A File Of Forgotten Firsts At The Canadian Championships
Long Shots From Le Locle: The Elyane Steinemann and André Calame Story
Elyane and André made their international debut at the 1948 World Championships in Davos. In a February 11, 1948 interview in "Gazette de Lausanne et Journal Suisse", they said, "We are delighted [to be selected]. We will go to Davos with joy, without nourishing the slightest hope. We will do our best, that's all. Because, there we will probably be the couple whose technical training is the most recent." They had a poor skate and finished dead last. In jest, Mr. John Nicks called André 'André Calamity'.
Their partnership ended when Elyane accepted an offer to turn professional following the 1951 World Championships in Zürich. André retained his amateur status long enough to win the 1952 Swiss senior men's 'B' title before joining suit. The duo skated in ice pantomimes in Wembley, the Wiener Eisrevue in Austria and Maxi Herber and Ernst Baier's Eisrevue in Germany from 1952 to 1959. Elyane moved to Canada and taught at the Riverside Figure Skating Club in Windsor, Ontario, the Noranda Figure Skating Club in Quebec and the North Shore Winter Club, Burnaby Winter Club and Vernon Figure Skating Club in British Columbia.
André returned to the Neuchâtel Mountains as a coach at the Locle Skaters Club. During the early sixties, France's top skaters flocked to the club to train. From 1963 to 1967, he coached the Italian skating team. Among his students were Giordano Abbondati and Rita Trapanese. In 1967, he formed an international skating school in St. Gervais, where he worked with skaters from all over Europe, including Austria's Claudia Kristofics-Binder, France's Jean-Christophe Simond, Switzerland's Mona and Peter Szabo, Belgium's Katrien Pauwels and Hungary's Jenő Ébert. He married to Simond's mother, whose first husband had died on a mountain climbing expedition. From 1968 to 1970, he served as the Swiss Skating Federation's Secretary and from 1976 to 1981, he taught in Megève. He was a much sought-after coach and turned down offers to teach in Paris, Basel and Moscow in order to stay in Switzerland. He sadly passed away suddenly of a heart attack at the Orly airport in Paris at the age of fifty five on November 26, 1982. Elyane passed away on October 25, 2009 in Hinton, Alberta.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating and archives hundreds of compelling features and interviews in a searchable format for readers worldwide. Though there never has been nor will there be a charge for access to these resources, you taking the time to 'like' on the blog's Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard would be so very much appreciated. Already 'liking'? Consider sharing this feature for others via social media. It would make all the difference in the blog reaching a wider audience. Have a question or comment regarding anything you have read here or have a suggestion for a topic related to figure skating history you would like to see covered? I'd love to hear from you! Learn the many ways you can reach out at http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/p/contact.html.
The 1986 U.S. Figure Skating Championships
Americans were mourning the loss of seven astronauts in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and crowding around television sets to watch "Cheers", "Family Ties" and "Who's The Boss?" Acid wash jeans, friendship bracelets and hanging earrings were all the rage and record players blared Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin's hit duet "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves". Apple had nothing on Aqua Net.
The year was 1986 and from February 4 to 9, a who's who of American figure skater gathered in Uniondale on Long Island, New York for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Figures were skated at the chilly, dimly lit Newbridge Road Park rink in Hempstead; free skating events at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. In addition to the one hundred and thirty eight entries, many former skating champions were in attendance including Dick Button, Peggy Fleming, Hayes and Carol Heiss Jenkins, Scott Hamilton, Lisa-Marie Allen, Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert, Elaine Zayak and Doreen Denny.
The Long Island Nationals weren't entirely a success story, to say the least. The organizers had a hard time getting sponsors and coaches were pretty annoyed that the Marriott Hotel adjacent to the Nassau Coliseum could only house a small number of guests. Skaters, judges and coaches were scattered in hotels throughout the area making transportation to and from practice rinks and scheduling a challenge. One of the practice rinks, home to the Nassau High School hockey team, had paint and plaster falling from the ceiling. Todd Waggoner recalled, "We couldn't lift because the ice was so cut up. Sometimes the paint would fall from the ceiling during session. By the time it was over, it was all over the ice."
Though the event itself may not have been a roaring success, the skating in Uniondale was quite exciting. There were comebacks, upsets, surprises and close contests - and with special thanks to the good folks at the Uniondale Public Library, we'll be looking back at them all!
