Tara Lipinski won every competition she entered during her professional career and was the youngest skater to win the World Professional Figure Skating Championships.

4.

Tara Lipinski performed in live shows before retiring from figure skating in 2002.

5.

Tara Kristen Lipinski was born on June 10,1982, in Philadelphia, to "Pat" Lipinski and oil executive Jack Lipinski.

6.

Tara Lipinski spent her earliest years in Sewell, New Jersey.

7.

When Tara Lipinski was two, while watching the 1984 Summer Olympics, she stood on a Tupperware bowl and pretended to be a gold medalist.

8.

Tara Lipinski began figure skating in the same year, transferring her skills to the ice rink.

9.

Tara Lipinski later switched exclusively to figure skating and took lessons at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware.

10.

In 1991, Tara Lipinski's father received a job promotion, so the family moved to Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston.

11.

Tara Lipinski trained on a public rink at The Galleria.

12.

In 1994, Tara Lipinski earned a silver medal in the novice women's division at the 1994 US Figure Skating Championships.

13.

In January 1996, Tara Lipinski won a bronze medal as a senior-level skater at the 1996 US Championships.

14.

Tara Lipinski placed 22nd after the short program, but her free skate, which included seven triple jumps, brought her up to 15th place.

15.

Tara Lipinski was the first woman to complete the jump combination in competition.

16.

Tara Lipinski won the gold medal at the Champion Series Final and defeated Michelle Kwan by completing more successful jumps in her short and free programs.

17.

In February 1997, at the age of 14, Tara Lipinski became the youngest skater to win a US Championships title.

18.

Tara Lipinski broke the record set by Sonya Klopfer, who was 15 when she won US Nationals in 1951.

19.

Tara Lipinski defeated Kwan, the reigning 1996 US champion, who won the short program.

20.

Tara Lipinski was the last skater to perform in the competition's free skating segment; she skated cleanly with seven triple jumps, including her signature jump element, the triple loop-triple loop combination, and came in first place.

21.

Tara Lipinski was a month younger than the previous record holder, Sonja Henie from Norway, when she won the first of her ten World Championships in 1927.

22.

Tara Lipinski completed seven triple jumps, as she had done at the US Nationals and the Champion Series Final, and finished in first place after the short program.

23.

Tara Lipinski completed two double Axels, but one rival coach noted the small trajectory of her jumps, stating that "you couldn't have put a piece of paper under them".

24.

Tara Lipinski opened with a double Axel and landed a triple flip jump as well as her triple loop-triple loop combination, among others.

25.

Tara Lipinski received 5.8s and 5.9s in her technical marks and a 5.7 and 5.8 for presentation.

26.

Kwan's free skate came in first place because she had more first- and second-place votes, and Tara Lipinski came in first place overall because she received more second-place votes in the free skate than Slutskaya.

27.

Between seasons, Tara Lipinski grew two inches and turned 15 years old.

28.

Tara Lipinski selected film scores for both her short and free skate program, with the choreographies being created by Sandra Bezic.

29.

Tara Lipinski came in second place after Kwan in both the short program and free skating segment, taking second place overall.

30.

Tara Lipinski came in second place at Trophee Lalique, behind French skater Laetitia Hubert, who had not won any major competitions since the 1992 World Junior Championships and who came in eleventh place at her previous competition.

31.

Tara Lipinski won the competition, skating her first clean program of the season.

32.

At the 1998 US Championships, Tara Lipinski came in second behind Kwan.

33.

Tara Lipinski recovered enough from her short program to climb from fourth place to second overall.

34.

Tara Lipinski would have had to win the free skate and Kwan to come in third place or lower for Lipinski to win the championship.

35.

Tara Lipinski performed her free skate program with seven triple jumps, including her trademark triple loop-triple loop and a difficult triple toe loop-half loop-triple Salchow combination.

36.

Swift noted that Kwan's performance of her free skate "would have been enough to win at any other Olympics", but the judges, by awarding her five 5.7s in her technical marks, left room for Tara Lipinski to move ahead.

37.

Swift added that Tara Lipinski "had a blast" skating her free skate program and "soared and spun with abandon, filling the [rink] with her joy".

38.

Tara Lipinski's spins were faster than Kwan's but not as difficult, and their positions were weaker.

39.

Tara Lipinski was awarded 5.8s and 5.9s for her technical and presentation marks, and earned six out of nine first-place marks from the judges, winning the gold medal because the free skate was weighted more heavily than the short program.

40.

Tara Lipinski was the youngest Olympic gold medalist in figure skating history.

41.

Tara Lipinski was the sixth American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in figure skaing.

42.

Tara Lipinski was two months younger than Sonja Henie when she came in first place at the 1928 Winter Olympics, breaking a record that had stood for 70 years.

43.

In March 1998, Tara Lipinski announced her decision to withdraw from the 1998 World Championships, citing a serious glandular infection that required her to have two molars extracted, constant fatigue, and possible mononucleosis.

44.

