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By MICHAEL CHO --
For SLAM! Sports
Barbara Ann
Scott: Canada's Greatest Golden Girl
There have been many prizes
won on the world championship circuit in women's figure
skating, but no Canadian woman has ever reached its pinnacle
like Barbara Ann Scott.
Surprisingly
for a country where skating almost comes as naturally, Scott
is the only Canadian woman who has captured the gold medal
in the women's singles event in Olympic history.
Born in 1929
in Ottawa, Scott began skating at the age of six. Determined
to be a champion she spent eight hours a day training at
Ottawa's Minto Club, a training regimen that required a
tutor for the classes she missed.
At ten Scott was one of the youngest
to pass the gold figures test, and in 1940 she won the national
junior title. By 1944 she was the Canadian ladies senior
champion, a title she successfully defended until 1948.
The year 1947 was the year when
Scott accomplished the unbelievable. She was the first North
American to win the European title and the World Championships
in the same year. But in 1948, Barbara Ann Scott was unstoppable.
Not only did she successfully defend her European and World
titles, she went on to win the Olympic gold medal in St.
Moritz, Switzerland.
Scott won her gold medal on an
outdoor rink, which was uneven and dented by the men's gold
medal hockey game between Canada and the Czechs the night
before, which Canada won.
Apparently the temperature was
just above freezing, and someone had tried to flood the
ice. By the time the sun rose, the ice was a slushy mess.
But Scott was unruffled. "When you have to skate outside
in the elements, you tend not to worry about the small stuff,"
she said at the time.
She went on to take the gold
that day beating Austrian skater, Eva Pawlik, and Jeanette
Altwegg from Great Britain, who won the silver and bronze
respectively.
The only other Canadian figure
skaters to have won Olympic gold are Bob Paul and Barbara
Wagner, who won the pairs competition in 1960.
With that gold medal, "Canada's
sweetheart" became a national hero, winning the admiration
of Canadians all over with her beauty and grace, on and
off the ice.
At the time of her career, figure
skating was about poise, grace and figures. Scott is in
awe of the athleticism of today's skaters, but she has repeatedly
said she dislikes the decision to eliminate figures judging.
"Those edges and turns teach control and discipline,
just like finger exercises on the piano," she once
said.
Scott was an accomplished free
skater, but her specialty was in figures. The difficult
precision figures demanded made up 60 per cent of the final
judge's marks.
Now with the world-wide coverage
figure skating receives, the sport has emphasized the importance
of high-flying jumps and acrobatics to increase television
ratings.
But in a way, Scott is partly
to blame. She set a figure skating precedent herself in
1942 at only 13 by landing the first double lutz in competition
by any woman.
Not a grand feat by today's standards,
but it raised the bar for future skaters. Today, skaters
at the very least need to land triples and sometimes quadruple
jumps to be competitive on a world class level.
When Scott won the World Championships
in 1947, the city of Ottawa gave her a brand new convertible,
but she declined the offering, opting instead to retain
her amateur status to compete in St. Moritz the next year.
Another testament to her popularity,
upon her return from the Olympics, Reliable Toy Company
created a Barbara Ann Scott doll simply because she was
so adored by the public.
A year after her victory in St.
Moritz, Scott pursued a professional career, and skated
with a number of ice revues. She eventually got tired of
living out of a suitcase, and gave up her career to marry
American, Thomas King.
The marriage in 1955 was a major
media event. Scott and King moved to Chicago, where they
still live today. Canadians still recognize her achievements
by having her return as a honored guest at countless charity
functions and sports events. In November 1987, she shared
the honour of being the first Canadians to carry the Olympic
torch on its way to Calgary with Fred Hayward.
Scott was also inducted into
the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1955. She was also inducted
into the American Hall of Fame in recognition of her reign
as North American Champion in 1980 and the International
Hall of Fame in 1997
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