Tara Kristen Lipinski (born June 10, 1982) is an American former competitive figure skater, actress, sports commentator, and documentary film producer.

[3][4] In 1995, Lipinski and her mother transferred to Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to train with coach Richard Callaghan at the Detroit Skating Club.

[1] She won the gold medal at the Champion Series Final and defeated Michelle Kwan by completing more successful jumps in her short and free programs.

Kwan fell twice and landed only four out of her seven planned triple jumps in her free skate, leaving the door open for Lipinski's victory.

[13] She also completed two double Axels, but one rival coach noted the small trajectory of her jumps, stating that "you couldn't have put a piece of paper under them".

[13] Reporter Jere Longman of The New York Times called Lipinski's free skate "a light, airy performance" and said she was "composed and nearly flawless".

[15] She went into the 1997–98 season by continuing to add more sophistication to her programs by taking daily dance classes from Russian ballet teacher Marina Sheffer.

[19] According to Kestnbaum, Callaghan "expressed bewilderment in why the judges had so marked down the reigning World champion, who by virtue of that position might otherwise have been expected to receive the benefit of any doubt".

Figure Skating selected Kwan, Lipinski, and Nicole Bobek, who came in third place at Nationals, to send to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

[26] Swift noted that Kwan's performance of her free skate "would have been enough to win at any other Olympics",[17] but the judges, by awarding her five 5.7s in her technical marks, left room for Lipinski to move ahead.

[28] Kestnbaum also stated: "Nor did [Lipinski's] program demonstrate transitional steps as complex, stroking quality as nuanced, or body carriage and line as controlled and elegant".

[30][31] Single skaters from the same country had not won gold and silver medals at the Olympics since Americans Tenley Albright and Carol Heiss in 1956.

[30] In March 1998, Lipinski announced her decision to withdraw from the 1998 World Championships, citing a serious glandular infection that required her to have two molars extracted, constant fatigue, and possible mononucleosis.

[32] In April, Lipinski announced her intention to turn professional in an interview on the NBC program Today Show, thus ending her eligibility to compete at the Olympics again.

[33][34] As her main motivations, she mentioned the desire to end her family's separation caused by her skating career and to focus on other goals such as attending college in another two years.

Figure skater Scott Hamilton noted in his book Landing It: My Life On and Off the Ice that Lipinski took "an enormous amount of heat" for turning professional.

She became a spokeswoman for Boys and Girls Clubs of America and an anti-drug advocate, appeared on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, and acted in television shows for the Fox Family Network and Nickelodeon.

She became a spokesperson to increase awareness about deep vein thrombosis (DVT), which the National Institutes of Health called "a dangerous potential side effect of surgery".

[18] She notes that Lipinski's early programs, choreographed by Sandra Bezik, emphasized her youth and femininity, while by the 1998 Olympics, the focus was on "greater polish or 'maturity' in her presentation skills".

[5] In March 1997, he stated that Lipinski had "musicality and poise that are far beyond her years", and although he admitted that she often suffered from nerves, she was "the complete skating package, if a diminutive one, and a pleasure to watch".

According to reporter Tom Weir, "they had instant comedic harmony, with their casual chatter and humorous asides playing amazingly well against the staunch and exacting backdrop of figure skating".

[59] According to the Houston Chronicle, Lipinski approached broadcasting "with passion, vigor and an arduous work ethic similar to what she brought to the ice".

[46] In 2018, she told Entertainment Tonight, "I feel extremely grateful that Johnny and I have found this spot in our world, and it gives us opportunities outside of skating".

[52] The same year, The Washington Post reported that viewers' response to Lipinski and Weir were mixed; some considered them "Olympic darlings–a one-stop shop for knowledge, sass and brass", while others found them "mean, obnoxious, and distracting".

[51] GQ called their commentating style "a Gladwell-ian ability to demystify figure skating for the uninitiated and an extreme candor for which they've caught some heat".

[49] Cosmopolitan considered Lipinski and Weir's commentating style honest and colorful, and noted that they used banter and avoided what the magazine called "fluffy, polished performances".

[3] They tried to present figure skating in an accessible way to their viewers, keeping the more technical aspects of the sport to a minimum but emphasizing its "gossipy nuances".

[61][60] In 2018 and 2019, Lipinski and Weir hosted and appeared in a few shows on Food Network, including two seasons of Wedding Cake Challenge.

[64] In the same year, Lipinski and her husband, Todd Kapostasy, a sports producer and documentary director, co-produced Meddling: The Olympic Skating Scandal That Shocked the World, a four-part documentary series focusing on the skating controversy at the 2002 Winter Olympics, which was aired on the NBC streaming service Peacock in January 2022.

[71][72] In September 2020, in order to help raise awareness of the condition, Lipinski made public her diagnosis of endometriosis after having laparoscopic surgery to treat it.