In 1998, Nicole Bobek was America’s blond skating sweetheart, with a fresh, Barbie-doll face that landed her lucrative endorsement deals and a powerful, athletic body that made her America’s best hope for an Olympic gold medal in women’s figure skating.

But that Nicole was hardly recognizable in a July 2009 police mug shot after she was arrested for conspiring to distribute crystal methamphetamine. Bobek’s stunning fall from grace was evidenced by her pockmarked face and distant stare.

TODAY

Nicole Bobek’s 2009 police mug shot shows the toll drugs took on the onetime U.S. figure skating champion.

Now Bobek is on the road to recovery. She avoided prison time Monday when a New Jersey judge granted her five years’ probation after she pled guilty on the conspiracy charges. She’s living with her mother in Jupiter, Fla., and says she has been free of drugs for more than 13 months.

The hardest part, she told Matt Lauer on TODAY Tuesday, is looking at that mug shot and seeing what she had become.

‘A different person’
“It’s very surreal,” Bobek said via satellite from the Lake Worth, Fla., ice rink where she works. “When I look at it now, I was in a complete haze and you can see that. I was not under the influence when that picture was taken, but I was absolutely a different person.”

Bobek, 32, says she’s on the road to redemption, but she also knows she’s skating on thin ice. One failed drug test or other parole violation could land her behind bars for 10 years. And for a woman who has been as troubled in her personal life as she is talented with skates on, it’s a daily struggle.

The Chicago native was seemingly born to be a star on the ice. She was skating by age 3, trained with top-flight coaches and claimed second place in the novice division at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at 11. At 14, she took fourth in the World Junior Championships.

Bobek’s star continued to ascend. In 1995, she bested Michelle Kwan to become the U.S. figure skating champion. All eyes looked to her to bring home a gold medal at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

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Bobek was American figure skating champion in 1995 and considered an Olympic gold medal prospect.

But Bobek had long had a dark side. She ran away from home briefly as a young teen, and at 16, she was placed on juvenile probation for illegally entering a friend’s home and taking cash. She smoked, and was known as a sometimes not-so-dedicated trainer who burned through 11 coaches in her career.

Many believe the Nagano games are the point when Bobek’s life began unraveling. She finished a lowly 17th, but Bobek told Lauer Tuesday she doesn’t blame disappointment at Nagano for her drug troubles.

“That was a very difficult time, because you are at the Olympics, you want to do the best you can do,” she said. “I was injured, and I wish more than anything I could have pulled it off and done amazing and wonderful and taken a medal. But at the end of the day, I have to sit back and look at it, that I still made the team. I worked very hard my whole entire life to get there.”

The days of Bobek’s earning $300,000 a year in endorsements were over, but following the Olympics, she still earned a solid six-figure income on the Champions on Ice tour and other show events. Bobek admits she moved to New York thinking, “I want to have a little fun now”  — but personal tragedies sent her reeling.

TODAY

Bobek was among 28 people charged with being in a crystal meth distribution network.

“I went through a lot of loss: the death of my aunt [Joyce Barron, who was Bobek’s financial handler], the death of my coach [Carlo Fassi], heartbreak,” she told Lauer. “I am human and I think I made some bad choices, absolutely.”

A chance to change
She reveled in the New York City party scene, and while she admits to using crystal meth off and on, claims she only purchased the drug for her personal use. Still, New Jersey authorities charged her among 28 people involved in a crystal methamphetamine network that distributed some $10,000 of the drug weekly. New Jersey prosecutors claimed Bobek sold the drug to the main figure in the probe, Edward Cruz Jr., who was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Prosecutors sought a year’s jail time for Bobek, but on Monday a New Jersey judge gave her a lifeline by sentencing her to probation instead. A tearful Bobek said in court Monday that “nothing but good can come of this,” and she told Lauer she intends to make the most of her second chance.

“I’ve been given this opportunity to make a change and also prove to myself that I can come out of the hole I dug myself into,” she said.

“I’m given this chance to make a difference, and hopefully help others who suffer from addiction problems; do benefits, get back on the ice, and continue with my treatment and do everything I need to do to change my life around.”