Adele Inge, The Girl Who Did Backflips On Ice During World War II

Photo courtesy "The National Ice Skating Guide"

"I'm a camera fiend, you know." - Adele Inge, "The Ottawa Citizen", March 25, 1953

Every eight months or so, one of those listicle type news sites will run one of those clickbaity pieces claiming Surya Bonaly was either the first or only woman to perform a backflip on ice. I kind of cringe a little each time. What about Rory Flack? Lori Benton? Ashley Clark? Sally Richardson? And what about Adele Inge? Got to love crackerjack research. Something, something "Wikipedia said so". Oh sweetie no...

The daughter of Emma and Everett Inge, Adele Inge was born July 25, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father was a real estate broker. Largely self-taught, she started skating as a youngster on her own private, homemade twelve by twenty six foot ice rink constructed in the basement of her parents' Clayton Township home.

An athletic child, by the age of nine Adele was beating her male classmates in track and field, tennis and cycling. She also excelled at everything from horseback riding to tap dance. But it wasn't until she started to copy the gymnastic stunts of her three older brothers, Robert, Ray and Oliver, on the ice in the basement rink that father Everett truly realized that he had a star on his hands.

Everett hauled his daughter out of school and hired a woman named Mildred Massee who had studied at The Sorbonne in Paris' Latin Quarter to act as her tutor. He proceeded to take on a second job... acting as his little show pony's manager. In what spare time she had, Adele enjoyed photography,  golf, swimming and horseback riding.

Photo courtesy "The National Ice Skating Guide"

In the late thirties, Adele made her big debut appearing in Sonja Henie's revue. To say her act was an artistic masterpiece would be the exaggeration of the century, but Adele's high flying split jumps, Arabian cartwheels and acrobatic stunts - including a backflip - left audiences struggling to pull their jaws up on the floor.

Photos courtesy 'The Skater" magazine (left) and "Skating World" magazine (right)

Before she was even fifteen, Adele had done everything from acting in the St. Louis production of "Murder In The Red Barn" to ice skating at the International Casino on 42nd Street in Times Square, New York. In 1942, Adele starred in a series of shows in the Terrace Room of the Hotel New Yorker, accompanied by no less of a star than Benny Goodman himself. She appeared in select cities with the Ice Capades tour in 1942. Then, in the middle of World War II, her fairy tale almost ended.

On June 19, 1943, Everett Inge died suddenly in St. Louis, Missouri. A seventeen year old Adele's future seemed uncertain but an invitation to perform in the Century Room at The Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas kept Adele's fifteen minutes of fame going. Making her rounds on the hotel ice show circuit, Adele was the toast of the Netherland Plaza Hotel's ice show in Cincinnati in 1944 and 1945. The March 25, 1944 issue of "Billboard" magazine boasted, "Adele Inge, featured, is the most capable fem ever to cavort on the ice here, and she seems to improve with every showing. She has a figure, appearance and grace, and totes a big bag of ice tricks, including spins, twists, whirls and more, far above the average. Her waltzing to 'Warsaw Concerto' is the hit of this show."

In the late forties, Adele took her act to Great Britain and appeared alongside Daphne Walker and The Three Rookies in the show "Stars On Ice" at the Stoll Theatre. In 1951, she even skated in Brazil. By 1952, the highly in demand skater was starring in the revue "Calendar Capers" on the ice tank in the Boulevard Room of the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago. Her star slowly waning, Adele enjoyed limited success as the star of "Spice And Ice" on the Tivoli Circuit in Australia in 1958. Her last big gig? Doing advertisements for Kraft Bonox beef broth.

Photo courtesy ""World Ice Skating Guide"

Just as quickly as she'd risen to prominence, Adele Inge faded into absolute obscurity. You won't find her name in any of those listicles or in the World Figure Skating Hall Of Fame. History has a funny way of choosing who gets remembered and who gets forgotten and it's truly a shame, because I think a female figure skater who was doing backflips in the thirties and forties deserves at least an honourable mention. But what do I know?

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

What The Zhuk?: Scandals From Behind The Iron Curtain

With wife Nina, Stanislav Alekseevich Zhuk won three consecutive silver medals at the European Championships from 1958 and 1960. However, it is his controversial coaching career and not his competitive accomplishments that most remember today. Just what made Stanislav Zhuk one of the most despised coaches in history? Let's go back in skating history, sneak behind The Iron Curtain and explore this fascinatingly despicable tale.

Let's get this party started with an excerpt from a letter to the editor, published in the November 16,
1968 edition of the омсомо́льская пра́вда (Komsomolskaya Pravda), the Soviet Union's All-Union newspaper: "Dear Editor, We are writing to the Komosol paper because what we have to say has to do with the upbringing of young athletes. Let's start by mentioning just one episode, which unfortunately, did not fail to slip past millions of TV viewers at the Grenoble Olympics. Remember the wonderful moment when our 'Golden Pair' of figure skating, two-time Olympic Champions Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov, were greated by an ovation as they stood on the highest step of the winners' platform? It seems only one pair of athletes, a mere step below, 'forgot' to congratulate them. Only so as not to provide silage for sensation-seeking Western papers did the champions finally shake the hands of their rival teammates. But we will not reproach these athletes, for 'There are no bad students - only bad teachers.' Let us now turn our attention to the tutor of the Silver Pair - Honored Coach Of The Soviet Union, Honored Master Of Sport, Comrade Stanislav Zhuk. There he stood, arms folded, right in front of the TV cameras. Millions saw how he turned his back as Belousova and Protopopov entered. To an outsider this might have seemed just chance, an unfortunate slip, but we know better: we know all too well of those interviews he has so zealously been granting foreign columnists, and we know that what he did to the Golden Pair was, alas, hardly accidental. We have read those interviews in foreign publications, and we can testify that Zhuk continually expatiates on our champions' flaws with obsessively extolling his pair alone. Is this befitting for a Soviet coach? We dare not cite most of the language Zhuk uses with his colleagues. But we submit just one, barely printable, example, addressed to Honored Coach of the Soviet Union Tatiana Tolmacheva, an individual respected by all sportsmen: 'Just wait, I'll drown you like a mangy kitten in a slop pail!' This because Comrade Tomalcheva, a judge at the competition, consigned his pupils to second place. One of Zhuk's 'teaching methods' is to collect personal vouchers from his charges saying he's the one that taught them a particular technique. He keeps the vouchers in his tweed jacket, and every time his students win he shakes the papers in his fist as proof he's the one to thank for it. For some reason - whether out of fear or mesmerized by his past performance - there's no one who's yet had the nerve to straighten him out." This scathing letter was signed by six prominent soviet coaches, including the national team's senior coach Viacheslav Zaitsev as well as Tomalcheva, Elena Chaikovskaia and Igor Moskvin. The silver medal Soviet pair referenced as Zhuk's pupils in Grenoble were of course none other than his sister Tatiana and partner Alexander Gorelik.

