CEO Dr. Mu Tomlinson revisits Bonaly’s 1998 Olympic protest.

 

Dr. Mu Tomlinson (Courtesy Photo).jpg

As a new generation of Olympians chase medals in Milan, one old wound is back on the ice: Surya Bonaly’s defiant backflip.

In a TikTok clip that has drawn more than 160,000 views in just a few days, emergency physician and healthcare CEO Dr. Mu Tomlinson revisits Bonaly’s 1998 Olympic protest, arguing that a Black woman who expanded the sport’s technical ceiling was punished instead of rewarded. 

Bonaly, a three-time world silver medalist and one of the first women to regularly attempt quads, famously uncorked a banned backflip and landed on one blade in Nagano after years of feeling judges scored her as if she did not belong. The move cost her points and any shot at the podium, but it became a touchstone of Black excellence and resistance in a largely white, aesthetics‑driven sport.

https://www.tiktok.com/@togethxr/video/7605669800362118430

Nearly three decades later, as today’s skaters legally stack quads and even backflips into their programs, Bonaly is still asking why the system that failed her has not truly changed. In a recent interview, she said “something has to be changed” in figure skating’s opaque judging, adding that she is “sick and tired” of seeing skaters who should win “just lose” because the scoring remains anything but clear.

Tomlinson sees Bonaly’s story as a case study in how institutions overlook outliers. An ER doctor who rose to lead Vituity, a multibillion‑dollar physician‑owned partnership, he has been recognized as one of healthcare’s most influential leaders. In his book “Less Than One Percent: How Disruptors Defy the Odds,” with a foreword by Earvin “Magic” Johnson, he mines underdog arcs from sports — Stephen Curry’s ascent from lightly recruited prospect to NBA superstar, the New York Giants’ shock Super Bowl upsets of Tom Brady’s Patriots — to argue that conventional metrics routinely miss the people most likely to change the game.

That thesis runs through his day job and his philanthropy. Through the Vituity Cares Foundation, Tomlinson backs street‑medicine teams that bring primary and urgent care directly to people living in encampments, underpasses, and tent communities, rather than waiting for them to navigate an already unforgiving system. The goal is simple but radical: meet patients where they are, and treat them as if their lives count just as much as anyone else’s.

On the speaking circuit, Tomlinson has carried that message from a shared stage with Venus Williams at Becker’s Healthcare to the Black Student‑Athlete Summit and a leadership panel at SXSW. His pitch to athletes, executives, and aspiring changemakers is blunt: if success keeps looking the same, it might not be success at all. In Bonaly, he sees an athlete who landed a move no one else could do and was told she lacked “grace” — a verdict that says more about the judges than the jump.

As the Winter Games roll on, that tension is playing out in real time, between what fans can see with their own eyes and what the score sheets say. Tomlinson’s viral post asks viewers to hold both images at once: the lone skater carving a forbidden arc in the air, and the gatekeepers who could only respond with a deduction. 

The question for this Olympic generation is whether the sport, and the systems that decide who belongs, are finally ready to recognize greatness when it looks different.