What's Old Is New Again: New Articles Re: Figure Skating History

NHalifax, you never cease to amaze me with the archival skating stories you find. I bow to you sir:encore:(closest emjoi I could find to a bow)
 
Weve3 said:
@N_Halifax, this is definitely one of the best threads going here at the forum. A treasure trove of important and highly memorable content. So glad that you are doing this. It is always helpful (IMO) for fans to get a sneak peek into the glorious history of the sport. Well done!
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Thank you so much! It kind of hurts my heart a little that skating's history is at times downplayed or treated as if it's romanticized. From people skating centuries ago on bones to Jackson Haines, Sonja Henie, through John Curry, Toller Cranston, Torvill and Dean and on to the not so distant past, skating is constantly evolving and I believe that looking back and becoming educated about 'where we came from' is every bit as important if not moreso than viewing skating in the last 5-10 years with blinders on.

skatesindreams said:
That's amazing.
What a pity that the "Alpine Hotel" was only made of cardboard!
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I know, right? I can't imagine the budget was as high as the entertainment value... or jumps!

suki said:
NHalifax, you never cease to amaze me with the archival skating stories you find. I bow to you sir:encore:(closest emjoi I could find to a bow)
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Love it and thank you so much! I plan to be doing this for a long time and have a lot of really neat stuff coming in the next several months I'm excited to share with you all! XX
 
The latest two Skate Guard blogs explore the story of Adrian Swan, the first man to represent Australia at the Winter Olympic Games and The 1990 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Links to both are below:

http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2017/08/brackets-and-bonds-adrian-swan-story.html

http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2017/08/the-1990-us-figure-skating-championships.html

Also of interest to figure skating history buffs... Steve Milton (who was recently announced as an inductee to the Skate Canada Hall Of Fame) writing about how became involved in the sport:

https://www.thespec.com/sports-story/7508069-how-a-football-guy-can-become-a-figure-skating-guy/
 
Terrific article! Didn't know all the political intrigue going on at the time, so interesting. I always wondered why GDR couldn't compete as it's own country at the Olympics until 1968.
 
Maximillian said:
Terrific article! Didn't know all the political intrigue going on at the time, so interesting. I always wondered why GDR couldn't compete as it's own country at the Olympics until 1968.
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Glad you enjoyed reading and I was able to shed some light! The politics of that era were truly quite interesting... and the skaters from both sides of the Wall during that period were outstanding.

The third of this week's trio of Skate Guard blogs is up. The Magnificent Miss Hogg explores the life and legacy of Gladys Hogg, the legendary coach behind Great Britain's early dominance in ice dancing:

http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2017/08/the-magnificent-miss-hogg.html
 
floskate said:
I have to give a shout out for the Gladys Hogg article. Very little was really known about her outside of her circle of students. This really does add a new dimension to her character and legacy. I now LOVE her. What a legend!! :respec: :encore:

Bravo! @N_Halifax :cheer:
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skatesindreams said:
I had heard of Gladys Hogg; but, knew little about her.
Many thanks from, as well.
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So glad that you both enjoyed reading about Miss Hogg as much as I enjoyed writing about her! She was definitely a character and I'm glad that in some small way I was able to draw a little more attention to her life and accomplishments.

The first of this week's trio of Skate Guard blogs is up. Bygone In Budapest: Four Forgotten Hungarian Skating Stars explores a quartet of Hungarians whose contributions to skating have been largely forgotten:

http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/2017/08/bygone-in-budapest-four-forgotten.html