Tatiana Tomalcheva

The letter to the омсомо́льская пра́вда fuelled a showdown. Although the Soviet Sports Committee were steadfast in their support of Zhuk and maintained silence on the issue, the furor was just beginning. When the newspaper later shared that "Comrade Zhuk has been given a stern dressing down. The appropriate notation has been made in his personal file" his rival coaches didn't buy it. In his 1978 book "The Big Red Machine The Rise And Fall Of Soviet Olympic Champions", Yuri Brokhin notes that "after a training session of the National Team at a suburban Moscow dacha, the angry Zhuk decided to get even. He packed his skaters onto a bus, waited until Belousova and Protopopov showed up, promptly slammed the door in their faces, and ordered the driver to step on the gas. The Golden Pair was left stranded twenty miles outside the city. The next day Belousova and Protopopov blew into the offices of Komsolskaia Pravda brandishing two points. First Zhuk had borne them a personal grudge ever since the 1950s, when they were training under rival theorist Petr Orlov. He continually made disparaging remarks to them, talked about them behind their backs, and ultimately had them expelled. What he was doing now was no different: conspiring to turn the Sports Committee against them. Second, Zhuk was having his pupils imitate Barbara Wagner and Robert Paul while dismissing the achievements of the native Russian school, for which Belousova and Protopopov had paved the way."

On January 8, 1969, right before that year's European Championships, the омсомо́льская пра́вда published an article demanding that Zhuk be fired. This time, the media fire storm was so overwhelming that the Sports Committee removed Zhuk as the coach of the National Team heading to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. His students, Irina Rodnina and Alexei Nikolaevich Ulanov, won their first European title without their coach present, soundly defeating two time Olympic Gold Medallists Belousova and Protopopov. At a press conference after the competition in Germany, Rodnina told reporters "It's true we don't show the depth of feeling that they do, but tell me - I'm only nineteen, so why should I try to play with a kind of experience I haven't yet had and they have? I can't - and what's more, I don't want to - come off like some artiste. But I do have something of my own to offer. If Aleksei and I started imitating them, we'd never have won. Coach Zhuk found a style that was right for us - and it's just the opposite of theirs, which I think everybody's bored with by now anyway." To say that there was no love lost at the time between the Protopopov's and Rodnina, Ulanov and Zhuk is really the understatement of the late sixties. After finishing third to Rodnina and Ulanov and another legendary Soviet pair, Tamara Moskvina and Alexei Mishin, the Protopopov's retired amidst allegations that Zhuk and Valentin Piseev had a hand in their demise, Rodnina flourished with Ulanov and later Zaitsev... but Zhuk continued to zhuk up. Behind the scenes, the indomitable Rodnina was actually intimidated of her coach, so much so that she would reportedly get up even earlier in the morning than she was asked to just to be early for their lessons and avoid his wrath. Zaitsev and Zhuk didn't get along and things eventually got so bad that Rodnina eventually made a deal with the Central Red Army Club (CKSA Moscow) to allow Tatiana Tarasova to take over as their coach in 1974.

In addition to his prize pair, Stanislav Zhuk acted as coach to many other top Soviet skaters in the seventies, including Sergei Chetverukhin, Elena Vodorezova, Marina Cherkasova and Sergei Shakrai and Sergei Volkov. Brokhin's book recalls Zhuk's behavior during his pupil Elena Vodorezova's free skate at the 1977 World Championships in Tokyo: "Tweed-jacket collar tucked under the bulldog jaw, tired eyes cast downward at his shoes, he transformed every sound of the girl's skates into an image of unmistakable clarity. Suddenly he could hold back no longer, breaking his practice of many years. He raised his eyes and riveted them on Elena. His glower pierced the skater as his thoughts bubbled over in unpronounced phrases: 'What the hell is she doing?... Get up there! Somersault! No, no! Stupid brat! How many times have I told you not to move into a jump like that? Well... Dazzle those damned judges with that finale of yours! Ah... Ah! Shit... you snot-nose little dummy!' A couple of minutes later, smiling for the TV camera, the man was down by the rink kissing the girl, straightening the light blue bows that stuck up from her hair like propellers: 'Atta girl, Lenochka! You blew it here and there, but dammit, you weren't half bad! Molodets! Next year, we're gonna get that gold!'" Vodorezova actually won the free skate that year in Tokyo, but a thirteenth place finish in the school figures and a fifth place in the short program kept her in seventh place. Rodnina and Zaitsev fought with Zhuk and left him for Tatiana Tarasova. He turned his attention to Marina Pestova and Stanislav Leonovich, who won World medals in 1980 and 1982.

The drama continued! In her book "My Sergei: A Love Story", Ekaterina Gordeeva wrote at length of her experience training under Zhuk in the mid eighties: "The head coach of the army club at that time was Stanislav Alexeyvich Zhuk, who by any definition was a miserable, pitiless man... He was in his fifties, short, with a big stomach and a round face. His most arresting feature was his eyes, which were small and dark and looked very deep into you. They were very scary, peering at you from beneath his hairy eyebrows. All of Zhuk's movements were fast. He also had very strong but not very nice hands. I didn't like it when he showed us movements with his hands. And on the ice, when he demonstrated something to us with his feet, he couldn't straighten his leg. It looked ridiculous. Sergei used to laugh at Zhuk, but not to his face. We used to imitate the way he walked fast, taking very small steps. Sergei didn't like him as a person. Zhuk drank every night, and he used to speak harshly, even filthily, to the boys. He liked to order them around as if they were soldiers, because they skated for the army club. 'Shut up,' he would say. 'I'm higher than you in rank.' Zhuk liked these army rules... He used to tell us, 'If I don't coach you, you'll never be on the World or Olympic team.'"

