ZOI '84

This February marks the 30th anniversary of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Bosnians are very very proud of their status as a former Olympic city, even those who weren't alive in 1984 will "remember" the games with an aura of fondness and wonder.

There have been a number of events around the city to commemorate the occasion and last night Sarah Edgar, her host family, and I got to attend one! We went to go watch figure skating at Zetra Hall, the skating venue during the games that is now used for everything from hockey matches, to concerts, to basketball games.

The main event of the night was a routine performed by the famous skating pair Torvill and Dean. Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean are two figure skaters from Great Britain that participated in the Sarajevo Olympics. Their final performance of the games, "Bolero", won them a perfect score of 6 (it only goes up to 6 in the Olympics). They are the only pair of figure skaters in Olympic history to ever receive perfect scores and last night they recreated "Bolero" at the same stadium 30 years later. The energy in the room was electric. Some of the audience members had seen the routine back in 1984 and you could tell that you were witnessing something truly special.

Here is a video of  their award winning "Bolero" routine during the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics: