Philippe Candeloro

Philippe Candeloro was born in Courbevoie, the youngest of four children. His father, Luigi, was a mason, and, a few years after Philippe's birth, built a family home in the Parisian suburb of Colombes.

Early in his childhood Candeloro enjoyed swimming and elastic springboard. In 1979, at age seven, he began taking weekly ice skating lessons. During one of his first lessons, trainer André Brunet noted Candeloro's potential and invited him to increase his skating practices. At first, he participated in the village's hockey team but quickly veered into figure skating. He stole one of his first pairs of skates. His mother paid for them when the theft was discovered.

Within a few years of stepping onto the ice, Candeloro found himself on the fast track with the French figure skating federation. He was invited to a summer training camp at Font-Romeu, which would become an annual event for him. When he was 10, the French Federation offered him a place at the prestigious national training center in Paris, INSEP. Candeloro refused this invitation, opting instead to continue training in Colombes with Brunet. At the age of 16, he left school to concentrate full-time on his training.

By sixteen, Candeloro was receiving attention from both the French Federation and the international skating community. He participated in the closing ceremony at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and began to work with choreographer Natacha Dabadie.^[1] His goal of competing at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France was derailed in October 1991 when he broke his leg. He finished third at the French nationals and was assigned to the post-Olympic World Championships, where he placed ninth. In the 1992–93 season, Candeloro won gold at the 1992 NHK Trophy and silver at the 1993 European Championships. He finished fifth at the World Championships. In the first half of the following season, he placed fifth at Skate America and earned medals at three events — Piruetten, International de Paris, and NHK Trophy — before becoming French national champion for the first time. Candeloro finished off the podium at the 1994 European Championships but a month later he won the bronze medal at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. He ended his season with a silver medal at the 1994 World Championships in Chiba, Japan. He then toured with Champions on Ice in the United States and performed in other shows. In France, he attracted sponsorships and television and print publicity.

Candeloro used music from the soundtrack of Conan the Barbarian in his free skating program during the 1992-1993 season, wearing a tunic over what appeared to be skins and furs over dark brown trousers covered with fur shin guards. The program's choreography emphasized his "somewhat wild skating style" and included what would become his signature spin, in which he would shoot both his feet from out of a squat and completing it on his shins.^[2] For the 1993-1994 Olympic season, he set both his short and free skating programs to music from the Godfather films.^[3] He wore loose brown and beige striped trousers and an off-white shirt and skated to tarantella rhythms. As Ellyn Kestnbaum put it, he portrayed "a young tough, appearing to yell at someone in the distance, gesticulating vehemently, snatching off the chain around his neck, even directing obscene gestures at the audience".^[4] He wore black trousers and a black shirt closed by a gold chain across his collar for his free skating program, with slicked-back hair. He executed movements that portrayed the character Don Corleone, an older, more powerful man. He continued to use the Godfather themes in later seasons, whitening his hair for his free skating program.^[4]

Candeloro had mixed results in the following years. The bronze medalist at the 1995 World Championships in Birmingham, England, he placed ninth the next season at the 1996 World Championships in Edmonton, Canada. After finishing off the podium at three Europeans in a row, he won silver at the 1997 European Championships in Paris, France.

In the 1997–98 season, Candeloro again placed fifth at the pre-Olympic European Championships but went on to win the bronze medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.^[5][6] Following his second Olympics, Candeloro turned pro and appeared in a wide variety of tours and professional competitions. The "Philippe Candeloro Japan Tour 2001" was named after him. It was the predecessor of the annual touring show Fantasy on Ice, where Candeloro himself was a recurring cast member until 2019.^[7][8] In the United States he was a popular fixture with Champions on Ice; in Europe he founded the successful Candel Euro Tour and performed with the "Holiday on Ice" tour. He also appeared as Captain Sheng in a Disney television special based on the cartoon Mulan, with Michelle Kwan playing the title role. He started his farewell tour, "Hello and Goodbye", in France in February 2008.

Candeloro's signature move, in which he spins and drops to his knees on the ice, is not allowed in amateur competition. He developed the spin accidentally when he slipped to his knees during a scratch spin.^[9] For the 1994—1995 season, Candeloro again used his Godfather program, which included his signature spin. The International Skating Union (ISU), the organization that regulates figure skating, had ruled that skaters had to execute only movements that were done with both skates on the ice during competitions. At Skate America in 1993, Candeloro protested the rule change by standing still in front of the judges instead of entering into the scratch spin, and twirled his hand to indicate the forbidden element. Ellyn Kestnbaum called the gesture "a sarcastic comment on the framing structure of competitive rules".^[10]

Candeloro has worked as a sports journalist. During the 2006 Olympics, Candeloro stirred controversy by commenting that Olympic champion Shizuka Arakawa was "worth a bowl of rice" after rising from third place to win the gold medal. Apologizing to the Japanese ambassador to France, Hiroshi Hirabayashi, who was unaware of the comment, French public television stated, "We were taken aback by the comment." In 2014, Candeloro and his co-commentator Nelson Montfort were criticized for some of their comments on female skaters at the Sochi Olympics.^[11] In March 2014, the Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel issued a warning to the broadcaster, France Télévisions, stating that some comments were "inappropriate" and "reflected sexist prejudice".^[12] Kestnbaum reports that Candeloro has "explicitly stated" that he chose to play characters in his programs "in part to deflect charges of effeminacy".^[4]

Candeloro is known to be a big fan of Japanese figure skater Mao Asada, calling himself her "godfather".

In 2011, he was one of the contestants during the second season of Danse avec les stars.
The municipal ice rink in his hometown of Colombes was renamed in his honor in 2018.^[13]

Candeloro is married to ballet dancer Olivia Darmon,^[14] with whom he has three daughters: Luna Nizza, Maya Estella and Thalia Soleya. He was introduced to his future wife by the choreographer of his 1994 Olympic program, Natasha Dabadie. He speaks several languages besides French, including English and Italian.

In 2008, Candeloro was involved in the development of a namesake rose, the Philippe Candeloro rose^[15] with Lyonnais rose breeder Jean-Pierre Guillot.

He narrowly escaped death in the Villa Castelli helicopter collision in 2015, when he was forced to wait for one of the helicopters on the next flight due to over-occupancy. The accident claimed 10 lives including three French athletes.

GP: Champions Series (Grand Prix)

• Free skating program, 1994 World Figure Skating Championships (YouTube clip)