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.