I also recently spoke on the Beyond The Big Screen Podcast about Sonja Henie's film "Hello London" and figure skating history. The link is below if you'd like to listen. Please bear in mind that the audience of this particular podcast are film buffs with little to no knowledge of skating, so there isn't much you likely don't know:

https://www.atozhistorypage.com/big-screen



 
N_Halifax said:
Thank you so much! It kind of hurts my heart a little that skating's history is at times downplayed or treated as if it's romanticized. From people skating centuries ago on bones to Jackson Haines, Sonja Henie, through John Curry, Toller Cranston, Torvill and Dean and on to the not so distant past, skating is constantly evolving and I believe that looking back and becoming educated about 'where we came from' is every bit as important if not moreso than viewing skating in the last 5-10 years with blinders on.
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Unfortunately, many fans do not look beyond the last 10-20 years or so, if that. That's why so many GOAT polls are dominated by skaters from the recent past. It really annoys me when I see comments on twitter, youtube, and in social media where skaters from the compulsory figures era are dismissed as "useless" because there are no triples and quads in the free programs. They don't seem to appreciate that the sport, the rules, the equipment, the training, etc, was completely different back then

Thanks for helping to keep the past alive
 
Judge Dred said:
Unfortunately, many fans do not look beyond the last 10-20 years or so, if that. That's why so many GOAT polls are dominated by skaters from the recent past. It really annoys me when I see comments on twitter, youtube, and in social media where skaters from the compulsory figures era are dismissed as "useless" because there are no triples and quads in the free programs. They don't seem to appreciate that the sport, the rules, the equipment, the training, etc, was completely different back then

Thanks for helping to keep the past alive
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It's my absolute pleasure to contribute in some small way! I agree with everything you've said 100% and I think that's why it is imperative that skating's history continues to be researched, talked about and looked at in context. This week, I've been interviewing the children of a former national and North American champion who has received pretty much zero recognition to this point and I've gotta say, it just baffles me sometimes.
 
Judge Dred said:
Unfortunately, many fans do not look beyond the last 10-20 years or so, if that.
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Which reminds me... I get that many hard-training skaters themselves are focused on the here and now & might not want to use their scarce free time looking for old skating vids on youtube like a fan would do, but still I was a bit taken aback by this answer from Hubbell on the reddit AMA today (which is worth a read btw):
I didn't actually grow up watching any ice dance. I began competing Ice Dance when I was about 9, and it wasn't until I was 19 and training with Pasquale and Anjelika that I started watching and appreciating previous teams. In fact, when I began training with them, I didn't know who they were.
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N_Halifax said:
Just posted this month's #Unearthed... it is an account of one of Napoléon III's private skating parties on the Bois de Boulogne in 1861:

http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2017/08/unearthed-account-of-napoleon-iiis.html
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Interesting. For a modern reader, this 1860s account by a British correspondent basically reads like a puff piece for Napoléon III. (That era of European history is not my forte but I read up on the basics of his political career and sure enough, the Crimean War in the 1850s had Britain and France on the same side -- which I had forgotten about -- and Napoléon had signed a free trade treaty with Britain in 1860. The more you know!)
A body of men in white blouses - a special ice police - formed a cordon round the field of operations, and kept off those who were uninvited
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From now on, I suggest we start calling Yuzuru's bodyguards the "special ice police", whatever the colour of their shirts may be.

Thank you!
 
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Love the piece on Yao Bin! Amazing story of his and his partner's development as a pair's team from a country with no history of elite figure skating, particularly in the days before the internet.
 
Maximillian said:
Love the piece on Yao Bin! Amazing story of his and his partner's development as a pair's team from a country with no history of elite figure skating, particularly in the days before the internet.
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Glad you enjoyed reading - his story was/is beyond inspiring! The latest Skate Guard blog is up... it takes a look back at The 1959 European Figure Skating Championships in Davos, Switzerland:

http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/2017/09/the-1959-european-figure-skating.html
 
Article on Early Soviet Ice Dance Pioneers Svetlana Smirnova / Leonid Gordon. Google translate reads:-

On September 7, 1933 in Moscow Svetlana Vladimirovna Smirnova (in marriage Moser), the deserved master of sports of the USSR was born.

She began to figure skating in 1945 in Lyupa, and her first coach was Larisa Yakovlevna Novozhilova. Then she began to prepare for the start under the direction of Tatiana Aleksandrovna Tolmacheva. Having mastered the technique of solo skating, Svetlana began to engage in pair skating and ice dancing in a duet with Yuri Nevsky. Smirnova and Nevsky became winners of the DSO "Stroitel" in both of these types in 1957.

