On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed - Hardcover

Jackson, Jon; James R. Pereira

3.08

75 ratings by Goodreads

9781560258049: On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1560258047 ISBN 13: 9781560258049

Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005

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During the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, figure skating nearly lost its edge. The Russian gold medal debacle in the Pair Event publicly revealed the hidden world of bribery and collusion that is standard operating procedure across the sport. In On Edge, former Olympic level judge and competitive figure skater, Jon Jackson, bares the facts of the figure skating world—the image-making and social climbing, the prescription drug abuse, the affairs, the delusions of grandeur, and power-hungry scheming. He takes readers on a journey spanning 20 years through the private hotel rooms and hospitality suites where the culture thrives and multiplies, culminating in the days, weeks, and months following the Salt Lake City gold medal scandal.

Rebelling against this culture of nightly cocktail parties, where judges predetermine the next day’s winners, Jackson co-created the World Skating Federation in hopes of freeing the industry from the stranglehold of the seemingly omnipotent US Figure Skating Association (USFSA). The fallout was immediate. Detailing his battle with the USFSA, Jackson reveals his reservations about the continued corruption and the new scoring system, setting the stage for an even more dramatic and controversial scandal waiting to happen at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy.

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About the Author:

Jon Jackson is a former competitive figure skater and Olympic level judge, and the founder of the World Skating Federation. A retired lawyer, he lives in Las Vegas.

From Booklist:

Not only the potential winner of a longest-subtitle contest, this revealing memoir delivers a scathing indictment of the sport of figure skating. Jackson, a former competitive skater and Olympic judge, lays bare the sport's double-dealing and corruption while simultaneously telling the genuinely inspiring story of a young man who tried to make his way through this cutthroat world without losing his way. With coauthor Pereira, Jackson writes about encountering bribery, manipulation, cowardice, substance abuse, sexual predation, and other sordid goings-on. It's not a pretty picture, and there might be a tendency to think the author's got an axe (or skate blade) to grind, except for the fact that he so clearly loves the sport. At some points, he seems almost heartbroken over the way the sport has been defiled by the very people who should be preserving its integrity (somewhat surprisingly, he argues that Tonya Harding was mistreated). Although the prose is a bit overenthusiastic (Jackson does like his exclamation points), the book offers a much-needed look behind the scenes. David Pitt
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