Man who did huge single axel?

[susvol]

I hope someone can help, it's driving us crazy. There was a very tall man skating sometime in the late 80s or 90s who did a wonderful single axel. He wasn't a medalist but I'm pretty sure we saw him in the Olympics or Worlds. If you remember him, it will be for that axel. Thanks, Susan

[SharonDudd]

I think you may be thinking of "Jumpin Joe Sabovcik" of Czech. He was the Bronze medal winner at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics. Do a name-based search and there are all kinds of links for you!

http://www.jumpinjoe.com/

http://www.islandnet.com/~luree/joe/cover.html

He's a very tall, lanky skater...He used to do the Skating Wars events too! He loved to skate in his jeans and wore his hair really long...hope that helps a bit!! He is a close friend of Scott Hamilton's from what I remember from the TV broadcasts. Hope this is of some help.

[susvol]

That sounds like who we were thinking of. The Jumping Joe reference led me to this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozef_Sabov%C4%8D%C3%ADk It turns out he did even better in competitions than I remembered. I really enjoyed watching him.

[icedancer2]

He is actually not that tall - about 5'6 or 5'7 I believe.

Looks tall on the ice because he is so lanky and of course the skates add about 3-4 inches...

Of course most skaters fall into the realm of "little people"...

[skatingmonkeys]

Jumpin Joe is now coaching in salt lake city UT in case anyone was wondering