It should be noted that in the USSR dances on ice began to be practiced since 1938, but they were far from those standards that were prescribed by the ISU, and even the coaches able to prepare dancers for international competitions were not in the USSR at that time, This kind of figure skating Soviet figure skaters, whose debut at the European Championships took place in 1956, did not perform.

At that time in Moscow, under the leadership of Larisa Yakovlevna Novozhilova, a capable skater Leonid Gordon (born February 5, 1937) was training. He learned about the dance competitions held in the European and world championships from the report in the newspaper "Soviet Sport", where the European Championship in 1956 was covered and the debut of Soviet figure skaters. Leonid became interested in a new section of figure skating for him and asked his coach Larisa Yakovlevna Novozhilov to get a description of the dances in the Sports Committee.

The coach brought him these materials, but they were in German. Fortunately, it was German Leonid who studied at the Moscow Technological Institute of the Food Industry, and with the help of the teachers of the Foreign Languages Department he translated the descriptions of 14 compulsory dances into Russian. The text was supplied with drawings of the steps of the dance duo, the mutual position of the partners during the dance and the schemes by which these steps were to be performed.

But Leonid did not have a partner with whom he could create a duet, and then Larisa Yakovlevna remembered her former student Svetlana Smirnova. Svetlana agreed to become Gordon's partner and focus exclusively on dancing on ice. Under the guidance of Novozhilova, the newly-minted duo began to learn the dance of wisdom.

Difficulties in their way were abundant: there were also problems with specific terminology in describing the movements, the mutual position of partners and the whole dance for certain music with the exact tempo and rhythm, and in the absence of a special musical accompaniment of dances - it needed to be bought cheaply from the ISU, then the Sports Committee could not afford.

"Helped young athletes with their sociability. In 1956, skaters from different countries came to Moscow for demonstration performances at the Sports Palace in Luzhniki. Among them was a dance duo from Austria Edith Paikert - Hans Kucera. The dancers had records with records to all the dances of the compulsory program. They allowed our enthusiasts to make copies of the musical accompaniment. In the House of Sound Recording, music for 14 compulsory dances was rewritten overnight.

"In addition," recalls Gordon, "Hans Kucera showed us in practice how the dances on the ice should look, for which we are very grateful to him."

Having received the music, Leonid and Svetlana worked with even more zeal: the training was held twice a day for many hours on open skating rinks at the Young Pioneers Stadium (SPP), in Maryina Roshcha and in Gorky Park. As a result, in 1957, the dance duo fully mastered all the obligatory dances. The trainer often visited the state figure skating coach of the USSR Sports Committee Sergei Vasilyev (by the way, in the 30s of the last century, together with Elena Ternovskaya, he performed in paired dances on ice), which recommended including dancers in the national team of the country at the 1958 European Championship .

The Coaching Council of the Sports Committee of the USSR supported this proposal. Now, together with other members of the team - Lev Mikhailov, Valentin Zakharov, Igor Persiantsev, Nina and Stanislav Zhuk, Lyudmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov - the dancing duet Svetlana Smirnova - Leonid Gordon got the opportunity to train in civilized conditions - in the Sports Palace in Luzhniki. Unfortunately, the coach of the dancers Larisa Novozhilova was not included in the national team (Olga Berezemskaya, "Bratislava Premiere", magazine "Moscow figure skater", No. 4 (12), 2008).

In 1958 the Smirnov-Gordon couple was the first Soviet dancer to take part in the European Championship and took 13th place there. Here is how Leonid Grigorievich Gordon recalled this debut: "Colleagues looked at us for a long time - how and what they were wearing, what skates, what music. The first to speak Frenchman Jacques Mer: I found out the language of communication and later helped us in translations from English into German and vice versa. This facilitated communication within the group, and as a result, the most good relations developed at once.

