Kristi Yamaguchi: Star of the Ice

Kristi Yamaguchi signed skates - cliff1066 / flickr

Kristi Yamaguchi, a talented figure skater, writer and dancer, is known for winning many prestigious awards including the 1992 Olympic gold medal for figure skating. Yamaguchi, who is of Japanese decent, was born in Hayward, California on July 12, 1971. Yamaguchi began skating when she was six years old while also taking ballet classes and therapy sessions for her club feet.

Yamaguchi performed in both pairs and singles competition and was equally successful in both. Yamaguchi and her skating partner, Rudy Galindo, won the U.S. Championship in pairs in both 1989 and 1990. After having a successful run in doubles competition Yamaguchi decided to spend all her time in singles completion. During her singles career she made her presence known by winning the World Championship and also the 1992 Olympic gold medal. Yamaguchi, by attaining the gold medal in 1992, made history by being the first person of Asian decent to win a medal. During the Olympics, she outperformed her 28 other contestants with a seemingly perfect routine. Her performance captivated many people like Michael Janofsky of the New York Times who said, “Yamaguchi performed tonight as if all that mattered was making people smile.” After her appearance in the Olympics, Yamagata became pro and toured around the world with Stars on Ice. Yamaguchi soon retired in 1994 and pursued other interest of hers like writing. Yamaguchi stated that she had never been good at writing, but was pushed to it because she enjoyed reading bedtime stories to both her daughters.

Yamaguchi published her autobiography Always Dream, as well as two other books, Pure Gold, and Figure Skating for Dummies. She then started to write children's books so that other parents could enjoy reading to their children like she did. "The whole process is really fun and interesting and I’ve definitely learned a lot in the last two years with these two books,” Yamaguchi said.  “What’s not to like about children’s picture books?” she asked in an article in teamusa.org. She wrote Dream Big, Little Pig and the sequel It's a Big World Little Pig, which published in March of 2012,  as bedtime stories that other mothers could read to their children like she does with her own.