On Edge: Backroom Dealing, Cocktail Scheming, Triple Axels, and How Top Skaters Get Screwed

During the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, figure skating nearly lost its edge. The Russian gold medal debacle in the Pair Event publicly revealed the hidden world of bribery and collusion that is standard operating procedure across the sport. In On Edge, former Olympic level judge and competitive figure skater, Jon Jackson, bares the facts of the figure skating world—the image-making and social climbing, the prescription drug abuse, the affairs, the delusions of grandeur, and power-hungry scheming. He takes readers on a journey spanning 20 years through the private hotel rooms and hospitality suites where the culture thrives and multiplies, culminating in the days, weeks, and months following the Salt Lake City gold medal scandal.

Rebelling against this culture of nightly cocktail parties, where judges predetermine the next day’s winners, Jackson co-created the World Skating Federation in hopes of freeing the industry from the stranglehold of the seemingly omnipotent US Figure Skating Association (USFSA). The fallout was immediate. Detailing his battle with the USFSA, Jackson reveals his reservations about the continued corruption and the new scoring system, setting the stage for an even more dramatic and controversial scandal waiting to happen at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Italy.