Motivation Quote by Nancy Kerrigan

Nancy Kerrigan’s line lands with the quiet bluntness of someone realizing the job has changed while the public is still stuck on an older script. “Different sides of skating” sounds polite, even bland, but it’s really a recalibration of what figure skating demands: not just technical mastery under judges, but the ability to sell a version of yourself to audiences, sponsors, and television.

The key move is her phrasing of “get to see.” It frames the shift as perspective rather than surrender, a way to keep agency in a sport that often strips it away through packaging. Kerrigan isn’t romanticizing the entertainment layer; she’s acknowledging the industry around the sport. Figure skating, especially in the post-1994 TV era, became a hybrid product: athletic performance plus storyline, persona, and camera-ready emotion. The subtext is that medals aren’t the only currency anymore.

Coming from Kerrigan, the context sharpens the point. Her career was defined as much by spectacle as by competition, folded into a media narrative that turned skaters into characters. So when she says “not only competing, but entertainment,” it reads like a boundary being tested: how much of the performance is for the judges, and how much is for the crowd (and the network)?

The quote works because it’s an athlete describing a cultural pivot without pretending it’s purely artistic. It’s a sober admission that excellence is now measured twice: once on the score sheet, and once in the marketplace of attention.