THE NOVICE AND JUNIOR EVENTS
Fifteen year old Cameron Birky of Danville, California rose from third after figures to win the novice men's title over Montana's Scott Davis, landing two triple toe-loop's in his free skate. Twelve year old Damon Allen, the winner of the figures, placed a disappointing fifth overall but earned the prize for the gutsiest young skater. She skated with his arm in a plastic casing after breaking it during a competition that December.
Thirteen year old Liane Moscato of Peabody, Massachusetts won the novice women's title. She'd amassed a very strong lead in the figures but elected to try a triple Salchow in the free skate anyway. Though she fell, she was praised for taking a risk she certainly didn't need to. She told reporters that she "wouldn't have felt right not trying it."
Fourteen year old Kristi Yamaguchi and sixteen year old Rudy Galindo took top honours in junior pairs in a five-four split over Ashley Stevenson and Scott Wendland, while twenty year old Colette Huber and twenty two year old Ron Kravette struck gold in junior dance. Kravette had returned to skating two years prior after a five year hiatus. At the time, there weren't age restrictions in junior dance. Teenagers Elizabeth Punsalan and David Shirk, who placed sixth, were the highest ranking team that were age-eligible for Junior Worlds.
The junior men's event was chock full of future champions. Seventeen year Mark Mitchell placed only fourth in figures but won the short and long to take the gold. Second was seventeen year old Erik Larson, a former World Junior Champion. Rudy Galindo, who won the figures, took the bronze. Fifth was fourteen year old future World Champion Todd Eldredge, who had also placed fifth at the World Junior Championships in Sarajevo in December.
Kristi Yamaguchi was second in the junior women's short program and third in the long, but just missed out on a medal because of a disappointing eleventh place finish in the figures. Fourteen year old Cindy Bortz of Los Angeles, who was fifth in figures, won the gold ahead of Julie Wasserman and Rory Flack, the talented niece of famed singer Roberta Flack. Fifth and seventh were Tonia Kwiatkowski and Jeri Campbell.
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
Judy Blumberg and Michael Seibert, who had been U.S. Champions since 1981, had turned professional leaving the dance crown up for grabs. Wilmington's Suzanne Semanick and Scott Gregory and Michigan's Renée Roca and Donald Adair, the number two and three teams the year prior, both had momentum entering the competition. Semanick and Gregory had defeated Roca and Adair at the U.S. National Sports Festival the summer prior, and had won the International Morzine Trophy the prior spring. Roca and Adair had bested strong Russian teams to win gold at both Skate America and Skate Canada.
Suzanne Semanick and Scott Gregory won the first compulsory dance, the Kilian, but Gregory got cut in a rut and fell in the Starlight Waltz. With wins in the Starlight and Tango Romantica, Roca and Adair won the compulsories with first place marks from all but one judge. Semanick and Gregory won the Polka OSP by one judge and one tenth of a point, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown in the free dance.
Hoping for an edge with the judges, Roca and Adair had reworked their "Valentino" program just before Nationals, adding brief Charleston and Tango sections to liven up a program that had been critiqued as overly dramatic. Semanick and Gregory took theatre and mask classes to up the expression in their lively Russian inspired program, set to music specially composed for them by the
seventy piece Delaware Symphony Orchestra.
In a five-four split of the judging panel, Roca and Adair took the gold. The bronze went to Lois Luciani and Russ Witherby, crowd favourites who used "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" as the slow part of their free dance. Fourth were Susie Wynne and Joseph Druar. Wynne and Witherby would compete against each other for years and later, of course, form a delightful partnership of their own. Fifth were Kristan Lowery and Chip Rossbach, an innovative team who ditched their controversial Hallowe'en inspired "Night On Bald Mountain" free dance (dressed in black and orange and performed against Ron Ludington's advice) after finishing ninth at both Skate America and Skate Canada in favour of more traditional, dancey program. In the gala following the competition, Scott Gregory performed an exhibition with Sandy Lamb's daughter Shannon, an ice dancer in the Special Olympics.
THE PAIRS COMPETITION
Defending U.S. Champions Jill Watson and Peter Oppegard had suffered a serious setback just two weeks before the U.S. Championships. While training in Detroit with coach Johnny Johns, Oppegard slashed Watson in the face on a side-by-side camel spin. She suffered a broken nose and contusions under her eye and had to have stitches. Their bad luck continued in the short program with a miss on the side-by-side jumps, allowing Gillian Wachsman and Todd Waggoner, the bronze medallists in 1985, to move into the lead.
