Tai Babilonia

Tai Reina Babilonia born September 22 1959 is an American former pair skater Together with Randy Gardner she won the 1979 World Figure Skating Championships and five US Figure Skating Championships 19761980 The pair qualified for the 1976 and 1980 Winter OlympicsShe was the first African American figure skater to compete for the United States at an Olympics and win world titles She is also part Filipino on her fathers side and part Native American She and Gardner began skating together at eight and ten years old when skating coach Mabel Fairbanks needed a young pair team for a skating show in Culver City California They began training with John Nicks in 1971 They won the gold medal as juniors at their first US Nationals in 1973 and as seniors they came in second place in 1974 and 1975 The pair became fivetime US National champions between 1978 and 1980 and won the gold medal at the 1979 World Championships They were medal favorites at the 1980 Winter Olympics but were forced to withdraw due to an injury to Gardner which ended their competitive careers She and Gardner toured with the Ice Capades for four years and with Champions on Ice for two years They performed in many ice shows and competed professionally earning first place in the World Professional Championships in 1985 In 1990 a biographical film of her rise to fame was aired on television On Thin Ice The Tai Babilonia Story She has a son named Scout with former husband Cary Butler She was engaged in 2005 to actor and comedian David Brenner but they never married before their breakup in 2011 From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia