#bettafishkat

how to spot him? apply this formula. flamboyance + sophistication = disney. look for suits, long hair, a french accent; ta-dah, you found stéphane:

now, you won’t see him active on the ice often, but rather at the edge of the rink. his career spanned from 1995 to 2010, since his retirement, he’s coaching in champéry aka his swiss skating school:

how did steph arrive at such a feat? let’s check this out.

his achievements include: being a 2-time world champion! he also won the swiss nationals a whopping 9 times. and: he was the silver medalist at the olympics 2006. damn, he was crying so hard on the podium. and yes, the zebra outfit went down in history:

his signature element: spins! ♡ he’s one of the few skaters who can spin and jump in both directions. 

even casually, he is spinning like a divo.

his general style is pretty creative, he is excellent technically and artistically which is the ideal combination.

his elegance doesn’t stop there. lambiel speaks god knows how many languages. french, italian, german, portuguese. his character always comes across as charming, soft, and youthful. gratuitous french sample:

among many others, notable trainees of him are:

the adorable and shy shoma uno (japan)

the smexy, teddy-like deniss vasiljevs (latvia)

he’s also choreographing for a whole bunch of skaters. 7 days a week, this is one of the busiest people you’ll meet. coaching properly is the toughest job you can think of in the field. 

as i heard it, the guy even bothered to synchronize himself in yuri on ice.

he’s a great fan favorite and eagerly speaks in a lot of interviews. default lambiel is found like this being eloquent as usual:

on the other hand, you’ll often find him dragged into shenanigans by his friends. front to back: oda nobunari — yuzuru hanyu —shoma uno (all cuties of team japan), johnny weir (fellow glamazon, unstoppable rainbow energy, the legendary lady gaga of figure skating), and lambs himself at the back. i call them the wholesome 5.

wherever you find any of these four, you will spot stéphane nearby.

especially johnny loves his funky stephane to absolute death, the atmosphere is always good here. a stressed ice dad becomes funny ice dad. they’re both retired so you don’t see as much interactions (johnny is doing commentary, lambiel is busy in switzerland), but when it happens, you get the best casual pictures.

johnny lives a life of controversy sometimes — good lord, his introduction post would be a whole trilogy of history books — so it’s good to just see this, and stephane’s smile is truly everything 👏

now, if you wanna keep up with his recent activities, you’re lucky: especially with shoma having joined his school, lambiel will be present at the big events in his full coach glory ✊ 

that’s your chance to see him, check shoma’s schedule. cuz little shooms is world class and brings champery places👌 

so — if you see a tiny guy and a scarf guy on tv, that’s the two of them 😄

anticipate a lot of great skating. shoma’s developments are exponential, as is his increasingly good mood recently, stephane really knows how to train him. with his dorky methods 😂 

this is a pretty promising collab since they’ve known each other for so long, so save the date once figure skating is back on track and things can resume safely after covid-19 cancellations. check out their skating synergy for yourself, subtle drama + bold drama = great entertainment 😭🔥

soft bonus: since i just can’t stop talking about cuddly yuzuru and this post is all about wholesomeness, a last treat for our hearts. stephane, bless his patience, being yuzu’s cuddle bot! 👏👏