Gordeeva continued by stating, "I shared a room with Anna Kondrashova, and Zhuk would tease us about eating dinner at the cafeteria. Anna always had a problem keeping her weight down, so we stopped going to dinner because afterward Zhuk would tell such stories about how much we ate and how much we'd weigh if we kept eating dinners like that... One time I saw Zhuk hit Anna. I was in the bathroom, and Zhuk came and started talking loudly to her. I decided I'd better stay where I was, but then they started fighting, and when I came out, he was hitting her on the back. I ran out to get Sergei, but by the time we came back Zhuk was gone. Anna was crying. That was nothing new. She cried almost every day. Zhuk used to come to her and say, 'I saw you last night go into Fadeev's room. What were you doing in there?' Even if she had done this, it was none of his business, of course. But he would torment her with his spying, and I was so young that Anna never confided in me what was behind it. I understand now that he was trying to get Anna to sleep with him. He had done this with many girls over the years."

In the spring of 1986, Gordeeva and Grinkov, Alexandr Fadeev, Anna Kondrashova and Marina Zueva sent a letter to Central Red Army Club officials reporting Zhuk's drinking, missing practices and abuse. The club appointed Stanislav Leonovich to coach Gordeeva and Grinkov, but Zhuk (a colonel by rank) remained the Central Red Army Club's head coach, continuing his work with young skaters for years to come. On November 1, 1998, he passed away at a Moscow subway station near the same club he coached at for decades. Despite his controversial (to put it mildly) career as coach, in 2008 a statue was erected in his honor at the Central Army Red Club. I don't know about you, but that seems like a tough pill to swallow.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

The Magician From Mission Hill: The Paul McGrath Story

Photo courtesy "Skating World" magazine

"Expression should not be held inside when skating." - Paul McGrath, "The Harvard Crimson", April 18, 1974

Boston, Massachusetts... home of Maribel Vinson Owen, the cream donut and Meagan Duhamel's new favourite place to scream in the air. It was also the home of the subject of today's blog, a skater whose contributions to the sport have never really been recognized to the extent they should have been.

Born August 21, 1946, Paul McGrath was the son of Catherine (Linehan) and Francis McGrath, a tool and die maker. The McGrath's were an Irish Catholic working class family that lived in the Boston neighbourhood of Mission Hill and figure skating was something that Paul discovered at the age of twelve in 1958. He bought his first pair of skates - three sizes too small - at a rummage sale for fifty cents. It wasn't long after he first took to the ice that people started recognizing that he had something special: a striking ability to interpret music. He joined the Commonwealth Figure Skating Club and supplemented his usual training with ice time at the Skating Club Of Boston. "I trained at the Skating Club [Of Boston] but I wasn't a member; I was only allowed on the ice during certain hours," Paul explained in an April 26, 1984 interview in The Boston Globe. "I was the proverbial weed poking through the sidewalk."

That 'weed' was the prize pupil of Olympic Silver Medallist, World and European Champion Cecilia Colledge. She guided him to a second place finish in the novice men's event at the 1962 U.S. Championships in front of a hometown audience at Boston's McHugh Forum in only his fourth year skating. Two years later in Cleveland, Paul placed fourth in the junior men's competition behind Tim Wood, Duane Maki and Richard Callaghan. In 1965 at the age of eighteen, he won the Eastern and U.S. junior men's titles and finished second at the Lake Placid Summer Competition right behind Canadian Champion Dr. Charles Snelling. He continued to skate through the 1966/1967 season then decided to call it quits. "My whole family sacrificed everything for my training until they just couldn't swing it anymore," Paul explained in 1984. "But I'd already been told by some powerful people in skating that I wouldn't make it to the Olympics in 1968, because the other contenders for the team had better connections. There's a lot of politics in skating."

Paul McGrath and Bobby Black at the 1965 U.S. Championships

After graduating from Newman Preparatory School and attending Emerson College, Paul became the Radcliffe figure skating instructor at the Donald C. Watson Rink just north of Harvard Stadium. He also coached at the Hayden Recreation Centre and the North Shore and Commonwealth Figure Skating Clubs. In 1969 and 1970, he finished second at the World Professional Championships in England. In 1974, he earned seven perfect scores and won the World Professional Championships in Jaca, Spain. Skating to "Carmina Burana", Paul was a pioneer in introducing vocal music to professional competition. In the April 18, 1974 issue of "The Harvard Crimson" he explained, "I used this music not for the words but for the sound of the voice, so that I could interpret the sounds... Any music is appropriate if you can express what you want to." His repertoire of programs was extremely eclectic for the period. He performed to everything from Mahler's "Symphony No. 10" to a drum solo by Ringo Starr.

It was at the World Professional Championships at Wembley that Paul first met Lorna Brown. "After my performance," she recalled, "This guy comes running up to me who I'd never really seen because I hadn't seen him skate at that point because [the men] were after us. He came up to me, hugging me, saying, 'You really came through!' and I could never forget that moment. I felt like I'd met someone who was on the same wavelength; the same artistic plane as me. We got together and we became lovers. We travelled back and forth for a while and then one day, I was in Boston at his apartment and one of his lovers came in and it was a really scary situation. Eventually, we broke up because it just wasn't right for him. But for a time we had an amazing relationship. It was very much based on the art. We had so much in common. We went to art galleries in New York together, he bought me a ring. It looked like we were going to get married at one point. When I went to the Boston Skating Club, there was a great big banner the whole length of the rink that had been put up at the back where the seating was: 'Welcome Lorna'. I was just blown away. He had me performing for his skaters and dancing in someone's house on a stage. It was just amazing, really. We loved each other and we continued to be friends but there was no connection in any way, shape or form at that point because I had totally accepted that he'd decided one hundred percent that he was gay and I could completely accept that."

Paul's artistic and musically sensitive performance style later caught the eye of Olympic Gold Medallist John Curry, who invited him to perform in his "Theatre Of Skating" at the Cambridge Theatre in London. After the show, John sent Paul packing. "There wasn't an obvious dislike going on that we could see," explained Lorna Brown. "Nobody ever spoke about John and Paul but I think they differed artistically. I think maybe John criticized Paul. He was an incredible jumper and John wasn't. Anything that would upstage John, especially from a man, he wouldn't have. Also, I think Paul was not as classical as John. He was very, very much a free spirit. He was an individual artist. He didn't follow anybody. He was a complete individual. He would stand on one of the openings going on to the ice and literally, he would step onto the ice and do a triple jump from nothing. He was an amazing jumper, incredible technician and a great artist. He wasn't copying anybody. He was his own person."

After winning a second World Professional title in Jaca in 1977, Paul focused his attention primarily on coaching and choreography and took a job at the Skating Club Of Boston. Among his students were Catherine Foulkes and Jill Frost. Jill was a promising American skater who won the U.S. novice and junior titles but like her coach, never won a medal in the senior ranks at the U.S. Championships. Like her coach, Catherine skated in John Curry's Company. Paul's work was highly praised by his peers. His choreography was a cut above much of the shtick of the period.

