Gwendal Peizerat
Peizerat in 2005
Born (1972-04-21) 21 April 1972
Bron, France
Height1.73 m (5 ft 8 in)
Figure skating career
CountryFrance
PartnerMarina Anissina
Skating clubCSG Lyon
Retired2002
Medal record
Figure skating
Ice dancing
Representing  France
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 2002 Salt Lake CityIce dancing
Bronze medal – third place 1998 NaganoIce dancing
World Championships
Silver medal – second place 2001 VancouverIce dancing
Gold medal – first place 2000 NiceIce dancing
Silver medal – second place 1999 HelsinkiIce dancing
Silver medal – second place 1998 MinneapolisIce dancing
European Championships
Gold medal – first place2002 LausanneIce dancing
Silver medal – second place2001 BratislavaIce dancing
Gold medal – first place2000 ViennaIce dancing
Silver medal – second place1999 PragueIce dancing
Bronze medal – third place1998 MilanIce dancing
Grand Prix Final
Silver medal – second place2001-2002 KitchenerIce dancing
Gold medal – first place1999-2000 LyonIce dancing
Silver medal – second place1998-1999 St. PetersburgIce dancing
Bronze medal – third place1997-1998 MunichIce dancing
Bronze medal – third place1996-1997 HamiltonIce dancing
Bronze medal – third place1995-1996 ParisIce dancing

Gwendal Peizerat (born 21 April 1972) is a French former competitive ice dancer. With Marina Anissina, he is the 2002 Olympic champion, the 1998 Olympic bronze medalist, the 2000 World champion, and a six-time French national champion.

Personal life

Both of Gwendal Peizerat's parents were involved in figure skating, his father serving as the general secretary of the French federation and his mother in charge of a club in Lyon.[1] His sister is two years older.

Peizerat holds a management degree from EMLYON Business School, a DEUG in materials science, and a maîtrise in STAPS from Claude Bernard University Lyon 1.[2] He has two daughters, Shanelle (born in 2012), and Lilas (born 21 December 2013). He released a single "Baby Rock" in 2014.[3][4]

Skating career

Early years

Peizerat started skating at age four[1] when he and his sister followed their parents to the ice rink. He went into ice dancing straight away. He was coached by Muriel Boucher-Zazoui since the age of six and throughout his entire career.[5][6]

Boucher-Zazoui paired seven-year-old Peizerat with his first partner, French skater Marina Morel, who was the same age as him; Morel and Peizerat skated together for fourteen years.[6] They won bronze at the 1989 World Junior Championships and then silver in 1991. Morel retired in 1992.

Partnership with Anissina

Following the end of his partnership with Morel, Peizerat responded to a letter he had received a few months earlier from Russian World Junior champion Marina Anissina, who chose him after watching competitions on video.[6]

Anissina arrived in Lyon in February 1993 and wanted to take him to Russia but his family objected.[7][6] She settled in France, focusing intensely on skating and insisting her partner, who was dividing his time between skating and his education, be equally focused on their career. Their first year together produced many quarrels and they came close to splitting up.[6] Their coach Muriel Boucher-Zazoui, however, immediately felt it was a promising partnership, saying "They are like fire and ice".[5]

Anissina and Peizerat were selected for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer but her French citizenship was granted a few weeks too late.[7] The Olympics, unlike most skating competitions, require both partners to be citizens of the country they are representing.

Anissina and Peizerat won the 1998 Olympic bronze medal and 1998 and 1999 World silver medals behind Anjelika Krylova and Oleg Ovsyannikov. The Russians retired due to injury and Anissina and Peizerat then developed a rivalry with the Italians Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio. The French won the 2000 European and World Championships.[8]

For their free dance program in the 1997—1998 season, Anissina and Peizerat used music from the Prokofiev ballet Romeo and Juliet. At one point in the free dance, Anissina carried Peizerat completely off the ice and supported him on her hip, "as if to represent Juliet's emotional strength within the relationship".[9] ABC correspondent Lesley Visser reported that this move had become their trademark and saw it as "a way of celebrating the opposite yet equal strengths of male and female".[10] Anissina and Peizerat continued to use the move in all of their free dances after 1998; figure skating writer and historian Ellyn Kestnbaum speculates that since they finished first or second in every competition during that period, they were not penalized for it, even though other dance teams might have used it as a gimmick rather than as an expression of their skating skills or an interpretation of their music.[10]

In 2001, Anissina and Peizerat won European and World silver behind the Italians but surged past them in 2002 to reclaim their European title and become the Olympic Champions. At the 2002 Olympics, they led after the compulsory dances and the original dance. Their free dance, "Liberty", mixed music with sections from the famed freedom speech by Martin Luther King Jr.; a 5-4 split of the judges' panel had them in first place in this segment ahead of Irina Lobacheva and Ilia Averbukh, and they became the first French ice dancers to win the Olympic gold medal.[11]

After the Olympics, Anissina and Peizerat retired from competition but continued skating together for many years in shows around the world.[12] During their career, they represented the club Lyon TSC. Their signature move was Anissina lifting Peizerat off the ice, switching the traditional gender roles in lifts.

Peizerat was named a Chevalier of the National Order of Merit (France) in 1998 and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 2003.[2] He has done some choreography for other skaters.[13]

Post-skating career

In 2003, Peizerat founded a consulting firm, Soléus.[2] He has also worked for Eurosport, interviewing athletes.[2]

In 2010, Peizerat was elected regional councillor on the list of the Socialist Party in the Rhone Alpes region and was subsequently appointed Councillor Delegate in charge of sports in the Regional Executive headed by Jean-Jack Queyranne.

