What a fun month this has been! In addition to interviewing Kimmie Meissner and Salma Hayek, last week I got to sit down in person with Olympic ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto.
Tanith and Ben are absolutely lovely - very down to earth. Ben is friendly and laid back, cracking jokes and laughing a lot, and Tanith also is friendly and completely accessible (not to mention ridiculously model beautiful) and definitely is the passionate and opinionated counterpart. I loved that she was completely tell it like it is during the interview (and extremely articulate to boot). This dynamic apparently works well for them on the ice and in interviews; they automatically seemed to take turns in responding to my questions.
You can read the interview transcript at Boston Mamas; meanwhile here are some additional personal photos.
Truly adorable in real life!
With Ben & Tanith. Sadly the pillow collar on my Nordstrom puffer looks very odd in this photo (though I think it looks cool in real life...weird).
Fantastic moment: Tanith overheard the young girl to the left tell her Dad that she hated stretching and Tanith said, "You have to stretch! Let me teach you some of my favorites!" Tanith and Ben immediately led her through a series of stretches.
A collective awww went through the rink when this teeny tiny 3-year-old stepped onto the ice. Tanith worked with the beginners.
Meanwhile, Ben worked with the advanced skaters.
This was a staged media shot, but pretty cute to see everyone doing spirals.
I did have my skates in the car but didn’t end up hitting the ice because this was an ice clinic for people affiliated with the rink and I didn’t want to cut in on their time. At least, that’s what I like to tell myself!
March 6th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
[...] their kids in any types of lessons, to why Boston ranks among Tanith’s favorite cities. (Visit Pop Discourse for additional personal [...]
March 7th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
That’s awesome! How nice of them to work with the kids.
[Reply]
March 24th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
[...] to do there. For example, a few weeks ago I had the ridiculously fun opportunity to sit down and interview Olympic figure skaters Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, after which I was invited to hit the ice for their skating [...]
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 am
[...] say that it was awesome that Evan Lysacek won the gold (go, Evan!) and fantastic that the lovely Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto grabbed a medal after being off due to Ben’s injury, but I so wanted Tanith and Ben to win [...]