Figure Skating into the Olympics via Delaware

By David Cardillo, Digital Initiatives and Preservation

Did you know Newark and the University of Delaware were the training locations for several Olympic-level figure skaters from the mid-1990s to roughly 2010?

Take a look at the athletes below and learn who has spent some time on Newark ice.

Prior to winning the gold medal at the 1998 Olympics, Tara Lipinski participated in a figure skating show with past, present and future Olympic hopefuls at UD. As mentioned in the October 20, 1995, article from The Review, Lipinski, a southern New Jersey native, was just 13 years old when she competed at the Blue Ice Arena.

Tara Lipinski, from a 1995 issue of The Review.

More than a decade later, two other Olympic hopefuls spent time training in Newark.

As a January 27, 2006, article in the Newark Post explained, Kimmie Meissner – a Maryland native – trained for her time at the 2006 Olympics at the Fred Rust Arena. At the same time, Johnny Weir, whose family moved to the area when he was young, trained at The Pond in Newark. While neither won medals in the Olympics, both went on to win several other national and international titles.

Kimmie Meissner, from a 2006 issue of the Newark Post

Johnny Weir, from a 2006 issue of the Newark Post

In the great, albeit small, state of Delaware, you never know who you might bump into on or off the ice – and what you might learn from local papers like the Newark Post and The Review.

Issues of the weekly newspaper Newark Post and the University of Delaware student newspaper The Review are freely and digitally available on UDSpace, the University’s institutional repository, thanks to the UD Library, Museums and Press. The digitized newspapers are an excellent source for those whose research is based on state and local current and political events, preserving history in real time.