The 1958 European Figure Skating Championships

From January 30 to February 2, 1958, Zimný štadión in Bratislava played host to the first post-World War II European Figure Skating Championships to be held entirely on indoor ice. A whopping seventy entries from eleven countries participated. The event, organized by the Czech State Committee For Physical Training And Sport, marked the first time the Europeans were held in Czechoslovakia since 1948, ten years prior. Vladislav Cáp, a Czechoslovakian engineer who competed at the 1948 European Championships, designed the event's emblem - the letter 'E' with a skate blade.

Alain Giletti, Karol Divín and Alain Calmat in Bratislava. Photo courtesy Archív TASR.

The event marked the first time in history that the European Championships were televised in eleven countries - three of them in Eastern Europe - via Eurovision. Over the course of four days, a total of approximately ninety minutes of coverage was aired, though the BBC pre-empted coverage of the medal winning free dances in favour of football and pheasant shooting

Considering the anti-German sentiment and post-War expulsions of Germans in Czechoslovakia following World War II, the West German contingent of skaters was treated exceptionally well. Heinz Magerlein recalled, "The reception [in Bratislava] was very touching when, after a long journey, the German team got out of the passenger train shortly before midnight and delegations from sports clubs and companies had arrived. Poems and welcome speeches were recited in hard German, and from the Gesidern the joy shone, that we had come. In the shop windows of the prisoners we saw everywhere indications of the ice sports event, sculptures made of dough, fabric decorations, etc. However, the very spacious sports hall had a drawback: from an open piece of the roof soot fell on the ice and had left a fine layer that looked like emery and damaged the expensive ice skates badly."

Let's take a look back at how things played out on the ice in Bratislava!

THE MEN'S COMPETITION

Men's medallists in Bratislava. Photo courtesy Archív Múzea telesnej kultúry SR

Nineteen men from ten countries competed in the men's event. Karol Divín defeated Alain Giletti in a four-three split of the judging panel in the school figures. British Champion Michael Robert Booker placed a strong third.

Michael Booker

Alain Calmat, who had been fifth in figures, won the free skate over Alain Giletti with eight first place ordinals and an impressive double Axel. Divín received the ninth first place ordinal from the West German judge W. Stanek. That same judge was the only one to place Calmat fourth in free skating. Divín narrowly defeated Giletti overall, with Calmat moving up to take the bronze over Booker. It was the first time in history a Czechoslovakian man won a European title, and Divín
fittingly managed to do it in his home country... defeating the defending champion in the process.

Norbert Felsinger of Austria placed fifth and a trio of West Germans finished sixth through eighth. Tilo Gutzeit, the top skater of the bunch, received second place ordinals in the free skate from the Czechoslovakian and Soviet judges.

Tilo Gutzeit

Manfred Schnelldorfer, who placed seventh, suffered a wardrobe malfunction. Heinz Magerlein recalled, "In the freestyle, Manfred picked again, as so often, the starting number one. I had fastened Manfred's silver-shimmering tie with a small safety pin on the high waistband of the coat trousers. His spinning spurred the spectators on to hurricane applause. The tie had come loose from the attachment and struck him in front of his eyes, his nose, his mouth... In between it wrapped itself once or twice and around his neck and it did not wiggle. What was worse: looking for me or skating for Manfred? He did not fall, but he fought a desperate fight with the tie, which shook his sight and direction. One could see that he was close to bursting.... I blamed myself and decided to check everything out ten times since and have kept that tie to this day."

THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION

Hanna Walter and Ingrid Wendl. Photos courtesy Bildarchiv Austria.

Defending champion Hanna Eigel had turned professional, leaving the European women's title up for grabs. Eight judges had her compatriot Ingrid Wendl first in figures, while the Italian judge tied her with Hanna Walter, who finished second. Joan Haanappel was a unanimous third. France's Dany Rigoulot earned ordinals ranging from fourth to seventeenth in figures... highlighting the nightmarish judging that was to come in the free skate.

Left: Dany Rigoulot. Right: Joan Haanappel. Photo courtesy Dutch National Archives.

Ingrid Wendl decisively won the free skate with seven first place ordinals but that was about the only thing the judging panel could seem to agree on. Six judges had Hanna Walter in the top three; the Swiss judge had her eleventh. Jidrinka Kramperova had ordinals ranging from second to fifteenth. Five judges had Karin Frohner in the top three; the Czechoslovakian judge had her eleventh. The West German judge had Regine Heitzer in a tie for first, while the Polish judge had her a tie for eighth. Strangely enough, when the overall marks were tallied all but one judge had Wendl first, all but one judge had Walter second and every judge had Haanappel third. Yet Jana Docekalova of Czechoslovakia, who earned two first place ordinals in the free skate, finished eleventh overall.

