Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Vanessa James and Yannick Bonheur


On Tuesday February 16 2010 this reporter was lucky enough to run into Vanessa James and Yannick Bonhuer watching womens snowboard cross. The Toronto-born French athlete was very happy to be back saying "I'm very happy being back, he's very proud to be skating here." "We're very happy with our performance and our first Olympic experience [together]"

Vanessa and Yannick were at the games because they wanted to " realize the whole Olympic experience." As Vanessa said during our interview. They wanted to come and experience as much of the games as possible, meaning cheering on teammates, going to events, and "realizing their Olympic experience." For the couple the best part of the Olympics was the Canadian crowd when they performed. In Vanessa words "The Canadian audience is very good when we were tired they kept pushing us, helping us to keep going......for us to experience that with the Canadian audience."

When I asked what it was like for them to be the first black couple in figure skating (a frequently asked question) They said "We are very proud [because] there isn't very many black skaters [and] we hope to bring more people into the sport, black skaters into the sport........we'll see hopefully more couples in 2014" We're proud to be representing black people in the sport" Did you know that theres only 3 black athletes in figure skating? I bet there will be more in 2014, I sure hope so!

Oh and by the way I taped the interview and posted it on youtube heres a link to interview

5 comments:

  1. Thats so cool! So overall how did they do?! LOVE the interview! Lucky! And haha... nice photo! :)

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  2. They came 24 th in the short program and 15th in the long program

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  3. Not too bad... And haha well, it's a good photo

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  4. yeah i would've liked to take it but then i wouldn't have been in it. ah well you can't have your cake and eat it to

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