Betty Callaway

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Betty Daphne Callaway-Fittall , nee Roberts , MBE (born March 22, 1928 in Reading , Berkshire , † June 27, 2011 in Beaconsville , Buckinghamshire ) was a British ice dance coach . She looked after the British couple Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean during their Olympic victory in Sarajevo in 1984 .

Early years

Betty Roberts grew up as the daughter of Elizabeth and William Roberts in London and went to a convent school. Her dream of becoming a ballerina ended at the age of 16 when the Royal Ballet School found her too big and rejected her. After visiting the Queens ice rink in Bayswater , she turned to figure skating and soon became part of the ice show at Blackpool Pleasure Beach . She gave up her schooling and devoted herself entirely to ice skating. In Blackpool she met the show's main runner, Roy Callaway; the two became a couple and married in 1949.

Together with her husband, Betty Callaway, as she was now called, left the show ice rink in Blackpool and instead became an ice skating coach at the Richmond Ice Rink , an ice rink in Surrey . During the 17 years that she spent there, she trained, among others, Prince Charles , who took lessons with her for six or seven weeks, and Princess Anne , who trained with her for three winters.

International success trainer

Callaway specialized in the ice dance discipline and was able to celebrate her first sporting success as a coach in the 1960s. The breakthrough came with the couple Yvonne Suddick and Roger Kennerson , who were twice British runner-up under their supervision. They also won bronze at the European Championships in 1984 and 1965 and even the silver medal in 1966 .

In 1968 Callaway became the first woman to be appointed national coach for the Federal Republic of Germany . In this role, she looked after the siblings Erich and Angelika Buck , which led them to 4 medals each at World and European Championships between 1970 and 1973. The highlight was winning the gold medal at the European Figure Skating Championships in Göteborg in 1972 . The victory there also meant the only defeat of the dominating ice dance couple of the time, Lyudmila Pachomowa and Alexander Gorshkov from the Soviet Union , in the period from 1970 to 1976.

Callaway then took on the care of the Hungarian couple Krisztina Regőczy and András Sallay , with whom she won several medals at World and European Championships from 1977 to 1980. The most successful year here was 1980, in which the world championship title and a silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid could be achieved.

In addition to the Hungarian team, Callaway took over the British Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean as coach from 1978 as the successor to Janet Sawbridge . Under Callaway, the pair improved from season to season. Starting with an eleventh place at the 1978 World Championships , two years later a fifth place was achieved at the Olympic Games. From 1981 to 1984 the two finally remained undefeated and won a total of three European and four world championships.

The greatest triumph, however, was probably the win of the Olympic gold medal in Sarajevo in 1984. In their freestyle to Boléro by Maurice Ravel , they achieved the highest score of 6.0 from all nine judges in the B mark, which evaluates the artistic expression . Following this win, Torvill and Dean switched to professional and Callaway retired as their coach.

Subsequently, Callaway looked after the British Marika Humphreys , who led her to a total of five British championship titles with changing partners ( Justin Lanning , Philip Askew and Vitaliy Baranov ). Finally, she looked after Torvill and Dean again at their Olympic comeback in Lillehammer in 1994 , where the two won another bronze medal.

Late years

Callaway was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1984 for her services as a coach .

She divorced her husband Ray Callaway in 1975 and was married to pilot William Fittall from 1978 until his death in 1988. She then got back together with Ray and remarried him in 2003. This marriage lasted until her death in 2011. Ray Callaway died in 2014 at the age of 96.

Her hobbies included water skiing , music and gardening.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Obituary on telegraph.co.uk accessed on July 26, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Obituary on independent.co.uk, accessed on July 26, 2015
  3. ↑ a b c Obituary on theguardian.com, accessed on July 26, 2015
  4. ↑ a b c Official results lists of the ISU, European Ice Dance Championships, accessed on July 26, 2015
  5. ↑ a b Official results lists of the ISU, Ice Dance World Championships ( Memento of the original from February 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sportcentric.com
  6. ^ Obituary for Ray Callaway on richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk, accessed July 26, 2015
  7. ↑ Profile on webcitation.org ( Memento from August 4, 2011 on WebCite ) accessed on July 26, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Callaway, Betty
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Callaway-Fittall, Betty Daphne (full name); Roberts, Betty (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British ice dance trainer
DATE OF BIRTH March 22, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Reading , Berkshire
DATE OF DEATH June 27, 2011
Place of death Beaconsville , Buckinghamshire