Star’s Career Cooled, Not Love for Skating

Tiffany Chin began her skating career wearing a pair of $1 blades bought at a rummage sale and entertaining dreams of capturing Olympic gold.

The champion figure skater from Toluca Lake burst into the national spotlight when, at 16, she finished a surprising fourth at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

She emerged from the competition as America’s brightest hope for a gold medal for the 1988 Games in Calgary, but the following four years of high-stakes competition eventually took their toll on the teenager.

Chin won a U.S. national title in 1985 but was less polished. She finished third in 1986 and fourth in 1987. Instead of going for the gold in the 1988 Winter Games, Chin opted to retire from amateur competition to sign a seven-figure contract with a skating show.

Chin said at the time that the rigors of competition were not worth it and she would not want her child to become a competitive skater. By 1995, however, Chin had reconsidered and was running intensive skating programs for youngsters at the Iceoplex in North Hills.

“This sport is not a monster,” she told a reporter. “It’s what you give to it and take from it that matters.”

Chin began skating in San Diego at age 8, and her family moved to the Valley in 1981. Thousands of hours of commutes, practices and competitions, all under the watchful eye of her mother, Marjorie, landed the slight skater near the top of her sport.

Chin won the world junior championship at 13 and performed a triple axel jump at 15, when she was the only skater in the world capable of such a maneuver.

At 16, Chin finished second in the U.S. nationals and made her dazzling debut in the 1984 Winter Olympics.

A student at Providence High in Burbank, Chin was viewed as the brightest young skater in the world. She was named honorary mayor of Toluca Lake and received marriage proposals from strangers.

Chin, who graduated from UCLA with an English degree, is engaged to be married in August. She teaches figure skating at the Easy Street Arena in Simi Valley and performs in touring ice shows several months of the year.

“[Skating] is not without tribulations,” Chin said recently, “but it molded my identity and gave me confidence.”