THE PAIRS COMPETITION

Věra Suchánková and Zdeněk Doležal

More than fifteen thousand spectators showed up for the pairs event... and the bizarre judging continued! Though Věra Suchánková and Zdeněk Doležal defended their title unanimously, no less than eight teams received top three ordinals. Nina and Stanislav Zhuk, Joyce Coates and Anthony Holles and Marianna and László Nagy, who placed second through fourth, were three of those teams. The Zhuk's and Coates and Holles' medal wins were both considered surprises as they had only finished fifth and sixth the year prior at Europeans.

Joyce Coates and Anthony Holles

Another team earning a top three ordinal was Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler, who one judge tied for second and another placed thirteenth. Heinz Magerlein recalled, "They had left the hotel in good time with car, but a railway barrier had considerably delayed the journey. Since they had pulled start number 1 - which also had their share in fifth place! - of course, they were resented in the rink, which was filled to capacity... Lacking concentration and still under the impact of the annoying [delay] they milled about the ice, and their performance fell short of their potential."

Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov, who received no first place ordinals, were tenth with scores ranging from fourth to thirteenth. It was the young Soviet couple's first appearance at the European Championships. Perhaps most dramatic were the scores of the Austrian team who finished eleventh. The British judge had them second, while the Polish judge had them fifteenth and dead last.

THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION

One has to doubt whether any of the ice dancers complained when only five judges sat rink side to judge them instead of nine. In contrast to the women's and pairs events, the judging in dance was somewhat less controversial... at least near the top. To no one's surprise, defending champions June Markham of Durham and Courtney Jones of Bournemouth were the unanimous winners of both the compulsories and free dance. In his book "This Skating Age" Howard Bass recalled, "The cost of travel and accommodation for two people from London to [Bratislava and Paris - the site of the 1958 World Championships] can be reckoned at well over one hundred pounds. The sum actually allowed them by the N.S.A. was twenty pounds each. So patriotic Britons must thank the fact that Courtney and June happened to be able to raise sufficient money themselves to pay for the privilege of winning these titles for their country! As their compatriot, I feel like hiding my head in national shame. How humbling, how utterly humiliating!"

Though France's Christiane and Jean Paul Guhel managed to defeat Barbara Thompson and Gerard Rigby in the free dance, they weren't able to move up to take the bronze. Catherine Morris and Michael Robinson and Thompson and Rigby joined Markham and Jones on the podium in the fifth consecutive British sweep of the ice dance podium at the European Championships. Interestingly, the
teams who placed fifth through seventh each received ordinals ranging from fifth through tenth.
Svetlana Smirnova and Leonid Gordon made history as the first Soviet dance team to compete at the
European Championships. They placed dead last.

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 Pride Of Stuttgart: The Heiko Fischer Story

Born February 25, 1960 in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany, Heiko Fischer was what we in the skating world like to call a 'late bloomer'. Although he started skating at a young age with the support of his mother Helga, Heiko was a studious young man. He passed his Abitur (a designation used for the final exam taken at the end of a German student's secondary education) at the Leibniz-Gymnasium at seventeen and showed great interest in both physics and computer science. However, like many skaters these days around the world, finding the balance between school and skating proved a challenge. Training at both the Waldau rink in Stuttgart and National Training Centre in Oberstdorf under the tutelage of (later disgraced) coach Karel Fajfr, he earned the distinction of sports master of Baden-Württemberg. He divided his time between studying physics - and later, computer science - and made time for skating.

Heiko's interests in physics and computer science reflected in the calculated way he approached skating. In a February 5, 2010 "Stuttgarter Zeitung" article, his mother Helga recalled that his coach "has always said he has a computer brain." Heiko used this 'computer brain' of his to win bronze medals at the West German Championships from 1979 to 1981. He made his first big splashes on the international scene in the fall of 1981 when he managed victories at both the Grand Prix St. Gervais and Nebelhorn Trophy competitions in France and West Germany, a pair of competitions held in conjunction with each other that often featured the same skaters travelling between St. Gervais, France and Oberstdorf, Germany by train to compete in both events back to back. That same season he won his first West German title, beating former champions Rudi Cerne and Norbert Schramm and making it loud and clear that West German men's skating was a three way race. He followed his win up with a sixth place finish at the European Championships in Lyon, France.