The dangers of pairs skating were featured in "The New York Times" as the result of a practice accident in Uniondale. Jerod Swallow, the only senior skater to compete in two disciplines in 1986, and his partner Shelly Propson had a serious fall on a lift in practice. "I was watching and my stomach dropped," recalled Todd Waggoner. "It felt terrible. Jerod had her in a lift when his skate hit a rut and she fell. That can happen to anyone." Propson was rushed to the Nassau County Medical Center in East Meadow, where it was revealed she had a slight skull fracture and the team was forced to withdraw.
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
The path to Uniondale wasn't an easy one for twenty two year old defending U.S. Champion Brian Boitano of Sunnyvale, California. With a serious case of tendonitis in his ankle, Boitano was in excruciating pain. He missed practice sessions in the lead-up to the event, there was talk of him withdrawing. "I tried everything I could to help the pain," he said. "Acupuncture, ultrasound, chiropractors, icing my ankle and then giving it heat treatment." In the end, he opted to push through the pain and compete, winning the figures over eighteen year old Christopher Bowman of Los Angeles. He won the short program as well, landing a solid triple Lutz/double loop combination and earning five 5.8's for composition and style.
Christopher Bowman was also injured, suffering from a bone bruise on his landing leg. The injury was the result of breaking new skates at the Prize Of Moscow News event in the Soviet Union the December prior. After finishing third in the short, he withdrew. He quipped to reporters, "My heart ached but my leg ached a lot harder."
Though he fell on a triple flip attempt, he still received marks ranging from 5.6 to 5.8 and managed to defend his title. His coach Linda Leaver said, "He's a very courageous young man. This was really a mental struggle. I felt he could do it, if anyone in the world could do it. On that basis, I encouraged him to skate if he could stand the pain. He could have dropped out, but it shows his own desire to be the U.S. Champion again. He'll be glad all his life he didn't let this one go because it hurt."
The silver went to twenty year old Scott Williams of Redondo Beach, California, who was coached by his stepmother Barbara Roles Williams, the 1960 Olympic Bronze Medallist. Daniel Doran, who trained in Colorado Springs won the bronze. Angelo D'Agostino, Paul Wylie and Jimmy Cygan rounded out the top six.
Despite his withdrawal, Christopher Bowman received a bye to Worlds. The rules at the time allowed an 'exemption' for any skater who finished in the top four at the previous year's Nationals and officials were impressed both by his showing in the figures (a previous weakness of his) and the fact he'd earned a 6.0 at the U.S. National Sports Festival the summer prior. Ultimately, his injury didn't allow him to compete and Daniel Doran, who was originally named first alternate, got the third spot anyway.
THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION
Like Brian Boitano, Toluca Lake, California's Tiffany Chin had a rough road to Uniondale. Tests following the 1985 U.S. Championships revealed that several of her leg joints were out of alignment and she was suffering from an extreme muscle imbalance. "At a certain point, I couldn't move my knee, and the motion was limited," she explained. "I had thought that was normal. And when they pushed on some muscles I thought were strong, my leg went right down. I was told, 'you're supposed to be jumping off those muscles.'" She spent several months off the ice, undergoing physical therapy to rebuild her leg muscles. Her training was limited in the lead-up to Nationals and she admitted that she lacked consistency on some of her triple jumps. The December prior, she'd began working with Scott Hamilton's former coach Don Laws and doing three hour daily exercise sessions devised by the International Sports Medicine Institute. Many were surprised she even planned to compete.
Stanford pre-med student Debi Thomas took top honours in the school figures six judges to three, but it was Tiffany Chin who won the second figure. The short was won by Erie, Pennsylvania's Caryn Kadavy, who trained with the Fassi's in Colorado Springs. Kadavy performed a triple loop/double loop combination, while Debi Thomas did the double loop/triple toe-loop. In the warm-up for the free skate, Thomas kept falling on the triple loop. Tiffany Chin drew first to skate in the final group and skated surprisingly well. The ice was littered with flowers after her performance and Thomas actually collided with one of the flower girls before she performed her program.
Debi Thomas' performance was outstanding. She landed two triple toe-loops, two triple Salchows and the triple loop to earn first place marks from seven of the nine judges. Kadavy skated right after Thomas and landed her opening triple loop but almost fell on the triple toe-loop and doubled a planned triple Salchow to settle for silver over Chin. Tracey Damigella, Jill Trenary and Tonya Harding rounded out the top six.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating and archives hundreds of compelling features and interviews in a searchable format for readers worldwide. Though there never has been nor will there be a charge for access to these resources, you taking the time to 'like' the blog's Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard would be so very much appreciated. Already 'liking'? Consider sharing this feature for others via social media. It would make all the difference in the blog reaching a wider audience. Have a question or comment regarding anything you have read here? Have a suggestion for a topic related to figure skating history you would like to see covered? I'd love to hear from you! Learn the many ways you can reach out at http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/p/contact.html.