Paul was outspoken about how figure skating was presented to television audiences. He believed too much emphasis was placed on the technical elements and not enough attention was paid to educating audiences about the second mark. He bemoaned, "Television has built a huge audience for skating...  How would you like it if in the middle of Swan Lake,' the announcer came on and said, Now watch that arabesque!' TV skating is just not handled from an aesthetic viewpoint."

Catherine Foulkes and Paul McGrath performing at the Winchester Figure Skating Club's 1979 ice show

Sadly, Paul left this world far too soon. He passed away on December 3, 1990 at the age of forty four of liver cancer (a complication of HIV/AIDS) at the Youvill Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lorna Brown learned about Paul's death when she went to John Curry's memorial in New York. "To hear about Paul's death, among so many others, when I was standing on stage was absolutely heartbreaking. I sobbed." The last time they had seen each other was in London in the seventies.

Since 1992, Paul has been honoured posthumously by the Professional Skaters Association with the Paul McGrath Choreographer Of The Year Award. Winners have included Sandra Bezic, Sarah Kawahara, Brian Wright, Lori Nichol, Tom Dickson and David Wilson. Lorna Brown recalled, "He was very funny. He was a person who loved to enjoy life. He loved performing and that was maybe what John crushed a little bit because he kept Paul back. He wouldn't allow Paul to do the things that he was really best at. We would laugh a lot. He was a very passionate person, very meaningful and compassionate as well. A beautiful person with a lot of love in his heart."

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

The History Of Quadruple Jumps

Four revolution jumps... to skaters back in Ulrich Salchow and Gillis Grafström's days, they wouldn't have wouldn't have even been comprehensible. However, as we all know, under the current IJS system they're the name of the game. From Dick Button performing the first triple jump to Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden's introduction of the first twist lift, overhead lasso lift and throw jump to the majestic video of David Jenkins doing a gorgeous triple Axel in 1957, figure skating history is of course full of technical innovations and the history of the evolution of quadruple jumps is really quite a fascinating story.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties, a small circle of American skaters took the plunge at attempting quadruple jumps. Robert Wagenhoffer was landing them in practice and Mark Cockerell was attempting them in competition, but the first quad attempts in major international competitions didn't come until 1983, when the Soviet Union's Alexandr Fadeev went for the gusto at the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland.

Around the time that quadruple jumps were first being attempted, not everyone was sold on the push for technical progress. In an interview in the December-January 1979 issue of the "Canadian Skater" magazine, 1976 Olympic Bronze Medallist Toller Cranston lamented, "I know that the trend today is that a male competitive skater has to do in the neighbourhood of four... five... six to eight triples, which makes no sense to me at all... It becomes a big, fat bore. You forget those performances. The performances you really remember are the emotional ones... I agree that in some ways it is a very authentic progression. But it's not the only progression. It's only one kind. For example, I always remember going to the Moscow Circus where I saw people do things that defy the ability of the human body - they practically turned themselves inside out, they stood on one finger, and so on. But after about three-quarters of an hour, I left in the middle of the performance. Yes, it was phenomenal and unbelievable, and I had never seen anything like it before. But then suddenly I became aware that, gee, these seats are uncomfortable, I have no room for my feet. The point is that when I left, I had forgotten everything. I had not been impressed emotionally. But to my dying day I'll remember some of the performances I saw of the Bolshoi Ballet. I can't tell you what they did, but I have visions, and my body sort of surges up with emotions because I FELT something." Despite Toller's reservations about the jump race, his successors persevered at going for the technical gusto.

Controversy persists to this day as to when the first quad jump was actually landed in international competition. Officially, the ISU recognizes Kurt Browning's quadruple toe-loop at the 1988 World Championships as the first. However, the March 26, 1988 edition of The Bangor Daily News notes that "[Jozef] Sabovcik was believed to have landed one at the 1986 European Championships. But a review of the tapes revealed that he grazed the ice on his free leg and the jump was disallowed." In a December 2008 interview on The Manleywoman SkateCast, Sabovcik explained, "I know what I did, and Kurt and I, people thought we were at each other's throats about this, but Kurt’s a really good friend of mine. I respect him as a skater and I think he respects me as a skater. I did what I did, and mine wasn’t by any means perfect, but neither was his. The ISU makes their decisions and that's how it is. They usually don't go back on anything they rule. Scott Hamilton told me, he was there, they made a video that showed the landing from a certain angle, and when he heard the ruling, he offered them the tape from, I think it was, ABC, and [the ISU] simply refused it because they had made their ruling." In his 1991 book "Kurt: Forcing The Edge", Kurt Browning talked with candor about his own historic accomplishment: "I'd been landing quads in practice for a couple of years. I'd landed them in Cincinnati and tried them here and there, whenever I felt the chance existed. Other people were landing them too. But there are two important distinctions that put my name into skating history. I was the first to land a quad perfectly and cleanly - landing on one foot, not two - at a recognized, sanctioned skating event. Not fooling around in practice, not on springy ice, not on a pond in the middle of nowhere without a battery of judges around. That is why my name is in the Guinness Book Of World Records. I was the first to do it. I won't be the last. Let's be clear about this. Skating folklore is rich with jumps that never happened, real fish stories. According to legend, there have been quad Salchows and fantastic combination leaps. Perhaps people were landing quads in some manner in the 1940s, because that's when the rumors began to circulate. [Sabovcik]'s one of the most exciting jumpers I've ever seen. Boitano did a perfect quad in practice in St. Gervais. I've seen Orser do them. But I was the first to hit one when it counted."

The first quadruple attempt from a woman came in 1990, when exuberant French skater Surya Bonaly went for the gusto and tried both a quad toe-loop and quad Salchow at the European Championships. She ultimately continued to tackle the jump sporadically until 1996 before abandoning it entirely. That same year, Alexei Urmanov became the first Soviet skater to land a quad in competition at the Soviet Championships.

The first attempt of a quad jump in combination came in 1991, when Michael Chack tackled a one-foot Axel/quad Salchow combination at the U.S. Championships, two footing the landing of the second jump. In his 2014 Skate Guard interview, Chack said "as far as my quad, I just loved jumping and trying different things and pushing skating limits." Weeks later, Elvis Stojko landed the first quad combination at the 1991 World Championships - a clean quad toe/double toe. The following year at the Albertville Olympics, Petr Barna landed the first quad jump, a toe-loop, in Olympic competition.