Though consistently dinged by the judges in his artistic impression marks, Heiko did have two very important things going for him: a stable of consistent triple jumps and excellent school figures. Looking at his competitive record, his many wins or top three finishes in international competitions in the figures make for a strong argument that he was moreso a figures specialist than someone who excelled in free skating. He was a tall, slim athlete, who at six foot three and one hundred and sixty five pounds called himself "the tallest international skater in the world". However, his left leg was three quarters of an inch shorter than his right leg and he had to wear lifts in the heels of his skates and shoes to avoid back injury. The October 11, 1982 issue of "The Globe And Mail" explained, "A small girl ran into him and knocked him down, causing him to land on his back. Three weeks later, he fell on his back in practice." In fact, Heiko suffered injuries during much of his career. However, the German magazine "Der Spiegel", dismissive of his history, blamed his "lack of confidence and a lack of assertiveness" for many of his competitive losses.

The 1982/1983 season was understandably a challenging year for Heiko but he persevered with determination. At Skate America, he won the silver medal behind Scott Hamilton despite only making it through his full free skate for the first time a week before the event. At Skate Canada in Kitchener, a second place finish in figures allowed him to hang on through the short program and free skate to claim the bronze behind Brian Boitano and Brian Orser. After successfully defending his West German title, he moved up two spots to fourth at the European Championships and nabbed a top ten finish in his first trip to the World Championships.

Although Heiko started the 1983/1984 season strongly with wins at the Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany and St. Ivel in England, where on  the basis of his strong figures, he narrowly defeated Gary Beacom, Bobby Beauchamp and East Germany's Falko Kirsten, Heiko lost his West German title in 1984 to Norbert Schramm and dropped from fourth to fifth at the European Championships in Budapest. Although he finished sixth in the figures at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, he dropped to tenth overall in a very deep field. It was at the Sarajevo Olympics that Heiko suffered perhaps one of the embarrassing moments in skating history. In his book "Jumpin' Joe", Jozef Sabovčík recalled, "Dressed in a baby blue unitard, Heiko towered over the other skaters. But what drew our attention was that a seemingly unaware Heiko was sporting an erection that befitted his huge body. I looked up to the one area of the audience that had a clear view and could see them laughing, as were all the other skaters. Frankly, the sight would have been difficult to miss." His embarrassing moment behind him at the World Championships in Ottawa, Heiko was actually third in figures behind Scott Hamilton and teammate Rudi Cerne and ahead of Jozef Sabovčík, Alexandr Fadeev, Brian Boitano and Brian Orser but again dropped in the standings down to seventh. Notice a trend here?

With Norbert Schramm and Rudi Cerne retiring following the 1984 World Championships, the following season had every potential to Heiko's best yet and he didn't disappoint. Reclaiming his West German title, he moved back up to fourth at the European Championships and earned the best finish of his career at the World Championships in Tokyo, finishing sixth - ironically solely on the basis of his free skating as opposed to his figures.

The following season started strongly for Heiko with a win at the Golden Spin Of Zagreb and another West German title, however his chronic back injury forced him to withdraw from the European Championships. Although he did manage a seventh place finish at the World Championships in Geneva (this time once again based on a top three finish in the figures) the severity of his chronic back injuries caused him to seriously contemplate retirement. After finishing a disappointing fifth at Skate America that autumn, he missed the rest of the 1986/1987 season with a hernia and a pulled groin muscle on top of his pre-existing back problems.

The thought of Heiko mounting a comeback in time for the 1987/1988 Olympic season seemed unlikely at best but he pulled a rabbit out of his hat, which is no surprise considering he had a reputation off the ice as a prankster. His comeback was no joke; he even took lessons from his former competitor Jozef Sabovčík,

After finishing second behind Petr Barna at Czech Skate, Heiko tied with Paul Wylie for first after figures and short program at St. Ivel in England, but dropped to third behind Wylie and Kurt Browning in the final standings. He returned to win his fifth and final West German title before heading to the European Championships in Prague and placing sixth. Determined to make a go of a second 'once in a lifetime' trip to the Olympics in Calgary, Heiko scrapped both of the programs he skated at the European Championships. He started fresh with new music and choreography for his short program and brought back and reworked his 1985 and 1986 "West Side Story" free skate. 

In Calgary, Alexandr Fadeev and Brian Boitano were first and second in all three figures but Heiko managed to place third on the first figure ahead of Brian Orser. A rusty performance on his final figure, the loop, left him in fourth overall. Quoted the February 19, 1988 issue of "The Globe And Mail", he said, "I don't know what happened. My first two figures were really good, but the last was a real mess. I just couldn't do it. It was perfect in warmup. Usually the loop is my best figure." He was proud of his finish though, remarking that "the judges know the old man can still do figures." The oldest of the men's competitors in Calgary at twenty eight, he predicted in the "Toronto Star" that Orser - not Boitano - would win the gold: "He's the strongest free skater and if he's consistent enough, he'll win. Boitano is excellent too, very consistent because he never misses anything. But if Orser is at his best, he'll win." Heiko wasn't correct in his prediction, but he gave two of the best performances of his career in Calgary despite dropping to ninth overall. 