Already on the first training, when we, huddled against the board, looked fascinated at the "unprecedented flight" of the English on the ice, unexpectedly, at the suggestion of Courtney Jones, we exchanged partners! It was a delight! The training was a success! The English appreciated our knowledge of dancing, the desire to learn, and it was easy for them to coordinate our movements. We recruited knowledge and experience, practicing with them in training, preparing for competitions. Unfortunately, there was very little time for communication. But they were wonderful creative, completely selfless workouts. Where and when you can get such skill lessons! "

By the way, the training revealed that the skates of Soviet dancers do not comply with the rules of the ISU, and it was necessary to urgently buy from the English dealer special blades for dancing on the ice of an English firm "MK"

Our figure skaters understood that they would not miss the performance of compulsory dances as novices, such are the traditions and rules of the game, although they got quite good marks. The newspaper "Soviet Sport" wrote on February 4, 1958: "In the USSR, such dances began to be performed only a year ago, which, of course, could not but affect the results. Nevertheless, Smirnova and Gordon received satisfactory ratings: the lowest of them was 3.6 points, and the highest was 4.6. There can be no doubt that participation in the European championship next to such virtuosos as the English figure skaters, will serve as a good school for them. "

Actually, Sergey Vasiliev constantly reminded dancers about this during training and competitions: "It is very important to define the style and technique in the performance of dances, to declare yourself, to gain knowledge and experience in such important competitions". This task was accomplished. Following the results of two days of compulsory dancing competitions, the Soviet duo was at the end of the table and, accordingly, with free dance, was to be the first. But the leaders of the delegation decided to remove the dancers from the final competitions (allegedly due to illness), and in the evening, when all the Soviet athletes went to the Sports Palace, Smirnov and Gordon were not: just forgotten!

However, Gordon remembers, "unexpectedly, an hour before the start of the competition, two of our compatriots broke into my hotel room (one of them was a journalist of Pravda or Izvestia), and in sharp language they smashed the decision of our sports" pseudo-patriots leaders "who broke the participation Soviet Union in such important for the country competitions! They told us to urgently get together and took us to the Palace of Sports. Arriving, we saw with horror that the warm-up of the group was ending, that we not only had not time to warm up, but were late for the start. All that happened (exclusion from participation in competitions, deprivation of training, a hurry to come straight to the start) could not but affect the performance. If this had not happened, it is probable that our free dance would have been performed and rated higher. "

Nevertheless, this speech can not be called a failure. The music of the free dance of our athletes in orchestral performance, fundamentally different from the musical accompaniment of other duets (solo on the organ), fascinated spectators and judges. "She, you can say, opened a new page in the history of dancing on ice, becoming a good example for many dance duos. It was this kind of music that made ice dancing competitions a spiritually rich, dynamic and expressive sport, "notes Leonid Gordon. Orchestral musical accompaniment, first used by Smirnova and Gordon, in the future became common for dance duets (Olga Berezemskaya, "Bratislava Premiere", magazine "Moscow figure skater", No. 4 (12), 2008).

Participation in the European Championship season for Soviet dancers has not ended. Soon after returning from Bratislava, Svetlana and Leonid won the Moscow Winter tournament, which took place in Moscow, and in early March won the USSR championship in Sverdlovsk. The winners of the competitions held a master class for the dancers taking part in that championship, sharing their experience with the beginning dancers. A few days later, again in Moscow (March 21-23), the Smirnov duo - Gordon became a bronze medalist at international competitions with the participation of figure skaters of Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the USSR.

Unfortunately, the first season in the international arena for Svetlana and Leonid was the last. Then their paths parted. Leonid Gordon accepted the invitation of the leaders of the Moscow State Ensemble "Ballet on Ice" and became the soloist of this collective. He performed there until 1980, and from 1972 to 1980 he also worked in the Circus on Ice. After retiring, Leonid Grigorievich became the director of various circus groups.

