Laetitia Hubert

Laetitia Hubert (born 23 June 1974 in Paris, France) is a French figure skater. She won the French national ladies' singles title two times, and competed in four Winter Olympic Games (1992, 1994, 1998, and 2002). She is a contemporary of French teammate Surya Bonaly.

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Biography

Hubert began skating at three years old. She finished 21st at her World Championship debut in 1990. The next year, she had a rough collision with gold medal favorite Midori Ito of Japan during the short program warmup.

Hubert's improvement showed during the next season (1991-1992), where she won the World Junior title and later placed 2nd (to Surya Bonaly) in the French National Championships. This 2nd place finish earned her a trip to the 1992 Albertville Olympics. At this time she was working on her triple lutz jump, but elected to do a safer triple loop jump during her Olympic short program instead. This easier performance was executed cleanly, unexpectedly putting her in 5th place after the short program. Unfortunately, her nerves were very high under the Olympic pressure. She was the last skater of the evening during the long program. She skated a disastrous performance, dropping her to 12th place overall.

Hubert competed in the World Championships one month later, and skated much better. She had two falls, but was still able to achieve a 6-triple personal best performance that included a triple flip jump and a triple/triple combination. It was enough to bring her up to 3rd place in the free skate, but because she was 5th after the short program, she finished in 4th overall. She finished in 4th place again in 1998, and in 6th place in 1995 and 1997.

Hubert won the 1997 Trophée Lalique (where she edged 1998 Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski for first place). She also won the French title in 1998 and 1999.

After retiring following the 2001-2002 season, Laetitia retired from skating and staged a comeback at the 2011 Caesars Tribute Show.

Her hobbies outside of skating include reading, music, museums, cooking, and traveling.

Competitive highlights

Event 1989-90 1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02
Winter Olympics 12th 17th 20th 15th
World Championships 21st 26th 4th 27th 6th 6th 4th 17th 12th
European Championships 14th 10th 6th WD 11th 12th 12th 30th 8th
World Junior Championships 1st
French Championships 2nd 2nd 2nd 3rd 3rd 3rd 4th 1st 1st 2nd 2nd
Grand Prix Final WD
Skate Canada International 2nd 4th 10th 8th
Trophée Lalique 3rd 5th 10th 3rd 6th 1st 5th 8th 5th
Cup of Russia 5th
NHK Trophy 11th
Nations Cup 11th
Finlandia Trophy 3rd 3rd
Karl Schäfer Memorial 1st

References

External links