Personalities BY LINDA BARRETT
ON THE ICE AND OFF Former Olympic Ice Skater Michael Weiss On January 5, 2018, local resident and former Olympic skater Michael Weiss, 41, was elected to the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame, accepting his award in a ceremony at the 2018 Prudential U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, California, surrounded by friends and family. “When I was younger, my family traveled with me often—my mom, dad, sisters, aunts and uncles—so having them all come to the ceremony was reminiscent of my old competitive days,” Weiss said. “But since my daughter and son were younger when I was competing, they knew about the titles, but they hadn’t heard my training stories and how and why I started my foundation,” which Weiss related in his acceptance speech. Weiss resides in McLean with his wife and former choreographer Lisa and their two children, Annie Mae and Christopher. Michael Weiss is a two-time Olympian (1998 and 2002) and two-time World bronze medalist (1999-2000), winning the U.S. men’s titles in 1999, 2000 and 2003. In 2003, as the Grand Prix Final bronze medalist, Weiss earned a top-four finish in each of his nine senior U.S. Championships. In 2000, Weiss won U.S. Figure Skating’s SKATING Magazine Reader’s Choice Award and was named USOC Athlete of the Year for figure skating.
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TYSONS v MARCH // APRIL 2018
Weiss was the first American to land a quadruple toe loop in competition (1999 World Championships). “I always wanted to push the bar technically. When competing against people like Todd Eldredge who were pushing skating artistically, I wanted to take it to another level and began trying to land the quad at age 18. When I was about 20 or 21 I could do them consistently in competition.” Weiss was also the first to do a backflip with a full twist on the ice (not allowable in competition, however). Retiring from competing, Weiss skated in professional shows including Stars On Ice, and currently coaches hockey. His advice for local kids: “Get onto the ice and have fun.” “Having fun is why I got involved in this sport,” he explained. “I loved the individuality, the speed I felt when on the ice, and the fact that I relied on myself. The things I learned through skating were important too, like how you had to deal with setbacks and failures in order to be successful. When I messed up, I took the blame, and went I did well, I took the praise.” Weiss has been lucky to have a number of outstanding moments in his career. One of his favorites happened when being selected for his first Olympics team. “I was not really favored, but I had a shot at the team after winning the nationals in Philadelphia. I had been practicing the quad lutz all week, but nobody ever did it before and the judges told me I didn’t have to take the risk. But I was young, just 21, and I went for the quad as my first jump in the program. Everyone knew it would be the first time ever tried in a competition.”
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