Retrospective: The 1968 Olympics

[skatesindreams]

Maofan, I think it is Patrick Pera.
I remember that he wore a turtleneck sweater, unusual for competitors at the time.

Here is the Men's podium from 1968:
http://photo.lejdd.fr/media/images/a...e_pics_500.jpg

[judgejudy27]

Does anyone have an idea how Wolfgang Schwarz got such high marks for free skating at the 68 Olympics. I thought his skating was horrible compared to the other leading men like Wood, Danzer, Petkevitch, and others, and without a triple toe he had less jump content than Trixi Schuba.

[olympic]

I just realized that Patrick Pera and Philippe Candeloro have something in common - 2 back-to-back bronze medals for France in 2 consecutive Olympic games.

[floskate]

Here is the Men's podium from 1968:
http://photo.lejdd.fr/media/images/a...e_pics_500.jpg

That's actually 1971 Worlds - Ondrej Nepela is on the top step and Sergei Chetveruhkin was the 3rd place finisher behind Pera. They're all wearing turtlenecks under their monkey suits which by then was becoming more popular.

[skatesindreams]

OOPS!

Sorry - it's Google listed as the 1968 podium.
I guess you can't always trust them!

[floskate]

OOPS!

Sorry - it's Google listed as the 1968 podium.
I guess you can't always trust them!

It's not you're fault, it's googles Probably as both competitions were held in France, that's were their confusion occurred.

[berthesghost]

That's actually 1971 Worlds - Ondrej Nepela is on the top step and Sergei Chetveruhkin was the 3rd place finisher behind Pera. They're all wearing turtlenecks under their monkey suits which by then was becoming more popular.

Thank you! It's straight-up Star Trek meets Lost in Space, both of which didn't come out until 66 and 67, so I was confused on why FS, which is always like 5 years behind the times, was so ahead of the style.

[nylynnr]

Does anyone have an idea how Wolfgang Schwarz got such high marks for free skating at the 68 Olympics. I thought his skating was horrible compared to the other leading men like Wood, Danzer, Petkevitch, and others, and without a triple toe he had less jump content than Trixi Schuba.

Schwarz did a triple as well as double Axel, so his jump content is roughly comparable to that of the other men's and superior to Schuba's. While I, too, prefer Wood's free skating, his triple was not as clean, and I'm guessing (?) judges were influenced by that. Petkevich had two disruptive falls, which likely hurt his score. As noted earlier, the scoring back then was such that even winning the free skate didn't lift Danzer to the medals. It was the only time Schwarz defeated Danzer, and Schwarz retired immediately, so it's likely he knew he had gotten lucky.

[Maofan7]

Someone posted just a link to an interview with Tim Wood in another thread, and it contains an explanation of what happened in 1968:



http://figureskating.about.com/od/fa...n-Tim-Wood.htm

Many thanks - great article. Its always been my view that Tim Wood was the real winner of the 1968 Olympics. Have added your post to this 1968 Olympic restrospective.

Originally, when this thread was started, only the videos for the Ladies event were available. Accordingly, it covered only that competition. Later, when the videos for the mens and pairs events became available as well, it was extended to cover the entire Olympic figure skating event.

Here are the videos again from post 43 above and elsewhere in the thread:-

LADIES

Gold: Peggy Fleming - USA

Free Skate

Free Skate - 2nd Version

Free Skate - 3rd Version

Free Skate - 4th Version

Silver: Gabriele Seyfert - East Germany

Free Skate

Free Skate - 2nd Version

Bronze: Hana Maskova - Czechoslovakia

Free Skate (Complete)

Free Skate - 2nd Version - short clip at beginning of video

4th: Albertina Noyes - USA

Free Skate

Free Skate - 2nd Version

5th: Beatrix Schuba - Austria

Free Skate

6th: Zsuzsa Almassy - Hungary

Free Skate

9th: Janet Lynn - USA

Free Skate

12th: Elena Shcheglova - USSR

Free Skate

16th: Galina Grzhibovskaya - USSR

Free Skate

MENS

Gold: Wolfgang Schwarz - Austria

Free Skate

Silver: Tim Wood - USA

Free Skate

Bronze: Patrick Péra - France

Still no video available apart from this very short clip (16 seconds in to the video)

4th: Emmerich Danzer - Austria

Free Skate

5th: Gary Visconti - USA

Free Skate

6th: John Misha Petkevich - USA

Free Skate

9th: Sergei Chetverukhin - USSR

Free Skate

18th: Sergei Volkov - USSR

Free Skate

26th: Jan Hoffmann - East Germany

Free Skate

PAIRS

Gold: Ludmila Protopopov & Oleg Protopopov - USSR

Free Skate

Free Skate - 2nd Version

Silver: Tatyana Zhuk & Aleksandr Gorelik - USSR

Free Skate

Bronze: Margot Glockshuber & Wolfgang Danne - West Germany

Free Skate

4th: Heidemarie Steiner & Heinz-Ulrich Walther - East Germany

Free Skate

5th: Tamara Moskvina & Alexei Mishin - USSR

Free Skate

6th: Cynthia Kauffman & Ronald Kauffman - USA

Free Skate

Free Skate - 2nd Version