Heiko's final competition, the 1988 World Championships in Budapest, saw him drop from fourth to Orser's fifth in figures down to seventh overall. However, he pulled up his socks and managed to give some of the best performances of his career when the chips were down.

Retiring from amateur competition following the 1988 World Championships, Heiko married and continued his studies in computer science while coaching young skaters on the side. On November 21, 1989, he collapsed during a game of squash with friends. He was taken to Sindelfingen Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. It was revealed that he suffered from chronic myocarditis.

Heiko's death came a huge shock to everyone close to him, as he was a very active person who spent what little free time he had off the ice playing tennis and squash. Family, friends and fellow skaters were devastated; he was a friend to even his closest rivals. His mother Helga stated, "He enjoyed his life whenever [there was time.] Heiko was a very happy person." So beloved was Heiko as a sportsperson in Stuttgart that when police had blocked off the Neuen Friedhof Degerloch cemetery after his death, people sat on the road and cried.

Horst Klehr, a pharmacist who was responsible for creating one of the first lists of banned substances specific to sport, referenced Heiko in a 2009 speech about athletes involved in doping. He said, "Many fatalities could still be alive today if the officials in the West had not closed their eyes."

When Heiko died, his wife was seven months pregnant. Because he had gone the education route when he had no substantial offers to skate professionally, he left his wife almost penniless. She was forced to survive on an insurance payout and financial support from Sports Aid and the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. In 1990, a charity gala was organized to raise funds for Heiko's widow. Among the performers was two time Olympic Gold Medallist Katarina Witt. The following year, an international competition was established in his memory called the Heiko-Fischer Pokal. Among its past winners? Carolina Kostner, Stefan Lindemann, Alban Preaubert, Valentina Marchei, Peter Liebers, Eva-Maria Fitze, Sarah Hecken and the late Sven Meyer. 

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: Skating Gossip

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 'buried treasure' is an essay by T. Maxwell Witham called "Skating Gossip" which originally appeared in the August to December 1895 issue of "The Badminton Magazine Of Sports And Pastimes". From the viewpoint of a practitioner of the English Style, Witham describes the evolution of skating in Europe and the rise in popularity of hand-in-hand - or pairs - skating.

"SKATING GOSSIP" (T. MAXWELL WITHAM)

All methods of self-propulsion are fascinating, but when, in addition, progression is only possible by means of a correct balance, as in skating and bicycling, the fascination is doubled.

Figure-skating, as distinguished from skating as a means of progression, is comparatively modern, and, curiously enough, emanates from Great Britain and from English-speaking people. Before the year 1830 figure-skating was in its infancy, and such movements as were known were handed down from generation to generation by tradition, as the few books on the subject that did exist described only the most elementary movements, and frequently the directions given for acquiring these were entirely misleading.

From the year 1869 till now skaters have been gradually taught by good text-books, the leading men in the art have studied the various movements that go to make up figure skating, and have now practically demonstrated all the fundamental strokes that are possible to the figure-skater. We are not
from this to understand that nothing new in figure-skating is possible. Far from it.

Although every possible stroke is now known, the multitude of combinations by joining one stroke with another is perfectly endless; but whether the rising generation will derive as much pleasure in devising these combinations as the pioneers of the art did in working out the simple initial strokes
is doubtful. In the dawn of figure-skating, undoubtedly the inside edge was the first which demonstrated the possibility of leaning over on an edge and so describing a curve, seeing that this inside edge was the easiest to execute by reason of the unemployed leg being always ready and available to act as a prop to the nervous or falling performer. This inside edge no doubt suggested the outside, and when this was demonstrated as possible, it was practised to the entire exclusion of the inside, because in the early days the position of the skater's body when executing the inside edge made it an ungainly and ungraceful movement.

In practising the outside edge, our ancestors, no doubt, in 'holding on' to the edge as long as possible occasionally found that at the end of the curve they made an involuntary half-turn, placing them
on the inside back, and this involuntary turn being by practice reduced to a certain turn gives us the common figure 3. It has, no doubt, struck many people, as it has struck me, as curious and almost incredible, that, given the dandy-horse, which demonstrated the possibility of riding on a machine having two wheels in the same plane, it was some forty years after the advent of the dandy horse before it occurred to some one to put cranks on the front wheel and so continue the motion, thus virtually creating the modern bicycle. And it is hardly more curious that, with the forward 3 commencing with an outside edge and turning to an inside edge backwards to guide them, it was years before the other turns were discovered.