Connecticut Catalyst: The Heaton R. Robertson Story
"Being too young to further engage in the senile sports of chess or yacht racing, or sitting in my chair (though I do love that one), I spend all my leisure time in going about the country for figure skating events. Pretending to myself that the writing of tracts on judging is doing a lot of good, but in reality in order to play around on the ice with a lot of very young people. Grow old with me!" - Heaton Robertson, "Fortieth Anniversary Record Of The Class Of 1904 - Yale College", 1947
Born November 23, 1882 in New Haven, Connecticut, Heaton 'Heat' 'Robbie' Ridgway Robertson was the son of Abram and Graziella (Ridgway) Robertson. His father was a prominent judge and his grandfather Dr. John Brownlee Robertson a former mayor of New Haven. His great-great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland to Charleston, South Carolina in 1765.
As a young man, Heaton attended Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He later earned a B.A., Ph.B. and E.M. at Yale University. While at Yale, he served as an assistant instructor in mining and metallurgy. The Yale College Class Book 1904 noted, "He chose [Yale] because the college was a near a place where he could get good food - namely, home... Robbie's grievance seems to be the lack of a smoking-room."
In addition to serving as President of the U.S. Figure Skating Association from 1940 to 1943, Heaton held various positions on the organization's executive including Treasurer, Chairman of the Competitions and Rules Committee, Eastern Committee, Judges And Judging Committee and Standards And Tests Committee. He served as a national and international judge, accountant and referee and sponsored and assisted with the USFSA's first Judges Manual in 1942. He later authored the books "Evaluation Of School Figure Errors" and "What Judges Are Looking For In School Figures And Free Skating". Despite the effects of World War II, during his presidency of the USFSA subscriptions to "Skating" magazine nearly doubled and efforts were made to improve judging and education for skaters and coaches alike.
Heaton, who was registered for the draft during World War II, recalled the USFSA's efforts to keep figure skating alive during the War thusly: "The competitions were continued all through the war, as were most of our other activities. This was at first considered to be impractical and perhaps not even quite patriotic. It was later agreed that competitions should be run wherever there were suitable entries, and other activities followed a similar course. As it turned out, there were plenty of entries in all but the Men's Senior class, and the wartime competitions were otherwise remarkably successful. Our organization deals very largely with the young people who like to take tests and to compete, and a somewhat older group fond of dancing. This healthy and absorbing recreation was a distinct asset to those whose war efforts entailed long hours and unusual responsibilities. For the young, whose impressionable years were lived under changed conditions, the concentrated effort of long hours spent in skating did very much for them, too."
After being named an Honorary Vice-President of the USFSA in 1951, Heaton passed away at the home of his son in Branford, Connecticut on May 9, 1953 at the age of seventy two, having suffered from a serious stroke two years prior. He was inducted posthumously into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall Of Fame in 1977 and his name was attached to the U.S. novice women's trophy.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating and archives hundreds of compelling features and interviews in a searchable format for readers worldwide. Though there never has been nor will there be a charge for access to these resources, you taking the time to 'like' on the blog's Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard would be so very much appreciated. Already 'liking'? Consider sharing this feature for others via social media. It would make all the difference in the blog reaching a wider audience. Have a question or comment regarding anything you have read here or have a suggestion for a topic related to figure skating history you would like to see covered? I'd love to hear from you! Learn the many ways you can reach out at http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/p/contact.html.
Reader Mail: Every Three Months Is Still Faster Than Canada Post
Exploring The Collections: Show Programs
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating and archives hundreds of compelling features and interviews in a searchable format for readers worldwide. Though there never has been nor will there be a charge for access to these resources, you taking the time to 'like' the blog's Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SkateGuard would be so very much appreciated. Already 'liking'? Consider sharing this feature for others via social media. It would make all the difference in the blog reaching a wider audience. Have a question or comment regarding anything you have read here? Have a suggestion for a topic related to figure skating history you would like to see covered? I'd love to hear from you! Learn the many ways you can reach out at http://skateguard1.blogspot.ca/p/contact.html.