What do figure skaters do with all of their...?

Question

stuffed animals from competitions.

when i was watching the Four Continents competition some of the skaters had several garbage bags full.

Answer 1

Mostly donate to kids in hospitals or the less fortunate. Amateur competitors keep them, because they only get a few, while Sasha Cohen's fans flooded the ice with bears. *jealosy* I would personally not mind getting one of Yu-Na kims bears...

Answer 2

The skating biggies get sooooo many . . . most of them will get donated . . . and others may keep some of them.  

Article on ice dancers donating to a childrens hospital

http://www.usfigureskating.org/Story.asp...

Miki Ando (last paragraph) keeps them all.

http://www.goldenskate.com/articles/2003...

And then there are skaters like me . . . I don't get the "shower" of flowers and stuffies . . . but I have gotten occasional ones thrown on the ice from a friend (I don't think they were supposed to do that - hee hee).  I have kept them on the shelf along with other skating momentos.  :P

Answer 3

A lot of high level skaters like you saw on TV may keep one or two of the animals and they donate the rest of them to sick kids in hospitals or other places.

Answer 4

They usually donate them (I can't seriously imagine skaters travelling on airplanes with 3 boxes of plush toys on a regular basis). Now, call me a pervert or whatnot, but I wonder if skaters get more kinky gifts on the way. I'm quite sure someone has gotten at least once underwear with a kiss with lipstick painted on it (ick).

I've seen some of the more "ladies men" male mexican skaters get very "special" and very elaborately wrapped gifts by the ladies. Wouldn't be too surprised some of these top skaters get oddball gifts.

I sure wouldn't frown being given a good Saint Seiya figurine myself instead of a teddybear. :P