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Forever Two As One
Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner have spent more than thirty years as skating partners and best friends. Linked at the ages of eight and ten, they grew up together, developed a unique pairs style and performing persona, then won the Championship Pairs event at the 1979 World Figure Skating Championships. Still at the height of their amateur career, they were forced by Randy's injury to withdraw from the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, just moments before what would have been one of the greatest East-West showdowns in sports history. That disappointment brought Tai and Randy worldwide empathy as well as a long and rich professional career. At the same time, it left behind repressed bitterness that manifested itself in sometimes dramatic ways. With Forever Two As One, a lush, full-color volume with a stunning dust jacket and decorative endpapers, the reader relives the skaters' through their own frank commentary; through the insights of friends like Robin Cousins, Scott Hamilton, Christopher Knight of The Brady Bunch, Hollywood designer Jef Billings, singer and songwriter Stevie Nicks, and choreographer Sarah Kawahara; and finally through 133 photos from Tai and Randy's personal collections.
186 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2002
About the author
Tai Babilonia
4 booksTai Reina Babilonia is an American former pair skater. Together with Randy Gardner, she won the 1979 World Figure Skating Championships and five U.S. Figure Skating Championships (1976–1980). The pair qualified for the 1976 and 1980 Winter Olympics.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 20, 2022
I enjoyed this book in terms of reliving the height of skating popularity in the US in the 70s and 80s - EVERY famous name in skating pops up sooner or later here.
However, there is a LOT of awkwardness that comes across in the text. While Tai & Randy were effective partners, and were close in the way partners who spend a ton of time together are, they very clearly were not close friends otherwise, until many years later (if then). I also think their partnership/relationship suffered from their individual personal issues; Randy is gay and did not come out until 2006 (4 years after this book was published), and Tai bottled up the stress of other peoples' (her family, her coach, and her partner) expectations of her from the time she was young, leading to her breakdown later. Additionally, while John Nicks is a legendary and successful coach (with whom they trained from the ages of 12 & 14), it's implied that his buttoned-down, unemotional, and strict method of teaching meant that Tai & Randy never learned how to communicate well with each other or other people, about their needs, and both did not know how to deal with their own emotions (particularly in regards to the disaster that happened at the 1980 Olympics).
Overall, reading this book just left me feeling sad for both of them.
However, there is a LOT of awkwardness that comes across in the text. While Tai & Randy were effective partners, and were close in the way partners who spend a ton of time together are, they very clearly were not close friends otherwise, until many years later (if then). I also think their partnership/relationship suffered from their individual personal issues; Randy is gay and did not come out until 2006 (4 years after this book was published), and Tai bottled up the stress of other peoples' (her family, her coach, and her partner) expectations of her from the time she was young, leading to her breakdown later. Additionally, while John Nicks is a legendary and successful coach (with whom they trained from the ages of 12 & 14), it's implied that his buttoned-down, unemotional, and strict method of teaching meant that Tai & Randy never learned how to communicate well with each other or other people, about their needs, and both did not know how to deal with their own emotions (particularly in regards to the disaster that happened at the 1980 Olympics).
Overall, reading this book just left me feeling sad for both of them.
June 26, 2009
LOVED this book! Right up my alley! They actually get into many personal details especially Tai. It left me wanting to read more, like what they have been up to since the book was published several years ago. They were beautiful skaters and I miss seeing them around these days. They seem like they were destined to be famous, elite skaters right from the beginning too, interestingly! It is funny how thngs work out in life because maybe having to drop out of the Olympics at Lake Placid actually led to their being even more famous and rich than they would have been if they actually had been able to skate for the gold that fateful night...
February 24, 2026
I've had this book sitting here for at least a year, although I hadn't added it to my GR shelves, apparently.
This memoir is primarily written by three people, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner with Martha Lowder Kimball, but there are sections written by others that appear at the bottom of some pages or two page spreads as well. They were American pairs figure skaters last century; she was the first part black woman figure skater (she refuses to categorize herself in this book; her mother is African-American but her late father was half Filipino and half Hopi. Her first name was suggested by her Japanese godfather.)
The entries main alternate between Randy and Tia. I liked this, but didn't think it was spectacular--the best parts are the photos. My rating is not about their skating or the importance of Tia's role in the integration of competitive skating (there was an African-American boy who did well in the 1960s.) A significant part of this book is heartbreaking.
This memoir is primarily written by three people, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner with Martha Lowder Kimball, but there are sections written by others that appear at the bottom of some pages or two page spreads as well. They were American pairs figure skaters last century; she was the first part black woman figure skater (she refuses to categorize herself in this book; her mother is African-American but her late father was half Filipino and half Hopi. Her first name was suggested by her Japanese godfather.)
The entries main alternate between Randy and Tia. I liked this, but didn't think it was spectacular--the best parts are the photos. My rating is not about their skating or the importance of Tia's role in the integration of competitive skating (there was an African-American boy who did well in the 1960s.) A significant part of this book is heartbreaking.
July 6, 2016
A gorgeous book about the friendship and skating relationship between the ice skating pair that helped me fall in love with the sport during my childhood.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews