charging down the bobsleigh course for a pre-competition test run. She emerged without injury, if a bit queasy.
American Eddie Eagan dazzled crowds while winning his second gold medal in the four-man bobsleigh event. His first gold medal came at the summer Olympics in 1920, in boxing. He remains the only person ever to win gold medals in both a summer and winter Olympics.
The competitors in the figure skating and hockey events enjoyed a treat that was somewhat rare on the international competitive circuit—they would skate at an indoor facility, a huge brick field house built especially for the Olympics. Its new ice surface sparkled like diamonds. It was so perfect and lovely that one could almost feel a kind of guilt about disturbing its stillness. Condensation rose from the surface and created a mist that made the skaters appear to be apparitions floating by in a delicate dance.
As is the case with modern Olympics, the figure skating competition attracted the lion’s share of publicity and interest. The competition in 1932 carried a special fascination. This was the year Norwegian Sonja Henie would compete in her third Olympics—and vie for a second gold medal. Organizers charged admission just to watch the practice sessions, and they brought in standing-room-only crowds.
A frustrated Maribel would have to face Sonja again. She had never beaten Sonja before and knew it was unlikely this time. Maribel’s medal prospects were good. Her gold medal prospects, however, were slim, and she knew it.
“Sonja’s routine is not as hard as mine, but she seldom makes a mistake,” she groused to her coach.
The 1932 U.S. Olympic ladies skating team. Maribel Vinson is seen second from right.
Maribel’s frustration was understandable. While she dominated on U.S. soil in the ladies event, and was a consistent top-three finisher in both pairs and dance, she never became a big name internationally. It seemed that the longer she honed her craft, the more difficult it became to win on the international stage. Following the 1928 season in which she won a silver medal at the World Championships, her career didn’t take off the way she had hoped. Injured in 1929, Maribel wasn’t able to compete at the World Championships to contend for a medal. In 1930, she returned to Worlds and won a bronze. In the next few years, she barely missed the podium. No one could doubt her work ethic, but her nerves seemed to play a role in her downward slide in the rankings. Maribel simply didn’t perform consistently under pressure. Sonja Henie, though, seemed to thrive on pressure. Sonja won the gold at every European and World competition, while Maribel struggled to place in the top five. It seemed that there was no end in sight to Sonja’s dominance.
Many skaters of the television age—Tara Lipinski, Kristi Yamaguchi, Oksana Baiul, and Scott Hamilton—are content to win an Olympic gold medal and move on to the next phase of life, whether it be professional skating, coaching, or the extremely lucrative motivational speaking circuit. Winning one gold medal is good enough for most athletes—the odds against them are incredibly long. Winning two gold medals in figure skating is like scaling Mount Everest—twice.
Sonja, however, wanted to be the center of attention at all times. To have one gold medal in her coffers wasn’t enough. She wanted a score of punctuation marks added to her dominance. The outside world knew her as gentle, caring, and compassionate, but her fellow competitors knew her dimpled smile concealed a bossy, diva-like temperament, and a cutthroat approach to any competitive situation.
Sonja, the darling curly blonde with unquestionable cuteness, started showing promise as a figure skater at a very early age. Her wealthy parents, especially her over-attentive father, indulged her every whim, often at the expense of her siblings, who received much less attention from their father. She even had her own private pond on which to practice. She took ballet lessons from some of the most respected prima ballerinas available to teach.
Sonja won her first Norwegian national championship at age eleven. Because no age requirement had been established for Olympic competition, in 1924, Sonja was already heading to her first Olympics. While competing, she stopped her program repeatedly, skated to the edge of the lake, and asked her coach what she should do next. The audience was overwhelmed by her charm, but the judges ranked her dead last out of only thirteen total competitors. There the flame was fully ignited.
Maribel Vinson performs in the Olympics.
While other skaters in that 1924 Olympics were wearing skirts that touched their ankles, Sonja was dressed as a little girl was expected to dress—in a pleated white skirt that stopped just above the knees. She was the picture of innocence. In addition to deciding she would win her next Olympics, she had also decided never to wear a full-length skirt while skating. With her shorter, children’s skirts, she discovered she had more freedom of movement. She also decided she liked the white skating boots much better than the black boots that were customary for skaters of both genders. Already, Sonja was a trailblazer and a trendsetter.
Figure skating was not always about the grace and athleticism that Sonja and Maribel espoused. In fact, skating was not conceived as a sport at all; it was designed to be a mode of transportation. The early fishermen and hunters of northern Europe strapped animal bones, antlers, and wood onto their feet to glide across frozen lakes, a practice dating back to 300 A.D. In 1572, skates found their way onto the battlefield. Spain occupied the Netherlands, but the Dutch began their revolt when Spanish rulers would not tolerate the Reformation’s spread into Holland. In the Battle of Ijsselmeer, the Dutch surprised the more powerful Spaniards by skating the frozen canals for combat. When the Spaniards attempted to use skates in the next round of battle, they fell all over themselves. Spain eventually lost the war. One could say then that skating played a role, albeit small, in the spread of Protestantism in Europe.
As the centuries progressed and modes of transportation became more sophisticated, skating evolved into a recreational pastime. Iron replaced animal bones as the blade of choice in the mid-1500s. In 1850, steel blades came along, but they had to be strapped onto normal boots. The next design was a slight improvement, with the blades attached to a wooden plate, which was then strapped to boots. Neither design allowed for much maneuverability or balance.
A revolutionary American changed that. Jackson Haines created a prototype of what we now recognize as modern skates—with the blades actually screwed into the boots. The toe pick (the teeth of the blade) came courtesy of English ironworker Henry Boswell in 1883.
Haines’s legacy goes far beyond equipment. He is credited with merging artistry and skating. Up to that point, figures were the only skill performed on the ice. Haines was trained in ballet and saw great potential to merge dance and skating.
Before the creation of the United States Figure Skating Association, Haines won the Championships of America is 1863 and 1864. He wore what at the time was considered a “fancy” costume, and even performed the first-ever “sit spin,” a spin performed by hovering as near to the ice as possible with one leg extended in front of the body.
Haines’s flamboyance was not well received in war-ravaged America. Considered an oddity of sorts, he sailed to Europe, where he delighted audiences. He was particularly popular in Austria, where the Strauss family of composers wrote waltzes for him. Thomas Edison’s phonograph wasn’t invented until 1877, so Haines hired musicians to play at the side of the rink. It is believed Haines is the first to have skated to music.
Legend suggests Haines died in Finland in 1875 after catching pneumonia on a sled trip from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Stockholm, Sweden. Scholars, however, insist he died a much less glamorous death—caused by tuberculosis.
The first World Figure
