Go for the Goal – Janet Lynn

The 2014 Olympic winter Games open in Sochi, Russia on February 7, 2014.  Exactly one month later, following the 17 days of initial competition, the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games open for 10 days.  What better time to use Mainstay’s Go for the Goal sermon series.  As support material for our Go for the Goal series, we begin a series of stories that spotlight Winter Olympians whose Goal is to honor Jesus Christ.  We begin with American figure skater, Janet Lynn.

Janet Lynn is now 60 years old.  She never won Olympic gold, but she caused the sport to change dramatically simply by her outstanding freestyle performance ability.  If she were to skate under today’s rules – the very rules that were changed because of her – she would likely have an entire collection of gold medals.  When Janet competed in the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan, she was 19 years old and America’s hope for gold.  Why she did not win the gold depends upon whether you see the cup as half-full or half-empty.  It was either the fact that she was weak in the compulsory part of the program or that her strength, freestyle, which she clearly won, was not allotted a large enough portion of the total score at that time.  The question might be raised, “How much is a large enough portion?”  The simple answer is that, as of the early 1990’s, there is no longer a compulsory portion of the competition.  It was Janet’s exquisite freestyle performance, despite a disastrous fall on the ice, that was instrumental in changing the perspective of figure skating officials’ opinions of how to best score the events.

Janet Lynn is a five-time U.S. National Figure Skating Champion, a two-time World Figure Skating medalist, and the 1972 Winter Olympic bronze medal winner.  She was one of the first women to land a triple jump in competition.  She turned professional in 1973, becoming the highest paid female athlete at that time, and, one year later, became the World Professional Champion.  Many experts believe that she is one of the greatest freestyle figure skaters of all time.  Her shining example for figure skating, however, pales in the light of how she has shined for Christ amidst the darkness of this world.

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