Stéphane Lambiel was born on April 2, 1985 in Martigny, Switzerland and is a Swiss Figure Skater. He is a two-time World Champion (2005-2006), the 2006 Olympic Silver Medalist, a two-time Grand Prix Champion (2005 and 2007) and an eight-time Swiss National Champion. Lambiel his known for his spins and is credited with popularizing some spin positions.
Lambiel grew up in Saxon, Switzerland. He has a sister, Silvia, and a brother, Christophe. Lambiel's mother is portuguese. Stéphane lives in Lausanne, Switzerland and received his "maturité" in biology and chemistry in June 2004.
Lambiel speaks French, German (not Swiss German), English and Portuguese fluently.
As the Swiss novice men's champion, Lambiel performed an exhibition at the 1997 World Championships held in Lausanne. The next year, he became Swiss Junior men's champion and by 2000, he was the Swiss senior men's champion. He came in fifht at the 2001 World Junior Championships. The next season, Lambiel was age-eligible for senior international competition. The Swiss Skating Federation told him that they would send him to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City if he placed in the top twelve at the European Championships. Lambiel placed fourth there and was sent to the Olympics, where he placed fifteenth. He then places eighteenth at the Senior Worlds.
The following season, Lambiel placed fifth at Europeans and moved up a few places at Worlds. By 2004, he was sixth at Europeans and fourth at 2004 Worlds.
Lambiel was forced to miss the 2004-2005 Grand Prix season due to injury, but recouped to place 4th at Europeans. At the 2005 World Championships in Moscow, Stéphane was ahead of Evgeni Plushenko after the qualifying round and short program. When Plushenko withdrew from the competition with an injury, Lambiel was suddenly in a position to win the title. He did, with a spectacular performance to the King Arthur Soundtrack. He landed two quadruple toe loops in the free skate and was the only skater to do two at the event. It was the first time a Swiss Man had been World Champion since Hans Gerschwiler in 1947.
Lambiel went into the 2006 Olympic season as the World Champion, but not as favourite for the Olympic title. He won two silver medals on the Grand Prix circuit and won the Grand Prix Final. He came in second at Europeans, behind Plushenko, and went into the Olympics with a strong chance to medal. He was third after the short program, but pulled up to second to win the silver medal. Lambiel didn't complete a triple axel at the Olympics. However, he did land a perfect quadruple-triple-double combination.
Plushenko chose not to go to Worlds, leaving Lambiel as the favourite to defend his title. Lambiel was first after the qualifying round and maintained his lead through the short and the long programs, allowing him to successfully defend his title and become the first Swiss Skater ever to be a two-time World Champion.
Stéphane began the 2006-2007 Season by coming back from the short program to win the gold medal at Skate Canada International, where he finished seventh in the short program and first in the free skate. Lambiel had also been assigned to the NHK Trophy, but he withdrew before the event, citing health reasons. He recovered in time to skate at the Swiss Championships, where he won his seventh national title.
However, on January 16th, Lambiel withdrew from the European Championships, citing burnout. He competed again at the 2007 World Championships in Tokyo where he fell on his triple axel and tripled his intended quad-triple combination in the short program and placed 6th. He came back in the long program where he landed two quads and a triple axel and finished in 2nd on the night and 3rd overall.
In 2007, he finished 3rd at the Cup of China and 2nd at the Cup of Russia. He then went on to win the Grand Prix Final for a second time in his career with 239.10 points, only 0.16 points over Daisuke Takahashi.
At the 2008 European Championships in Zagreb, he had a disappointing short program where he fell on his triple axel and only did a triple-double combination and placed 4th. He finished 2nd in the long program where he landed a quad-double toeloop-double loop combination and earned 80 points in program components score for his exquisite flamenco. He won his second Silver European medal, while Czech Tomas Verner won the Gold.
At the 2008 World Championships in Gothenborg, Sweden, Lambiel fell on his triple axel and put his hand down on a quad toe loop in the short program, putting him in fifth place going into the free skate. In the free skate, he stepped out of his triple axel attempt, put his hand down again on the quad toe in his combination, and then stepped out on his solo quad toe. He finished in fifth place overall.