For much of the mid nineties, Elvis Stojko was quad king, ruling the roost when it came to his consistency in landing quad after quad in both national and international competition. At the 1996 Champions Series Final, he again made history by landing the first quad/triple combination in competition. At that event alone, three different skaters (Stojko, Urmanov and Ilia Kulik) all landed quads. The quad race was on. By the 1997 World Championships, Chinese phenom Zhengxin Guo was landing both a quad toe on its own and a quad toe/double toe combination. This gave him the distinction of being both the first skater to land two quads in one program and the first to put a quad and a quad combination successfully in one free skate. Stojko, of course, repeated his quad/triple event at those same World Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In 1998, American skaters starting reclaiming their place in the quad race (see what I did there?) when Michael Weiss made the first quad Lutz attempts at the 1998 U.S. Championships and 1998 Winter Olympics. That same year, Timothy Goebel became the first person to land a quad Salchow, the first to land a quad Salchow in combination and the first American skater to land a quad combination when he pulled off a clean quad Salchow/double toe combination at the Junior Champions Series Final. The feat was so unexpected in the junior ranks that it took the ISU nearly a month to ratify Goebel's effort. Ilia Kulik, in his 1998 Nagano free skate, also became the first Olympic Gold Medallist to include a quad in his winning free skate.

At the ISU's Biennial Congress in June 1998, a rule change was made permitting (male) skaters to attempt quads in their short programs. Canadian Derek Schmidt was the first to go for it - in two summer competitions in Canada - but didn't he land them cleanly. Elvis Stojko went for it at that year's Skate America but he too was unsuccessful. The first clean quad in a short program came from China's Min Zhang, who landed a quad toe in the short program at the 1999 Four Continents Championships. However, the most significant milestone of that season in terms of the quad race was the first program to include three quadruple jumps, an incredible accomplishment Timothy Goebel achieved at Skate America in October 1998. During the 2001/2002 season, Min Zhang again made history as the first skater to land three quadruple jumps in his Olympic free skate and Evgeni Plushenko landed the first quad/triple/triple (toe/toe/loop) at the Cup Of Russia. He would repeat that feat in his winning 2006 Olympic free skate in Torino.

The first woman to land a ratified quad was Miki Ando of Japan at the 2001 Junior Grand Prix Final and first to land three clean quads in competition under the "new" judging system was France's Brian Joubert, who pulled off a quad toe/double toe, quad toe and quad Salchow at the 2006 Cup Of Russia. In 2010, Kevin Reynolds became the first skater to land two different quads in one short program at Skate Canada International.

The race to include even more difficult quadruple jumps has been nothing short of compelling. Jumping aficionados worldwide - particularly in Russia and Asia - leave us constantly questioning both the laws of physics and reason. Here's the reality. Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford are landing throw quad Salchows and Lutzes; skaters are attempting quad Axels in harnesses... and while it leaves our jaws on the floors to watch, the pounding that these skaters bodies are taking is just insanity. That said, the pounding ALL skaters bodies take is insanity. I should know; I don't skate anymore and my back and feet are still a mess... and believe me, I wasn't trying quads sweetie.

The real question as we look back on the history of quads in figure skating isn't the past but the future. In February 2014, "Scientific American" published a fantastic article about the possibility of quintuple jumps. In the piece, University Of Delaware biomechanist James Richards is quoted as saying that "the quad is the physical limit. To do a quint, we would have to have somebody built like a pencil, and they can't get much smaller than they already are." Scientists say a lot of things. I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to discount quints just yet. Figure skating is really 'figure jumping' these days and with the progress that's being made on the technical side every day and new coaching technology, I choose to just sit back, be amazed and sincerely hope nobody gets hurt.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

The Statue Is Done: The Jacqueline du Bief Story

"One does not take up skating; skating just takes up you." - Jacqueline du Bief, March 23, 1954

Back in the fourth installment of "The Other World Champions" series here on the blog, we oh so briefly explored the story of one of the most enigmatic skaters to capture the world's attention during her era. For a long time I have wanted to write at length about Jacqueline du Bief's important contribution to the skating world... but there have been a couple of roadblocks. There's not a wealth a video footage of her publicly available and much of the source material written about her career isn't in the English language. That said, with a translated copy of her 1956 autobiography in hand, a wealth of English sources and what French sources I could roughly translate, I put my nose to the grindstone and was able to come up with this biographical sketch which I hope will shed some new light on just how big a deal this French star really was.

Born December 4, 1930 in Paris, France, Jacqueline du Bief started skating at the age of four with her older sister Raymonde at the Molitor Rink and became immediately hooked. Both sisters actually studied ballet prior to receiving high level instruction in skating, which was a complete juxtaposition to how most skaters of the era would have approached the sport in their youths. When she started taking lessons with Lucien Lemercier, she was a quick learner and by nine years of age, she was already making quite an impression. One of the first mentions of Jacqueline wowing crowds was around this time. The August 21, 1939 issue of the French language newspaper "Le Figaro" cites her as a star of Lè bal des Petits Lits Blancs in Cannes, an opulent summer festival where she demonstrated her skating prowess alongside other performers such as soprano Lily Pons, ballet dancer Serge Lifar and le ballet de l'Opéra-Comique.

Photo courtesy Bill Unwin

After winning the French junior title - her first competition - Jacqueline moved into the senior ranks. In "Thin Ice", she explained that in her first senior competition, "The day began with a heavy air raid and I arrived at the rink with a strange feeling of discomfort and fatigue... When my turn came, I presented myself without enthusiasm and I executed a programme in which the greatest difficulties consisted of one 'Lutz', 3 consecutive loop jumps on the same foot, and a long spin of four turns. There were six of us and I got fourth place, but we had not left the dressing-room before the siren went, announcing another aid raid. We remained for two hours in the underground shelters of the building. There, stretched on a bench, and rolled in a blanket, I became feverish and red spots broke out over my face. When we at length got back home, my mother said to me: 'Tomorrow I will buy you a book and some crayons, and you'll have to stay in bed - you've got measles.'"

When Paris fell to the Nazis on June 14, 1940, the trajectory of Jacqueline's budding career was affected greatly. During the German occupation, power plants were taken over and ice rinks were closed. With no artificial ice to be heard of, Jacqueline returned to where she started, practicing wherever the nearest lake froze over once she recovered from her illness. After the Liberation Of Paris in August 1944, rinks reopened and Jacqueline returned, training at Boulogne Billancourt and the Molitor and Rue Nesnil ice rinks with coach Jacqueline Vaudecrane.