Skaters continued to practise only the figures that had been handed down to them by tradition, gradually and slowly increasing the number of possible figures - such, for example, as a second and third turn in the 3. Who it was who had the boldness first to try the dangerous second turn is unknown, but the 3 having three turns and known as the ' double 3 ' was undoubtedly skated by the members of the Skating Club as early as 1830, but as a single turn, from inside back to inside forward, a means of propulsion ; and when this was recognised, any number of movements on one leg could be joined together and skated without any assistance from the other leg other than swing. It
is only within the last few years that the skating fraternity has from time to time been startled by the publication of descriptions and diagrams of new figures, some of them, perhaps, being put forward as theoretically possible, but practically impossible; yet now one sees boys of fourteen executing these supposed impossible figures with the greatest facility. How is this?

First, the modern figure-skater has a better constructed skate than his ancestors possessed; and, secondly, skating being an imitative art, he has only to copy what he sees others doing, or follow the careful instruction given in the text-books, and he is thus enabled to acquire facility in executing difficult movements much more rapidly than did the pioneers of the art; but he does not attain what was to the early figure-skaters the supreme pleasure of thinking out and demonstrating as possible some movement which at that period was a new departure.

The facility of communication all over the world has affected figure-skating as it has other arts, and itinerant professional skaters, mostly American, established themselves in Germany, Austria, Sweden, and Norway, and schools of skating were established, where the practice of the art is carried out by the natives in accordance with the early teaching of their professors, coupled with the desire for display peculiar to foreigners. The Englishman tries to, and does in fact skate the most difficult movements, and at the same time his whole desire is to conceal the difficulty.

The foreigners, on the other hand, exaggerate the motion or balance which emphasises the difficulty, and go for speed and dash, which they attain mostly at the cost of elegance. There is another school, that of St. Moritz, which is essentially British, and which has carried out the early teaching of the Skating Club of upright carriage and straightened knee to its logical conclusion, and it is quite wonderful to see the skill of the habitues of the St. Moritz rink in executing the most difficult
movements with the arms quiescent and the knee and body perfectly rigid. They carry this rigidity to an extent that some good judges consider exaggerated, but their style has one good quality, and one that will be more and more of use as an object lesson if our skating is to be done in the future principally in covered rinks, as it proves that by practice the most difficult movements may be skated with certainty and at a great pace without the stooping body, bent knee, and swinging arms which are the essential characteristics of difficult figures when skated in the acrobatic fashion common to foreigners.

What will the figure-skating of the future improve or degenerate into? The improvement of the last few years has been most marked on the part of the men, and the ladies are running them very close. The causes of this decided improvement are the start given to figure-skating by the introduction of roller skates in 1875, the greater interest that is now taken in anything athletic, the long frosts which we have enjoyed during the last few years, and the continuous practice which many of our best skaters obtain every year in the Engadine. But now that we have Niagara, and are to have similar places at Knightsbridge and Argyll Place, although there will be the opportunity of continuous
practice, the space available is contracted and crowded, and the chances are that, from an English point of view, the skating will deteriorate. Individual acrobatic performances on skates will doubtless develop enormously, but the accuracy and correct pose which have hitherto distinguished English skating, as seen to perfection in the ' Club figures,' will be lost.

There is one form of skating which has made some little progress of late years, which the real-ice rinks may bring to great perfection, and that is hand-in-hand skating. It is fascinating of itself, and is practically possible in a crowded rink. For the 'side-by-side' figures there are two ways of holding hands - first, the old method, where the gentleman, being on the left of the lady, takes her right hand in his right hand, and her left in his left, the joined right hands being underneath the left hands ; secondly, the method known as the Austrian. In this the lady puts her hands behind her with
the palms upwards, and the gentleman takes them in his hands, which are turned palms downwards. He stands behind the lady to her left, the left hands are joined and brought forward, and the lady's right hand is passed behind and across her back, and is so held in the gentleman's right. When the gentleman is to the right of the lady the position is, of course, reversed. At first this position feels cramped, and it is especially the lady who is most affected. This is caused by the strangeness of skating with her hands held behind her back, but if the gentleman will be careful to always be at her side, either to the right or left, instead of behind her, this feeling will soon wear off, and when the lady is able, without effort, to swing her arms behind her from one side to the other, according to the position of her partner, it will be found that much freer skating can be done in the Austrian than
in the old-fashioned side-by-side method.

One thing must be remembered in hand-in-hand skating: if either of the partners should feel that a fall is inevitable, the hands must be disengaged instantly; and to do this, and to ensure ease and grace, the hands should be held but lightly, and by the ends of the fingers. In the confined space of a real-ice rink Club figures are not possible, as they occupy far too much room; but this hand-in-hand skating
can be indulged in to any extent, and as every movement that can be executed by an individual skating alone can be equally well skated by two persons holding hands in the Austrian method, it is probable that for the next few years any great improvement in figure-skating will be in this direction.

