Rogers column: TV couple Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, at right, are figure skating’s main attraction
The pair break down the sport like nobody else
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – No disrespect to Olympic gold medal prospect Nathan Chen, but the biggest current stars in American figure skating won’t be taking to the ice this month. They’ll be behind a microphone.
For many, the commentary combo of Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir are more of a reason to tune in to the Winter Olympics than the individuals and pairs populating the competition itself.
The Tara and Johnny show came to Sochi four years ago, but this time it has hit prime time on NBC and promises to be raucous, outrageous and completely unafraid to pull any punches.
It is a double act that works, to the extent that the network has put them together at Super Bowl media day, the Academy Awards, the Kentucky Derby and the National Dog Show.
“When you are trying to reach a younger crowd, this is 2018, the old school way isn’t going to work,” Lipinski, 35, told USA TODAY during a recent joint interview with Weir. “You have to be honest and lay it down exactly as you see it. There’s a lot of pretty strange things in our sport, and you have to have a good chuckle.”
That brand of irreverent humor isn’t appreciated by some of the sport’s hardcore and traditionalist fans but is adored by the wider mainstream set that truly drives ratings. Figure skating hasn’t boomed since the 1990s and has been left behind by the rapidly evolving media landscape. Weir and Lipinski are doing their darndest to bring it back.
“The ’90s were great, it was such a boom time, and on television in general everything was very airbrushed, very beautiful and packaged,” Weir said. “Then came the family we all love so much — the Kardashians — and suddenly butt injections were on TV, Lady Gaga was ruling the charts, things changed and people wanted reality. We give them reality.”
Lipinski, who won gold at Nagano in 1998, and Weir, a three-time national champion and 2008 world bronze medalist, did not cross paths during their own careers.
In 2014, they were NBC’s broadcast experiment, thrown together. They’ve never looked back. Figure skating com- mentary might never be the same again.
The pair are close enough now that they sit for interviews with their bodies touching and finish each other’s sentences. Weir, who is openly gay, was “bridesman” at Lipinski’s wedding to television producer Todd Kapostasy last summer.
When she met Weir, Lipinski loved the way he spoke frankly and openly, on and off air.
“Our sport is very political and subjective, and you can hide that if you want,” Lipinski added. “But why would you? If a skater falls five times and wins and the next skater who did stand up doesn’t (win), it is very confusing. Johnny is not afraid to go out on that limb, point it out and let the judges know he didn’t agree.”
Weir was having a tough time during Sochi, with his marriage to ex-husband Victor Voronov on the verge of collapse. Things got messy with accusations flying back and forth, the matter ending up in divorce court, Voronov lodging a defamation suit against Weir and even a dispute over a valuable Faberge egg — much of it played out through TMZ and the New York tabloids.
“Looking back to Sochi in particular, I was going through a divorce — it was awful, the most horrible time of my life as far as dealing with another human being,” Weir said. “The best thing to come out of it was that Tara and I had to bond so quickly. We were in Russia, there was no one really around. I wasn’t close to any of my coworkers or my bosses; I wasn’t close to anybody. It was just terror. If I hadn’t had her, I would have panicked. (I would have) gone home or just crumbled under the pressure.”
Lipinski remembers them working all day — “then we’d cry and have therapy sessions with each other” — then get back at it the next day and put together a collective breakout performance.
Weir keeps most of his private life out of the commentary spiel but everything else is fair game, and you can confidently bet that the chatter with him and Lipinski won’t be restricted to salchows and triple axels.
Anything can be on the agenda, from hairstyles to costumes to whatever happens to be passing through their minds at the time, and unless the viewership’s tastes have dramatically changed they’ll be lapping it up once more.
Weir and Lipinski are an oddity no more. Somehow, through the force of their own chemistry and personality, they have become a staple of the American Olympic landscape. Last time they were largely tucked away on the NBC Sports Network. Now they are front and center — and ready to shine brighter than the glittering costumes on the ice.
“We just had this chemistry that came instantly, and for the last four years we have been building on that,” Lipinski added. “America has accepted us as the voices of figure skating.”
As a skater, Weir often found more popularity with occasional fans than he did from the traditionalists. He feels the same is true of his commentary.
“Are we feeling more loved?” he said. “Really hard-core skating fans … it’s hard to impress them. We are getting a lot of love from people who don’t watch skating, and that’s what we want — people to come back to our sport. But the sport itself doesn’t change much or quickly.”