By 1947, Jacqueline had won her first of six consecutive French senior ladies titles. Appearing at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, she made an inauspicious start, finishing sixteenth of twenty five competitors, but by the time she made it to Davos for that year's World Championships, the young skater was already turning heads. Although she gave a disastrous showing in the school figures, her unique free skating style did not go unnoticed by the judges, who included Kenneth Macdonald Beaumont and Melville Rogers.

Photo courtesy Bill Unwin

That contrast between a weakness in school figures and a prodigious talent in free skating was a theme that went on throughout the five foot five skater's career. It didn't help that one of Jacqueline's main rivals was Jeannette Wirz (Altwegg) who was regarded by many as the finest school figure skater of her era and it also didn't help that her stance on the matter of school figures was that "they're so boring." When she appeared at the 1949 World Championships in front of a hometown crowd, she moved up from sixteenth out of seventeen skaters to ninth overall on the basis of her free skating alone; a kind of meteoric rise in the standings and juxtaposition that was rare back in those days. While Jacqueline was rising in prominence in the amateur ranks, her sister Raymonde was finding success as a professional skater. Raymonde's success motivated Jacqueline to see just how far she could push the envelope artistically as a free skater. She was fiercely determined to win on her own terms.

What made Jacqueline just so unique at the time? Susan D. Russell noted in a 2012 article in International Figure Skating magazine, "Throughout her career, du Bief experimented with new and innovative ideas and explored all avenues of artistic skating. Her vibrant personality and power of presentation accentuated her many brilliant and original moves, which at times both dazzled and shocked audiences. du Bief was renowned for her creative choreography. She once devised a program where she portrayed a statue that came to life while another performer pretended to be asleep in a chair on the ice. In another program, she wore a costume with red and white arm bands so that when she spun her arms resembled a barber’s pole." She was also credited by Dick Button with the invention of the illusion spin when she lost balance on entrance to a camel. She wore flame red dresses, insisted on doing her own choreography and by 1950, had decided to play the game and put in the time required to improve her school figures drastically so that she wasn't always having to come from behind. She also took up pairs skating, winning two national titles with partner Tony Font in 1950 and 1951. By 1950, her hard work and innovations were starting to pay off. In Oslo at the European Championships, she won her first international medal (a bronze) behind Ája Vrzáňová and Altwegg. The following year, she was both the European and World Silver Medallist, winning the free skate in both events.

The stage was set for 1952 to be Jacqueline's year and in her first two international outings - the European Championships in Vienna and the Winter Olympics in Oslo - she was unable to overcome her finishes in the school figures and overtake Jeannette Altwegg. The fact that she ultimately moved up to win the bronze medal at the 1952 Olympics was actually quite remarkable in the fact that she was skating at that event with a fever of 101.7. Willed on by her strong desire to finally win an international competition, she returned to Paris to skate in front of a home crowd at the World Championships at the Palais Des Sports. The whole event was rather surreal for the nineteen year old skater. In an Ice Network feature on her coach Vaudecrane, Jacqueline was quoted as saying,, "I was alone on the ice in that stadium. It was me and the audience and my skating under the stars." She landed the first double Lutz from a woman in international competition and earned a perfect mark of 6.0, taking home the World title. But it wasn't all roses. She fell twice (once quite badly) and her hometown crowd turned on her. Frank Orr's February 13, 2002 article from the Toronto Star noted that "the spectators pelted the judge [who gave her the 6.0] with bottles and anything else that wasn't nailed down" when they learned that she had beaten American Sonya Klopfer (Dunfield). In his book "Dick Button On Skates", Uncle Dick considered the politics behind the audience's outburst: "During the marking, the highly demonstrative audience was shouting its approval or disapproval as it saw fit. The German judge raised his card to mark the performance in free skating. Out of a possible perfect score of six, he gave a six. Despite the fact that this skater had fallen down, he had given her a perfect score. Had he given it to her in contents, the judge could have justified himself by approving her music, the layout of the program and so forth. But to give a perfect mark for a 'performance' in which the skater fell down was just incredible; had the judge merely wished to place her first, he could have done so with almost any other mark by judging the others consistently with the standard he placed on her performance. But the crowd was emotional, the judge was a German voting in Paris at a time when political tempers were flaring, and there was no adequate check on his action at that time. Whether or not there was a direct connection between these factors and that mark can be surmised by the reader as well as the writer, but it is interesting note that the resulting criticism, although directed against that particular judge, also reflected the general dissatisfaction with the system of marking that permitted such an incident."

Jacqueline's controversial win resulted in nicknames ranging from 'The Pride Of Paris' to 'The French Panther'. In her autobiography, she conceded that Sonya Dunfield should have won. That's not how any World Champion would want to have to look back on their winning performance, especially one so regarded for their ahead of their time free skating talent. Sadly, the controversy followed her to her final amateur competition - the French Championships - where she was plagued by consistent speculation as to whether or not she'd already turned professional. Although plans were in the works with John Harris, she hadn't signed anything. She took her final gold medal and hit the road with a sour taste in her mouth. In "Thin Ice", she recalled "my world of that time, a world of competition and classic rules, was to me the detestable and necessary world of the concrete and the real, but my world of tomorrow - the show world - I was quite sure was a world of dreams and imagination, a world of the ideal."

The story of how Jacqueline turned professional is one of the coolest I've ever encountered. The April 5, 1952 edition of "Billboard" magazine recounted, "The entire production staff of Ice Capades here, is eagerly awaiting the Tuesday arrival of Jacqueline du Bief, Parisian world figure-skating champ, at Idlewild Airport. Seems that [although] the French darling of ice, whom Ice Capades execs are gambling will be the hottest skate sensation since Sonja Henie, has already agreed to turn pro under their banner, she is holding on to her amateur status until a few moments before her overseas plane touches U.S. soil. The sentimental 19-year old is determined to sign her first pro contract at the exact moment her plane flies over the Statue of Liberty, an earlier French gift to America. Ice Capades contract inking will be legally witnessed at that moment by plane captain and co-pilot." She joined the show the next week in Chicago. On her decision to turn professional, Jacqueline spoke out in the December 17, 1953 issue of the "Chicago Tribune": "What could I do after being world champion but stay and be world champion again? So I decided you cannot be an amateur all your life, you have to work some day. I do not like the school figures necessary in amateur competition. I wished always to do dance and interpretive numbers. The judges used to say 'She is too theatrical, not classical enough.' In the show I can do what I want, what I feel, be more free."