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 1935 U.S. Figure Skating Championships

Maribel Vinson. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection. Used with permission.

In the second week of February, 1935, approximately seventy skaters from all over America flocked to the New Haven Arena ice pond in New Haven, Connecticut (the site of the very first U.S. Championships back in 1914) to show off their change loops and camel spins in hopes of being crowned U.S. Champions. 

One fascinating aspect of the 1935 U.S. Championships is that among the senior ranks, not a single winner or winning team from the previous year's Nationals retained their spot on the top of the podium. Two other interesting notes with regard to the 1935 event was its inclusion of 'carnival scenes' from members of the New Haven Skating Club between rounds of competition and the United States Figure Skating Association's decision to offer a generous portion of the proceeds from advance ticket sales to the Connecticut Society For Mental Hygiene.

THE NOVICE AND JUNIOR EVENTS

Members of the Skating Club of New York competing in New Haven in 1935. From left to right: Audrey Peppe, Marjorie Parker, Katherine Durbrow, Ardelle Kloss, Nettie Prantel and Marguerite Sherman. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

As for the nitty gritty, let's start by looking at some of the novice and junior events. The novice men's champion was M. Bernard Fox of Boston and the junior men's champion was Erle Reiter of Minneapolis. The junior pair's winners were Jean Schulte and Ollie Haupt Jr. of St. Louis. For a look at the novice and junior women's events, we'll turn to the February 11, 1935 issue of "The Day", which tells us that "probably the closest margin of points separating two contests for the single honor of champion of the womens novices came with the awarding of the crown in this class to Miss Mary E. Weigel of Buffalo, over Mrs. Mabel Thorne of the Los Angeles Skating Club. Mrs. Anson Beard of New York, was third... During the afternoon, petite 15-year old Polly Blodgett, of the Skating Club Of Boston, won the women's junior figure skating championship." One thing you may have noticed in this particular quote are the titles of 'Miss' and 'Mrs.' used in the novice category. Back in the thirties, what division you competed in had absolutely to do with your age and everything to do with what tests you had passed. It was absolutely plausible - and common - for pre-teens to be competing against people old enough to be their parents in novice, junior and senior competitions in North America at the time.

THE SENIOR EVENTS

Members of the Skating Club of New York competing in New Haven in 1935. From left to right: George Boltres, Roy Hunt, Robin Lee, Wilfred MacDonald, Howard Meredith and Joseph K. Savage. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

Sherwin Badger was disappointed as the Original Dance, an event that was basically an early forerunner of the OSP, which he worked so hard to promote was cancelled in 1935 after only one ice dance team entered. The only ice dancing event contested in New Haven in 1935 was the Waltz, which was won by Nettie Prantel and Roy Hunt. In second were Ilse Twaroschk and Frederick Fleishmann, third Maribel Vinson and Joseph Savage and in fourth were Eva Schwerdt and William Bruns.

Maribel Vinson and Geddy Hill

Siblings Jimmie and Grace Madden, the defending senior pairs champions, were not able to fend off Maribel Vinson and her partner Geddy Hill, who had defeated them previously in 1933 at the U.S. Championships. Third were Eva Schwerdt and William Bruns. Performing a special exhibition as guests were Canadian Champions in pairs, Louise Bertram and Stewart Reburn.

In the senior men's competition, a fifteen year old Eramus Hall High School student from New York City, Robin Lee, pulled off the upset of the decade in defeating seven time and defending thirty five year old U.S. Champion and Boston lawyer Roger Turner in front of an audience of four thousand. The February 11, 1935 edition of The New York Post recalled, "performing almost faultlessly in the free skating as he had done through the school figures, the young western protege outskated one of the largest fields ever to compete for the title."

Robin Lee. Photo courtesy the Minnesota Historical Society. Used with permission.

Robin Lee, a modest, young blond skater who also excelled at swimming and golfing was actually in his third year in the senior ranks and in finishing third and second the previous two years at Nationals had certainly made his presence known but defeating Turner was a very big deal at that time considering his resume and reputation. In third with a tumble in the free skate was James Lester Madden, the silver medallist in the senior pairs event, of the Boston Skating Club. The fifth place finisher that year, 1933 U.S. Junior Men's Champion Bill Swallender, later became an esteemed coach and was among those who perished in the 1961 Sabena Crash.

Maribel Vinson had skipped the 1934 U.S. Championships and taken up a job with "The New York Times" as its first female sportswriter, allowing Suzanne Davis of Massachusetts the opportunity to win her first and only U.S. senior ladies title. In 1935, Maribel returned with a vengeance, winning her seventh U.S. ladies title with a program that featured a half-Lutz jump and inside spread eagle into an Axel.

