Figure Skating Legend Surya Bonaly Pleads For Help After Burglars Steal Her Championship Medals

The trailblazing Olympian, long celebrated for breaking racial and athletic barriers in figure skating, says thieves took her most prized symbols of a groundbreaking career.

Decorated figure skater Surya Bonaly is asking the public for assistance after discovering that her Las Vegas home had been burglarized and her collection of international medals had been stolen. The 51-year-old champion athlete, whose daring one-blade backflip at the 1998 Nagano Olympics remains one of the most memorable moments in Olympic history, shared the news in an emotional Instagram post.

“You see, all those medals that I won in the past while competing in different worlds and European championships are sadly gone,” she wrote, explaining that “someone I mean a couple burglarized my home and stole all my valuable.” Bonaly urged locals to alert authorities if they encounter “foreign gold and silver medals for sale,” adding, “Please, please call the Police immediately, thanks.”

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According to Cleveland, the stolen items represent years of competition at the highest levels of the sport. During her career, Bonaly amassed 13 medals across the World Championships, European Championships, and World Junior Championships, becoming a five-time European champion and one of the most dynamic athletes of her era. Now a coach in Las Vegas, she competed in three Winter Olympics in the 1990s, finishing as high as fourth place.

Bonaly’s iconic one-footed backflip in Nagano — a move banned since 1976 — defined her fearless approach to skating. She performed it despite knowing she would be penalized and despite dealing with an Achilles injury at the time. To date, no skater has replicated the feat at the Olympics.

Her story has long resonated beyond the ice. Adopted from an orphanage and raised by a white family, Bonaly quickly realized she was often “the only Black female skater” at European competitions. Her competitive career was marked not only by athletic excellence but also by navigating bias in a predominantly white sport.

At the World Championships, after placing second behind Japan’s Yuka Sato, she was loudly booed by the crowd before being swarmed by reporters asking whether she planned to quit. Figure skating coach Joel Savary, founder of the Diversify Ice Foundation, said moments like these chipped away at her spirit: “I feel that was the beginning of the judges really wearing her down… The feeling that I felt was it paints another negative picture of a person of color,” he told TODAY.

Andrea Jordan of Figure Skating in Harlem called Bonaly’s perseverance extraordinary. “Being an athletic woman of color… and still persist in that spot and accomplish all what she accomplished is remarkable,” she said.

Police have not yet announced any leads in the burglary. Bonaly hopes someone will recognize the stolen medals and help return the defining symbols of her pioneering career.