Quadruple Flip

PrologueFebruary 1988 Calgary, Canada The XV Olympic Winter Games The pairs long program The feathered hem on Kyoko Maki’s shimmery silver-gray skirt fluttered in the breeze as her partner, Nobuo Tsuchino, took her tiny left hand in his right one and offered an extra, affectionate squeeze before letting go. They skated toward one corner, where Nobuo firmly took his partner’s waist in both hands, lifted her lovingly, and tossed her a good twelve feet forward, almost as high as the short wall encompassing the ice. Kyoko spun in the air three times and then landed on one foot on the outside edge of her blade. The arch in her back on the landing was beautiful and strong. It was a perfect throw triple flip. Nobuo stroked toward her to catch up to where she had settled. He wrapped an arm around her middle again and this time spun her on her toe into a gorgeous layback. Refrains of “Bells of Moscow,” A.K.A. Rachmaninoff’s “Prelude in C-sharp Minor,” built to a frenzy of piano keys hit hard, creating harsh, dissonant chords before fading in volume and harshness into its slow, sober, peaceful last several measures. The haunting tune was barely audible in the stands by then, drowned out by the roar of the excited crowd. Even over the airwaves it was hard to hear by the time the duo prepared themselves for their final move. Kyoko bent forward in a Charlotte spiral position, her head touching her knee, her free leg up, making her body a vertical straight line. Nobuo threw his head back, wrapped both of his arms around her, and laid her extended leg upon his shoulder. The two began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster until they blurred into one. When they stopped precisely on the music’s final beat, coming together in a passionate embrace, the applause grew even more robust and every person in the audience leapt to their feet. “Maki and Tsuchino,” as the commentators referred to them, took in deep, cold breaths and bowed to their fans. One smiling, one in tears, they fell into a clinch once more, allowing the final moments of their Olympic triumph to sink in. When Nobuo finally released his partner, instead of taking her hand to exit the ice, he dropped to one knee, right in the center of the five multicolor rings. “Kekkon shite kureru?” “Let us share one name,” he added also in Japanese. And as he searched Kyoko’s stunned expression for an answer, his vision blurred with tears of his own. “Make the rest of my dreams come true. Be my partner forever.” Their first dream, the one on which they had focused every minute of their lives since preadolescence, was now out of their hands. They had performed the program perfectly, climaxing—before their combination spin—with a throw jump no one else in pairs skating would repeat successfully for decades. Their technical score, as expected, was a row of 6.0s, but their artistic score, not as high as the Russian team’s, kept them off the top of the podium. Still, when Kyoko Maki agreed to become his bride, right there in front of thousands of screaming fans, Nobuo Tsuchino couldn’t imagine feeling any more like a winner.