Svetlana Smirnova created the first group of dances on ice in Leningrad. Duet Svetlana Smirnova - Vladimir Belitsky was the first dance duo to perform for Leningrad, and won the USSR Championship in 1959.

After graduating from the GCOLIFK in 1956 and still continuing to perform in sports, Svetlana began to train young figure skaters in the SPO, receiving benevolent and very valuable advice from Tatyana Tolmacheva. She started figure skating Sergei Volgushev, Galina Grzhibovskaya, Vyacheslav Zhigalin, Alexei Ulanov, Sergei and Alexey Chetverukhin, her daughter Nina Moser (Svetlana created a family with tennis player Mikhail Moser) and many other figure skaters.

During 1960-1972 Svetlana Vladimirovna was a soloist of the Ukrainian "Ballet on Ice", she was awarded the title of Honored Artist of the USSR. In the years 1972-79. was the artistic director and senior coach of the first children's ensemble "Ballet on Ice." In the years 1979-85. she is the director and the head coach of the Sports School for figure skating of DSO "Dynamo" (Kiev). Svetlana Vladimirovna Moser died on November 8, 2007. She was buried at the Vvedenskoye cemetery in Moscow.
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Also, an article on pairs skaters, Karol and Peter Kennedy. Google translate reads:-

Today, his 90th anniversary is celebrated by American figure skater Peter Kennedy.

He was born on September 4, 1927 in Olympia, Washington (USA) and was baptized Michael Edward. However, someone from the relatives invited to the christening, looking at the baby, exclaimed: "Yes this is Peter!". And since then, other than Peter, he was not called (perhaps also not to confuse him with his father, who was called Michael), and it was exactly as Peter Kennedy he entered the history of figure skating.

This boy began to engage in this sport rather late - when he was 12 years old, together with his younger sister Carol Estelle (born February 14, 1932), with whom they made up a sports couple who earned the nickname "Kennedy's children" from American fans.

Their first coach was a father who was not at all a figure skater - he was a dentist, but was fond of figure skating. Mother invented and sewed them costumes for competitions. Peter later recalled that his father had a great influence on their becoming with the sister as skaters, having managed to instill in them such necessary features for the athlete as perseverance and perseverance in achieving the goal.

Then their coach was the famous Sheldon Galbraith.

The sports achievements of the brother and sister were very impressive. Their way to the top they began with the conquest of silver medals of the US championships of 1946-47, which in the season of 1947 were supplemented with bronze medals of the North American championship and silver medals of the World Cup.

In 1948, Carol and Peter won the first of their five consecutive titles of US champions, but their performances at the Olympics, where they were 6th, and at the World Cup, where they showed the 4th result, not too pleased their admirers.

But already in 1949 they rehabilitated themselves, becoming champions of North America and silver medalists of the World Cup.

Even more successful was the season of 1950 for them, when they became world champions for the first and only time in their career. It was the first gold medal in general, won by skaters of the United States in pair skating. Their success was only 29 years later, managed to repeat Tai Babylonia and Randy Gardner - world champions 1979.

Later, Kennedy's brother and sister once again won the gold of the championship of North America in 1951 and the silver of the World Cup 1951-52, became silver prizewinners of the OI 1952

After that, they left the sport, and Peter, after moving to Merser Island, Washington and skiing, for some time competed in skiing, and later began to design ski equipment, was a consultant for several companies that manufacture ski equipment.

As for Carol, she was studying at Colorado Colledge in Colorado Springs and then at Washington University during her sports performances. In 1953, she married Robert Kucher and moved to Seattle. The couple had six children - sons John and Charlie and daughter Catherine, Mary Jane, Heidi and Suzanne.

Subsequently, Carol opened a children's clothing store, which is now engaged in her daughter and granddaughter. Carol Kennedy-Kucher died on June 25, 2004 from pneumonia in the Swedish Hospital in Seattle, Washington.

For their sporting achievements, Carol and Peter Kennedy in 1991 were introduced to the US Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
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Apologies, the google translate is not great and is somewhat heavy going!
 
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