Rory Flack is trying to make history, again. The first African American woman to win the U.S. Open Professional Figure Skating Championships is coaching Team DMV, the first diverse competitive synchronized ice skating to make it to the Ice Sports Industry national championship.
But if anyone can help them succeed, it's Flack, who has beat the odds herself on the way to a professional skating career. She, along with French figure skater Surya Bonaly is credited with being among the first to do a backflip on ice, which is banned in the sport since before Bonaly first did it in the Olympics in 1998.
Breaking the Ice allows Flack to become an advocate for diversity in the sport through representation, something she had little of when she first started as a figure skater. American Debi Thomas is the first and only Black American figure skater to medal in the Olympic Games.
In the last Winter Olympics, there were no Black American figure skaters nor does it appear to be any in the pipeline. Though skating is an expensive sport, gymnastics is too, and the success of Olympians Dominque Dawes, Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles has brought many more African Americans to the sport.
"Back in my day, I was just the [expletive] to get out of the rink. Nobody tried to hide that they thought I wasn't supposed to be there.' Flack told Metro.co.uk last year.She added, "I started skating in 1974, just before I turned 5 years old. I remember getting an assignment from my coaches to watch U.S. nationals to find a hero in skating, somebody to look up to. It was very difficult because there were no Black skaters."
Breaking the Ice will air its eight-episode season on WE tv and ALLBLK in July.