Programs

With Anissina

Anissina and Peizerat at the 2001–02 GP Final
Season Original dance Free dance Exhibition
1993–1994
[14]
  • J'en ai Marre
    by Hugues Le Bars
  • Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps
1994–1995
[14]
  • J'en ai Marre
    by Hugues Le Bars
1995–1996
[14]
  • Ay Mi Sombrero
    by Genaro Monreal
1996–1997
[14]
  • Ahla Leila
    by Muhammad Sultan
1997–1998
[14]		 Romeo and Juliet
by Sergei Prokofiev:
  • The Montagues and the Capulets
  • Death of Juliet
1998–1999
[14]
The Man in the Iron Mask
by Nick Glennie-Smith:
  • Heart of a King
  • Surrounded
  • Time To Say Goodbye
    performed by Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli
1999–2000
[14]
  • Black Machine
    by Jazz Machine
  • Feeling the Passion
    by Latin Drums
  • Tres Deseos
    by Gloria Estefan
Carmina Burana
by Carl Orff:
  • O Fortuna imperatrix munda
  • Fortune plango vulnera
2000–2001
[15][14]
Beethoven's Last Night
by Trans-Siberian Orchestra:
  • Overture
  • Ode to Joy
  • Dreams of Candlelight
  • Beethoven
2001–2002
[16][14]
  • Flamenco: Malagua
  • Tango de Guell
  • Flamenco: Malagua
  • Susanna
    by VOF de Kunst

With Morel

Season Original dance Free dance Exhibition
1992–1993
  • French song

Competitive highlights

With Anissina

Results[16][15]
International
Event 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02
Winter Olympics3rd1st
World Champ.10th6th4th5th2nd2nd1st2nd
European Champ.12th5th4th4th3rd2nd1st2nd1st
GP (CS) Final3rd3rd2nd1st2nd
GP International de Paris /
Trophée de France/Lalique		3rd1st2nd1st2nd1st1st1st1st
GP Nations Cup1st2nd
GP NHK Trophy5th3rd1st2nd1st1st1st1st
GP Skate Canada2nd2nd1st
GP Skate America2nd1st
Ondrej Nepela1st
Piruetten5th
National
French Champ.2nd2nd1st1st1st1st1st1st
GP = Became part of Champions Series in 1995–96, Grand Prix from 1998 to 1999

With Morel

International
Event 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93
European Champ.12th
International de Paris7th6th
Piruetten3rd
International: Junior
World Junior Champ.3rd4th2nd
National
French Champ.3rd2nd

References

  1. 1 2 Mittan, J. Barry (1996). "Fire on the Ice - Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat". Archived from the original on 13 May 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "La biographie de Gwendal Peizerat" [Gwendal Peizerat biography] (in French). premiere.fr. 21 November 2013.
  3. ↑ Ohnona, Joachim (31 March 2014). "Gwendal Peizerat : Le patineur surprend en papa rockeur, avec Baby Rock" [Gwendal Peizerat: The skater surprises as rocker dad with Baby Rock]. Pure People (in French).
  4. ↑ Peizerat, Gwendal (22 December 2013). "...she was impatient, so yesterday she was born...and her name is Lilas! ;-)". Twitter.com.
  5. 1 2 Lecaudey, Martine (2 April 2000). "Marina a choisi Gwendal sur une vidéo" [Marina chose Gwendal after watching him on video] (in French). La Dépêche du Midi. Archived from the original on 3 May 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Anissina-Peizerat, un couple de glace" [Anissina-Peizerat, an ice couple] (in French). Le Point. 1 March 2002. Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 31 May 2011.
  7. 1 2 van Kote, Gilles (19 February 2002). "Pour Marina Anissina, la voie du succès est passée par l'exil" [The road to success through exile for Marina Anissina] (PDF). Le Monde (in French). p. 24.
  8. ↑ Lecaudey, Martine (1 April 2000). "Anissina-Peizerat enfin au sommet" [Anissina-Peizerat finally at the top] (in French). La Dépêche du Midi. Archived from the original on 3 May 2012.
  9. ↑ Kestnbaum, Ellyn (2003). Culture on Ice: Figure Skating and Cultural Meaning. Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan Publishing Press. p. 244. ISBN 0-8195-6641-1.
  10. 1 2 >Kestnbaum, p. 247
  11. ↑ "France's Anissina, Peizerat claim ice dancing event". Sports Illustrated. Associated Press. 18 February 2002. Retrieved 31 May 2011.
  12. ↑ "L'œil de Marina Anissina" [Under the eye of Marina Anissina]. Sud-Ouest (in French). 5 October 2011. Archived from the original on 7 November 2011.
  13. ↑ Bangs, Kathleen (15 September 2003). "Peizerat still 'Peaking'". GoldenSkate. Archived from the original on 7 August 2008.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Free dances - Original dances - Exhibitions - Compulsories list". Archived from the original on 19 July 2006.
  15. 1 2 "Marina ANISSINA / Gwendal PEIZERAT: 2000/2001". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on 20 August 2001.
  16. 1 2 "Marina ANISSINA / Gwendal PEIZERAT: 2001/2002". International Skating Union. Archived from the original on 3 August 2002.
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