By Maura Sullivan Hill, Team FSO contributing writer
\nPhotos by Maura Sullivan Hill<\/p>\n
Whenever two-time Olympic Champion Yuzuru Hanyu competed, you could expect the shower of Winnie the Pooh toys and gifts from fans following the performance. Tossing flowers, stuffed animals, or gifts on the ice is a longtime tradition in the elite levels of competitive skating, but it\u2019s also a major part of the adult skater competition circuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started in 2002, 2003 at the Peach Classic, which is held in Atlanta each year,\u201d said Rob Lichtefeld of the Georgia FSC, the host of Peach Classic. Lichtefeld is a longtime competitor in adult competitions, in free skate, pairs, and dance, and skated in the bronze pattern dance event at the ISU International Adult Figure Skating Competition in Nashville.<\/p>\n
Lichtefeld credits skaters from Alabama with the original tossies idea: \u201cOne year, they went to Goodwill before the competition and bought all this underwear, and for all the guys that skated, they threw them on the ice. It was called the Underwear Phantom, and that kind of got into Adult Nationals the next year, because the same people loaded their luggage up. And then people started throwing things on the ice, and it just got bigger and bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the tradition grew, it started to take too much time to clear the ice between skaters. So now, in the interests of efficiency, the tossies are collected in buckets in the stands after each performance. There was an adjustment period for this change in process, and the U.S. Adult Skating Committee made a video and hashtag campaign to educate the competitors on the new policy. It starred Lichtefeld and they called it #BeLikeRob:<\/p>\n