Figure skater Scott Hamilton noted in his book Landing It: My Life On and Off the Ice that Tara Lipinski took "an enormous amount of heat" for turning professional.

45.

Tara Lipinski signed an exclusive deal with CBS to do some acting and to perform in ice shows and non-sanctioned competitions.

46.

Tara Lipinski suffered from sore hips and an injured hip during rehearsals.

47.

In 1999, Tara Lipinski performed with Stars on Ice for a second season and participated in the ISU-sanctioned Grand Slam of Figure Skating.

48.

Tara Lipinski became a spokeswoman for Boys and Girls Clubs of America and an anti-drug advocate, appeared on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, and acted in television shows for the Fox Family Network and Nickelodeon.

49.

Tara Lipinski became the youngest skater to win the World Professional Figure Skating Championships, completing a triple flip, a triple toe loop, and a triple Salchow jump in her free skate program.

50.

Tara Lipinski's marks consisted of two 10s, eleven 9.9s, and one 9.8; she won by more than one point over Denise Biellmann, who came in second place.

51.

Tara Lipinski had hip surgery in 2000 at the age of 18, which she believed saved her career.

52.

Tara Lipinski became a spokesperson to increase awareness about deep vein thrombosis, which the National Institutes of Health called "a dangerous potential side effect of surgery".

53.

Tara Lipinski was back on the ice seven days later for light practice with Stars on Ice.

54.

Tara Lipinski was able to return to touring but had to withdraw from the 2000 World Professional Championships.

55.

In 2002, Tara Lipinski toured 61 US cities with Stars on Ice, then retired from skating.

56.

Writer Ellyn Kestnbaum remarked that compared to Kwan's "more carefully choreographed expressions of joy", Tara Lipinski displayed "unselfconsious and spontaneous joy in her own movement that projected a greater air of confidence and command of the space".

57.

In Longman's opinion, Tara Lipinski "has propelled the sport forward with the difficulty of her jumps".

58.

Ed Swift remarked that although Tara Lipinski's jumps were not big, her spins were "so fast that she seems to dematerialize, like Tinkerbell, in the midst of her jumps".

59.

In March 1997, he stated that Tara Lipinski had "musicality and poise that are far beyond her years", and although he admitted that she often suffered from nerves, she was "the complete skating package, if a diminutive one, and a pleasure to watch".

60.

In 2018, US Figure Skating president Sam Auxier credited Tara Lipinski for increasing the level of complexity of Olympic skating.

61.

Tara Lipinski spent a few years traveling and working "here and there" after her retirement from figure skating.

62.

Tara Lipinski did some acting, but decided that it "just wasn't my thing".

63.

Tara Lipinski began commentating for Universal Sports in 2010 and started working for NBC and NBC Sports in 2011, where she commentated most international figure skating competition broadcasts.

64.

Tara Lipinski became a special correspondent for Extra and local NBC affiliates.

65.

Tara Lipinski teamed with sports commentator Terry Gannon and fellow figure skater and good friend Johnny Weir at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi as the network's second team of figure skating commentators for their daily live broadcasts.

66.

At first Tara Lipinski collaborated with Gannon at the women's events and Weir with Gannon at the men's events.

67.

Tara Lipinski, along with Weir and Gannon, was an analyst at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

68.

Tara Lipinski served as a social media, lifestyle, and fashion correspondent for NBC Sports, including the Beverly Hills Dog Show with Weir in 2017, the National Dog Show since 2015, the Kentucky Derby from 2014 to 2018, and the pre-game coverage for the Super Bowl in 2015 and 2017.

69.

In 2022, Tara Lipinski co-hosted Wedding Talk with event planner Jose Rolon and wedding designer Jove Meyer, produced by Chicken Soup for the Soul Studios.

70.

Tara Lipinski, who called the series "a deep and responsible look at what happened", said that she and Kapostasy chose to create the series because it was the 20th anniversary of the scandal and there had been no comprehensive look at what happened.

71.

Tara Lipinski expressed her Catholic faith with a devotion to St Therese of Lisieux since 1994 and Tara Lipinski credited St Therese for her Olympic win in 1998 and the recovery from her hip surgery in 2000.

72.

Tara Lipinski thanked St Therese at the kiss and cry after her short program in Nagano, and her coach held a small statue of St Therese during her free skate.

73.

Tara Lipinski wore a necklace with a good-luck charm, given to her by her uncle, with the words, "Short, but good".

74.

In 2001, Tara Lipinski had established a playroom in St Therese's honor in the children's ward in a Detroit hospital.

75.

Tara Lipinski said that roses, a symbol of St Therese, had "always appeared at her best and worst moments".

76.

In September 2020, in order to help raise awareness of the condition, Tara Lipinski made public her diagnosis of endometriosis after having laparoscopic surgery to treat it.

77.

Tara Lipinski reported that her surgery was successful, all of her adhesions were removed, and her recovery was "mainly pain free".

78.

Tara Lipinski credited dancer and actress Julianne Hough with increasing awareness of endometriosis, which encouraged Lipinski to seek out her own treatment.