Photo courtesy Bill Unwin

Freer she was. Jacqueline's self-choreography and music choices became even more avant garde. Her eclectic programs ranged from "Johnny Guitar" to a honky-tonk folk ballad bemoaning the fate of Tom Dooley to "When The Saints Go Marching In" to an underwater fantasy. She once remarked that "a fish on ice might sound funny but I represent the movements." After a brief stint with Ice Capades, in 1953 she performed in Paris in the star role of Sonja Henie's troupe while Sonja vacationed in Paris, then co-starred with of Arthur Wirtz' Hollywood Ice Revue in December alongside Barbara Ann Scott. She followed that up with performances in Holiday On Ice and the Scala Eisrevue. The young French diva was in demand.

A bit of a character Jacqueline was. She drove herself from place to place in her Simca sports car with a snow white, deaf cat named Totoche with blue eyes she acquired in Brighton at her side everywhere she went. In the summers, she drove a motorbike to the rink. She modelled with clay, had an eye for fashion and spent her time off the ice in theaters and at the ballet, listening to symphonic music and reading books. She also had a notorious sweet tooth and loved to bake. Peter Firstbrook interviewed her for "Skating" magazine in 1952, sharing this amusing story: "Once, just before the Olympics, she was returning from Halles, the market place, pushing her motorbike, laden down with skates, records and vegetables; after pushing for half an hour she gave up and in desperation parked the wretched thing in a courtyard, and with only her skates and records continued the rest of the way on foot."

In 1954, Jacqueline had a wonderful collection of waltzes especially composed for her by Alain Romans (here's the link from the BNF archives to listen!) and she started performing regularly as a star of Tom Arnold's Ice Pantomime's in Great Britain. Her televised appearance as "Aladdin" (in the starring masculine role) was reportedly the catalyst for another future World Champion - John Curry - to want to take up the sport. After watching a performance and interview with Jacqueline Curry was said to have announced to his mother, "I want to go skating".

Photo courtesy Bill Unwin

As much as she loved travel, Jacqueline frequently spoke of the loneliness of being on the road in interviews. She said, "When in a show you cannot have any life like everybody. If you have a skating boyfriend it is no fun. Always it is the same thing. You cannot speak of anything but skating. And if you meet a boy outside the show, before he can become a boyfriend you are gone."

After penning her autobiography in 1956, Jacqueline starred in the Tom Arnold productions "Babes In The Wood On Ice" and "Aladdin" at Wembley Pool and then toured with "Liverpool Empire", where she did a Royal Command Appearance. In 1958, she made the decision to stop touring and start freelancing. She starred in the first Lido de Paris show, flew from Paris to Ottawa to skate three numbers in the Minto Follies, gave exhibitions at winter carnivals in Switzerland and Germany and did a two month show in Johannesburg, South Africa. She loved skating in warm climes and noted in a March 11, 1958 Ottawa Citizen interview that it "will be lovely to visit a warm country. Skaters seldom get a chance, although I was in Spain, Majorca and Minorca last year."

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

In 1959, Jacqueline accepted a year long engagement in the Ice Cocktail show at the Las Vegas Stardust Hotel and the following year was a regular on the short-lived NBC variety programs "Music On Ice" and "Summer On Ice "alongside Johnny Desmond, Jill Corey, The Skip Jacks, The Dancing Blades and ice comedian Ben Dova. The shows got bad reviews for their poor use of colourization and awful music and Jacqueline's skating was generally regarded as the glue that held the productions together. That same year, the "Ottawa Citizen" noted in its March 19 edition that her accent "landed her in difficulties the other day in Rochester. Trying to buy a train ticket to Ithica a cantankerous agent mistook 'Eezica' for utica and to pacify him she said 'OK, however you say it - give me one ticket.' She wound up in Utica, 70 miles away and had to take a taxi to catch the beginning of her show."

In 1961, Jacqueline returned to Great Britain to take on the role of The Wicked Queen to Sue Park's Snow White in "Snow White On Ice" at the Empire Theatre in Glasgow. "The Glasgow Herald", on March 29, 1961, wrote that she "has a grace and charm that belie her sinister role." The following year, she again bucked convention when she took on the male role of Peter Pan in "Peter Pan On Ice" at Wembley Pool. In 1964, she headlined in a six-month tour with "Snow White On Ice" in South Africa. On her time as a professional skater, she once remarked, "When I work well, and the audience is good, I forget I am tired and everything else. I like to leap. I feel I fly through the air and I like that. My best pleasure is to jump so big and so fast as I can when I practice. Sometimes I fall very hard, but I like that." It was shortly after her stint with Tom Arnold in South Africa that Jacqueline retired from professional skating, returning to live in France.

Never afraid to speak her mind, Jacqueline had some very real opinions about what was and wasn't working with competitive skating... and decades later, her opinions on the future development of competitive skating turned out to be quite prophetic.

When touring with Ice Capades right after turning professional, Jacqueline told reporters that Olympic figure skating competitions were corrupt and the current judging system should be abolished. In addition, in "Winter Sports" in 1966, Howard Bass noted that "Jacqueline du Bief has suggested that school figures, the way they are being emphasized today, can actually hurt a skater's free skating performance and that some of the tedious hours devoted to figures could be spent more advantageously in free skating." Her opinion on school figures may not have been surprising, but her opinion on the role of dance to developing strong free skating very much was. The very skater who took ballet before she took formal skating lessons did not, according to Bass, advocate practical ballet training for skaters either but was supportive of the idea of skaters watching ballets be performed. By the 1992 Olympics, forty years after Jacqueline's Olympic medal win school figures were no longer part of Olympic competition and as for that judging system she felt she should be abolished? We all know what happened ten years later in Salt Lake City.

Left: An airborne Jacqueline. Right: Dick Button and Jacqueline.

In 1959 in "Ice-Skating: A History", Nigel Brown recalled, "Jacqueline du Bief was an inspired artist seeking an outlet in skating. She performed feats of skill not only with her limbs. Her intensive spirit dominated. She showed by her brilliance and natural talent as an artist the wide possibilities of artistic skating, but more than anything she brought a much needed refreshing air to the framework of women's skating. She appeared at the right time." I couldn't agree more with Brown.

Left to right: Raymonde du Bief, Bill Unwin and Jacqueline du Bief backstage at the opening of Holiday On Ice at Wembley in 2006. Photo courtesy Bill Unwin.