"The Day" noted that "this year's loser [Suzanne Davis] went into second place followed by the Weigel sisters of Buffalo, Louise in third place and Estelle in fourth" which would mean that with the exception of Maribel on top, the positions of the previous season's top three Nationals had been repeated. Like I always say whenever I'm writing about skating history, "it's all just a little bit of history repeating." Shirley Bassey and The Propellerheads were right.

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.

Brackets On The Way To Brazil: The Kristóf Kállay Story

Photo courtesy National Archives Of Poland

The son of Miklós and Borbala-Roza (Dudosich) Kállay, Kristóf Ervin Kállay was born November 9, 1920 in Budapest, Hungary. His father was a highly respected and prolific journalist, novelist and playwright who served as co-editor of the Nemzeti Szalon. Through the noble blood of the Kállay family of Nagykálló, he was also related to Hungarian Prime Minister Dr. Miklós Kállay.

Kristóf's father Miklós Kállay

Kristóf started skating at the Városligeti Műjégpályá while he was a young student at the Benedictine Grammar School. At the age of eleven, he entered the junior men's event at the Hungarian Championships and placed second to István Hostyánszky. Three years later, when the World Championships came to Budapest he placed third in an international junior men's event held in conjunction with the competition. Many observers believed that he not have taken a fall in his free skating performance, he would have won.

As a teenager, Kristóf spent time training in London, England and routinely upstaged Hungary's top two senior men - Dénes Pataky and Elemér Terták - in domestic competitions. What precision he lacked in the school figures he more than made up for in free skating. His one-foot Axels and series of three jumps in a row were truly crowd pleasers.

Piroska and Attila Szekrényessy and Kristóf Kállay

In 1939, he made his first - and last - appearance in the senior men's event at the World Championships. Though he placed seventh of the eleven men entered, one judge had him as high as third in free skating. In 1940, Kristof won his first of three Hungarian senior men's titles at the age of nineteen. Hampered by illness, he placed dead last in an international competition between skaters from Germany, Austria and Hungary in January of 1941. However, he continued to practice and perform regularly in Budapest during the first few years of the War and was a skater who could have easily found himself in contention for a medal at the European and World Championships, had the War not have necessitated the cancellation of ISU Championships.

Kristóf graduated with a university degree in science in Budapest in 1942 and hung up his skates a year later. He served as an Officer in Foreign Affairs from 1942 to 1946, and after the War emigrated to Stockholm where he took up a position as a diplomat at the Hungarian Embassy. He later settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he coupled diplomatic work with journalism. He married twice - to Adelaide Bebiano Vaccani and Tererina Ferreira dos Santos - and for several decades, he served as a Foreign Affairs correspondent for the "Jornal do Brasil". He also penned articles about history and politics for Hungarian journals. In the seventies, several of his works were translated and published in "Los Angeles New World". He passed away at the age of sixty nine on January 22, 1990 in
Teresópolis, Brazil, his wartime contributions to figure skating in Hungary all but forgotten.

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.

Skating With The Selfridge's

Postcard of Selfridge's decorated for Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation, 1937

Selfridge's on Oxford Street in London opened its doors on March 19, 1909. The department store was the brainchild of Wisconsin born Harry Gordon Selfridge, a self-made man who became known as 'the P.T. Barnum of the retail world'.

Selfridge's was a groundbreaking enterprise in its early years. It was the first such business in Great Britain to introduce in-store exhibitions and demonstrations, the bargain basement and eye-catching window displays. It was also the first department stores in Great Britain to display beauty products out in the open to encourage browsing and install a fragrance counter in the front of the store.

Mr. Selfridge treated his staff exceptionally well and personally walked the floor in every department every day. He introduced the term "shop assistant" and crusaded to curb the expression "shop girl", which he believed to be "an epitaph almost of disrespect." He changed the way people in Great Britain shopped.

Harry Gordon Selfridge

What many may not know is that Selfridge's also played a role in changing the way people in Great Britain thought about figure skating. In August of 1924, Mr. Selfridge had an ice rink that had previously been installed in Albert Hall moved to his department store's rooftop terrace.

On September 8 of that year, he brought in 'the world's greatest skating experts' - Howard Nicholson and Freda Whitaker - to give demonstrations of 'acrobatic' pairs skating and ice dancing at intervals through the day. It is believed that the rooftop rink at Selfridge's lasted at least a couple of months and was used multiple times, showcasing figure skating as a spectacle... to sell winter sports wear and ice skates. Volume 105 of "The Clothier And Furnisher" noted, "To mark the opening of the Alpine sports department a mannequin parade of Alpine sports equipment - the first of its kind ever to be held in London - was also given on the roof garden ice rink."

