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Olympics Blog

It’s good to be king for a year

By Helene Elliott
Sports ColumnistFollow

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For Jeffrey Buttle of Canada, the best part about being the world figure skating champion is having the right to call himself ‘king.’

Not really. Buttle found that being No. 1 gave him an opportunity to think about his life and career and realize that he liked performing more than he liked competing.

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So even though he would have had home-ice advantage at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics he decided to retire last September and pass up defending his title at this year’s World Championships, which will take place this week at Staples Center.

Buttle wrote an articulate and thoughtful essay that will be posted soon at www.latimes.com/sports. It’s worth reading.

--Helene Elliott

Olympics Blog
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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