I want to close with perhaps my favourite quote from Jacqueline, which sums up her thoughts on the creative process: "When it is in your brain you feel it is the best you ever did. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad, but the best moment is when you have it in your brain. I try to do what a sculptor does with a statue - correct it all the time. At the end it is done, like the statue is done." I hope I've been able to, in patching together the pieces of her story like a quilt, do justice to that statue's story.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

#Unearthed: The Mollie Phillips Edition

When you dig through skating history, you never know what you will unearth. In the spirit of cataloguing fascinating tales from skating history, #Unearthed is a once a month 'special occasion' on Skate Guard where fascinating writings by others that are of interest to skating history buffs are excavated, dusted off and shared for your reading pleasure. From forgotten fiction to long lost interviews to tales that have never been shared publicly, each #Unearthed is a fascinating journey through time. This month's #Unearthed is a wonderful article written some years ago by BIS  historian Elaine Hooper about judging pioneer Mollie Phillips.

"MOLLIE PHILLIPS" (ELAINE HOOPER)

The name Mollie Phillips does not immediately spring to the mind of most of today's skaters when considering those who have forged the way forward in our sport. However, to quote the "Skating World" of October 1957: "Mollie Phillips is one of the best known and popular personalities in the sphere of national and international competitive skating". Who, then, was Mollie Phillips and what made her so high profile in the 1950's and how is she relevant today?

Mollie was born in London on 27th July 1907 and was brought up between the family homes in London and Wales. She went on to study law at Lincoln's Inn and qualified as a barrister but although she did not practice, she always retained a flat in Lincoln's Inn. This affords us an insight of the tenacity of this special lady, that brought her into conflict with many in the early days. When her competitive skating career ended she achieved so much more.

It appears that Mollie liked to be innovative and was not afraid to take on the established protocols of British skating hierarchy. Women in all aspects of skating administration are commonplace today but when Mollie tried to make her way it was definitely a man's world.

A gutsy personality helped her in her task and she certainly needed it. Her friends describe her as dedicated, passionate and fervent. All these qualities helped her to a number of notable "firsts".

A significant event during the 1930's started the ball rolling. As a skater Mollie had risen through the ranks in the 1920’s and by the 1930's she was unmistakably noticed for attention to music and interpretation. But then she found a pairs partner in Rodney Murdoch, she trained with him at the Westminster Ice Club, Millbank, which, until the late 1930's was a private skating club rather than a public ice rink. Although mainly concentrating on pairs she had passed the NSA gold medal test and also reached silver in Ice Dance (There was no gold dance test in the early 1930's) and in 1932 she made her World Championship debut finishing 9th in the ladies event. Mollie and Rodney Murdoch quickly found success, placing 2nd in the 1932 British Championship and then taking the title the following year. Mollie and Rodney followed this up with the Bronze medal in the 1933 European Championships, where Mollie also came 7th in the Ladies event, won by the great Norwegian Sonja Henie. In singles she was runner up to Cecilia Colledge in the 1936 British Championship.

Mollie Phillips carrying The Union Jack at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid

This success resulted in selection for 2 successive Olympics Winter Games and with it that significant event, Mollie was selected to be the flag bearer, ensuring her a place in British Olympic history as the first lady to carry the British flag at an Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Former British and
international judge, Joan Noble, recalls that she was immensely proud of this and mentioned it often.
By the late 1930's Mollie had retired from competitive skating and moved on to judging. This tenacious lady then really embarked on her mission to break into the man's world of British ice skating administration!

It would be fair to say that, at the time, most British judges were mature of age and the majority were male. Mollie, as she expected, proved capable and, at the time, was the youngest judge to be appointed by the NSA. Having this success under her belt she focused on the administrators and was determined that younger members should have some input into how the sport was run.

Having gathered some support, in 1938, she enraged the gentlemen of the National Skating Association by standing for election to the all male NSA Council! There followed a great debate as to the eligibility of ladies to be Council Members. It had not been envisaged that ladies would stand for election and so it was not deemed necessary include a rule regarding the gender of candidates. Her name was duly accepted but she did not achieve the required number of votes needed and was not elected. Undeterred, Mollie, supported by the younger generation, was proposed again and at the NSA AGM of July 1939, held at the Victoria Hotel in London, she was elected and it made headlines, for no woman had held a seat on the Council or served on one of the committees during the 60 years of the Association's existence.

The press of the time suggested that this was a revolt by the younger members who felt "the Council consists of old fogies who have been in power since the year dot and are not conversant with modern skating conditions."

If it was a revolt then Mollie was their champion. As she was qualified in singles, pairs and dance Mollie soon became a busy judge. Her quality was such that she could not be ignored by “the old fogies” on the council who had been forced to recognise the need for change. So much so that her name was put forward to the ISU, resulting in the distinction of being the first British lady to be appointed to the ISU international judging panel. From there she achieved some more very notable and important firsts.

Fittingly after having carried the British flag at an opening ceremony she was also the first British lady to judge at an Olympic Winter games and also the first British lady to act as assistant referee and subsequently referee at an international competition. However her most significant breakthrough came in 1953 when she was the first ever female to referee a World Championship event when she was appointed referee for the Ice Dance Championship.

In fact it was not just in the 1950's that Mollie remained high profile. It extended through to the 1960's and 1970's to the 1980's. Her judging career spanned all these decades. Her friend, Gordon Chamberlain remembered, that latterly, she gained a reputation for being a bit absent minded but was very popular with her fellow judges. They considered it part of her charm and remembered that Mollie had contributed so much to emancipate women in becoming acceptable as administrators and adjudicators in British skating. The Welsh ice Skating Association remembered this, in 1984, when they made her their first president.

You may think that with such a busy skating schedule that Mollie would have little time for anything else but nothing could be further from the truth. Her life was very fulfilling. Among other activities she was dedicated the Girl Guide movement and ultimately became a County Commissioner for the Girl Guides. She was also on the London Committee for the YMCA and dedicated much time to her responsibilities as a magistrate. In the late 1940's Mollie took over the large family dairy farm, near Lampeter, and later was known as a notable cattle breeder. Friends recall her driving around the farm in the snow, in her old Ford Zephyr, with bales of hay in the boot, dropping them at intervals for the cattle. More accolades were to come. In 1961 she was the first female High Sheriff of Carmarthenshire. Mollie even found time to be a member of her local police authority.

It would be hard to imagine our sport today without female judges, NISA board or sub group members but there had to be a pioneer to pave the way for them and that pioneer was Mollie Phillips.

n.b. Mollie Phillips died on 15th December 1994. ISU records do not support Wikipedia on the year of Mollie's World Championship Refereeing debut; however she was a judge at the event in the year they suggest.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.