An exhibition of figure skating atop his store wasn't exactly an arbitrary choice for Harry Gordon Selfridge. Harry's daughters Rosalie and Violette regularly skated alongside the likes of Madge and Edgar Syers at Prince's Skating Club at Knightsbridge. The Selfridge family all took to the ice at the Hotel des Alpes in Murren, Switzerland in February of 1914.

At one point, Mr. Selfridge bought the Hotel Bellevue in Interlaken, Switzerland for his staff to have a chance to winter in Switzerland themselves, taking in the great skating and skiing. In his book "Ski Joy: The Story Of Winter Sports", Harry Stone noted, "Occasionally he even patronized it himself, not at that time being encumbered with his multiple girlfriends the Dolly Sisters."

In the modern day, Selfridge's has survived and thrived in Great Britain. The triumph of Lindy Woodhead's book "Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge" and the highly successful series "Mr. Selfridge" - with its iconic characters like the indomitable Lady Mae Loxley, faithful Arthur Crabbe  and charming Henri LeClair - have only heightened interest in the man behind the legendary store. Selfridge's connections to skating continue in recent times too... Its Trafford Centre, Manchester location has boasted an ice rink for customers. All things do come back in season eventually!

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 Thread Of Ariane

Born in Basel, Switzerland in 1924, Ariane LeVaillant was billed in the January 1939 issue of "LIFE" magazine as a teenage skating sensation from Switzerland whose "pretty face and pretty legs and natural grace may land her in the movies before many years".

Photo courtesy City Of Vancouver Archives

After competing in several junior competitions in Switzerland with little success, Ariane made a trip to the United States in 1937 in hopes of establishing a career skating in shows. She signed with an agent in New York named Harry Hirsch, who put out an advertisement in "Skating" magazine aiming to solicit work for her on the club carnival circuit. This first trip didn't solicit many takers, and so she returned to Switzerland... and for a time remained an amateur. Things didn't go well though. In her final competition in 1939, the St. Moritz Club, she placed dead last behind skaters from Switzerland, Great Britain and Czechoslovakia.

Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine

In late March of 1941, Ariane sailed from Newport, England to America with her fifty year old mother Martha aboard the cargo ship S.S. Lochmonar. The ship's manifest of 'alien passengers' offers two important clues about the motivation behind Ariane and Martha's trip. The eleven 'alien passengers' all shared two things in common: they were being admitted to the U.S. as 'quota immigrants for permanent residence' and their 'race or people' were all listed as Hebrew.

In January 1942, Ariane performed at a show in Boston, Massachusetts. Two months later, she was advocating for "the staging off a national open skating tournament" in America. In the March 5, 1942 edition of "The Herald Statesman", she stated her belief "that if the country's professionals and amateurs were to compete in one gigantic tournament, the event would be a huge success." The transplanted Swiss skating sensation's dream of competing in a pro-am competition didn't happen, nor did she land herself in the movies like Sonja Henie or Belita as "LIFE" Magazine had predicted or as Harry Hirsch had hoped. Instead, she joined the cast of Holiday On Ice for a time before starring in a short-lived ice show at Ye Olde Taverne in West Brookfield, Massachusetts.

Ariane's one big claim to fame as a skater in North America was a starring role in a very obscure skating tour that took the province of Quebec by storm in the autumn of 1945. It was produced by one Monsieur Chalfont of Grand-Mère and called "New York Ice Fantasy". The tour opened in Shawinigan on October 27, 1945. In addition to solo performances, Ariane skated duets with Bruce Clark of Omaha, Nebraska, who had toured with Sonja Henie's show for five years. Another of the show's headliners was a sixteen year old named Karen Knaak. The show had a little of everything. In one number called "Musical Moments On Ice", Phil Bennett and Robert Mitchell played the piano on a sled pulled by members of the chorus. Phil Hiser skated pairs with Knaak and did double duty in a drag skating number as a washerwoman named Queenie. A New York youngster named Tony Le Mac, a stilt skater from Zürich named George von Birgelen and American speed skating champion Bobby McLean rounded out the cast. Many of the skaters in the show were direct from Sonja Henie's show, which had ended its run in New York City right before Chalfont's tour started.

Ariane Levaillant and Bruce Clark. Photo courtesy of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

Ariane was quite popular with Quebec audiences, however a Sonja or Belita she was not. A later bid to produce and star in her own shows on tank ice in the later forties never really amounted to much.
Little is known about her life after skating aside from the fact she settled in New York City.  She may not have starred in pictures but by coming to America, she found something far more important than any film role: safety and freedom.

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.