The "Battle of the Brians" has been called "one of the great rivalries in modern figure skating" and "one of the greatest head-to-head matchups in the history" of the sport.
Orser placed second at the 1985 World Figure Skating Championships, with Boitano one step below him.
He turned to choreographer Sandra Bezic, who helped effect a major change in his skating style.
[citation needed] Media hype going into the Olympics was augmented by the fact that Orser was the reigning world champion and that he was competing in his home country.
As figure skating historian James R. Hines states, "the pressure to become the first Canadian man to win an Olympic gold medal was daunting".
The difference between Orser and Boitano was so small that the skater who won the long program would win the title.
At the same 1988 Winter Olympics, the "Battle of the Carmens" was used to describe the rivalry in the ladies figure skating competition between East German Katarina Witt and American Debi Thomas.
[3][4] Some in the media dubbed this the new "Battle of the Brians", as NBC's Williams compared his own modest set to CTV's expensive Olympic studio.