Three-time U.S. champion and 2008 World bronze medalist, Johnny Weir, at 23 years old, is not only a superstar with his natural abilities on the ice, but with his charming and flamboyant style and personality as well.

 

At the age of 12, Johnny found he really enjoyed watching figure skating on TV. Soon he was practicing the jumps he watched the skaters perform on television—in his basement on roller skates. Shortly after, he was thrilled to receive a pair of ice skates for Christmas, and to his family’s amusement, started skating in his frozen backyard between the corn stalks.

 

Although Johnny was active in many sports, his first and foremost interest was riding and showing horses, in which he excelled—until figure skating came along. It was when his skating coach at the University of Delaware, where he took lessons, approached his parents after only three months of lessons, about his promise as a skater that he had to make the hard decision between horseback riding and private skating lessons. Luckily for us, he chose the latter.

 

In his first two years of skating, Johnny competed in the Junior Olympics as a pairs skater with Jodi Rudde. However, the following season he decided to concentrate on his singles skills, and leaped every so confidently right into intermediate freestyle in the novice division.

 

His immediate success—a bronze medal at the 1998 U.S. Championships in Philadelphia, and second in his short program at the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, impressed not only fans but the media as well, described by many journalists as "the best quote at the Olympics."

 

Then after some disappointments, including third place finish at the 2007 U.S. Championships and eighth place finish at the World Championships, Johnny decided to refocus on his goals for the 2010 Olympics, and left longtime coach Priscilla Hill to team up with Galina Zmievskaya, who coached Olympic gold medalists Victor Petrenko (1992) and Oksana Baiul (1994).

 

Since then he has helped the American team win the 2008 International Counter Match event in Japan and re-established himself on the Grand Prix circuit by taking the gold medal at Cup of China and Cup of Russia before finishing fourth at the Grand Prix Final.

After winning the silver medal at the 2008 U.S. Championships in St. Paul, Minn., where he won the short program, Johnny won the bronze medal at the World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was the only medal won by a member of Team USA at the 2008 competition.

 

Below, Johnny talks about his aspirations and his often criticized unabashed approach to life.