Cecilia Colledge

Cecilia Colledge
The Olympic runner-up from 1936, Cecilia Colledge, with her successor as Olympic runner-up, Eva Pawlik , during training in Vienna (1937)
Full name	Magdalena Cecilia Colledge
nation	United Kingdom
birthday	November 28, 1920
place of birth	Hampstead
date of death	April 12, 2008
Place of death	Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Career
discipline	Single run
Trainer	Eva Keats, Jacques Gerschwiler
Medal table
Olympic medals 0 × 1 × 0 × World Cup medals 1 × 2 × 0 × EM medals 3 × 2 × 1 ×
winter Olympics silver Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 Ladies  World figure skating championships silver Vienna 1935 Ladies gold London 1937 Ladies silver Stockholm 1938 Ladies  European figure skating championships silver London 1933 Ladies bronze St. Moritz 1935 Ladies silver Berlin 1936 Ladies gold Prague 1937 Ladies gold St. Moritz 1938 Ladies gold Davos 1939 Ladies

Magdalena Cecilia Colledge (born November 28, 1920 in Hampstead , London , England , † April 12, 2008 in Cambridge , Massachusetts , USA ) was a British figure skater who started in a single run . She is the world champion of 1937 and the European Championships of 1937 , 1938 and 1939 .

Career

Cecilia Colledge was the daughter of ENT - surgeon Dr. Lionel Colledge. She became interested in figure skating after watching the 1928 World Cup , which was held in her hometown of London. The specific influence that inspired her to figure skating is not entirely clear. Some say that she was inspired by Sonja Henie, others that her mother Margaret met the mother of Maribel Vinson at the said world championships and this led to mother Margaret registering her daughter in figure skating. Colledges' trainers were Eva Keats and Jacques Gerschwiler , who temporarily lived with the Colledge family. She trained six hours a day at the Queens Ice Club in London.

At 12 for the European Championship, at 16 world champion

At the age of eleven years and 11 weeks Colledge went at the 1932 Olympics in Lake Placid at the start and became the youngest athlete ever to Olympic Games participated. She took eighth place. In the years 1932 to 1934 she was British runner-up behind Megan Taylor . From 1935 to 1939 and 1946 Colledge was then British champion in figure skating for women. In 1937 two national championships were held, Colledge won both of them before Taylor.

She took part in all European championships from 1933 to 1939 with the exception of 1934 and always landed on the podium. In 1933 and 1936 she was runner-up in Europe behind Sonja Henie , the Norwegian series world champion 1927-1936. In 1935 she won the bronze medal behind Henie and Liselotte Landbeck (Austria). In the following years 1937 , 1938 and 1939 she finally became European champion , always ahead of her compatriot Megan Taylor .

At the Berlin European Championships in 1936 , she showed a double salchow , making it the first woman to take part in a double jump. After she was eighth and fifth in her first two world championships in 1932 and 1933 , Colledge was runner-up in 1935 and 1938 , first behind Henie and then behind Taylor. In 1937 she won her only world championship title ahead of Taylor in her native London. At the World Cup in 1939, she could not compete due to a pulled Achilles tendon .

At her second Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936 , she won the silver medal. Again she was only defeated by Sonja Henie . After the compulsory figures, the two were only a few points apart. Sandra Stevenson reported this in her article in The Independent on April 21, 2008:

“The closeness infuriated Henie, who, when the result for that section was posted on a wall in the competitors' lounge, swiped the piece of paper and tore it into little pieces. The draw for the free skating [then] came under suspicion after Henie landed the plum position of skating last, while Colledge had to perform second of the 26 competitors. The early start was seen as a disadvantage, with the audience not yet whipped into a clapping frenzy and the judges known to become freer with their higher marks as the event proceeded. Years later, a fairer, staggered draw was adopted to counteract this situation. "

“The scarcity enraged Henie, who, when the result for this section was posted on the panel wall, took the piece of paper and tore it into small pieces. The draw for the freestyle came under suspicion, as Henie had the best position as the last starter, while Colledge had to start second of 26 starters. This early start was seen as a disadvantage, as the audience was not yet in the rhythm of a storm of applause and the judges were known to be more generous in giving higher ratings the longer the competition lasted. Years later, a fairer, staggered draw was introduced to counter this fact. "

Innovations, professional career and trainer

Colledge wasn't just the first runner to jump a double jump, the Salchow . She also invented the balance pirouette (Camel Spin) and sky pirouette ( Layback Spin) as well as the one-legged Axel, which was named after her.

During World War II , Cecilia Colledge drove a civilian ambulance in London for the British Motor Transport Corps during The Blitz . Her family gave the future figure skating world champion (he had already won two Swiss championship titles before the war ) Hans Gerschwiler home when his uncle had to return to Switzerland. Her brother, Maule, became a pilot lieutenant and did not return from a mission over Berlin in September 1943. Her father died in 1948. After the Second World War, she briefly returned to amateur sports and in 1946 won the British championship for the sixth and last time. After switching to the professionals, she won the championships there in 1947 and 1948.

In the late forties, Cecilia Colledge appeared on a few ice cream shows in London. She then emigrated to the USA in 1951 and was a trainer in the “Skating Club of Boston” from 1952 to 1977. Her students included 1963 American champions Lynn Benson and Ronald Ludington , who won bronze pair skating with his wife Nancy at the 1960 Olympics , later became a coach and attributed most of his skills to Colledge.

In 1980, Colledge was inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame . In 1996 she was in a car accident when she was crossing Center Street in Newton . The car was going too fast. She has never put her skates on since then.

Cecilia Colledge was never married and had no offspring. She died at the age of 87 after a brief illness on April 12, 2008 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge , Massachusetts . At her own request, her ashes were scattered over the family grave in Brookwood Cemetery , about 50 km southwest of her native London. There was no ceremony.

Results

Competition / year	1932	1933	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	1946
winter Olympics	8th.				2.
World championships	8th.	5.		2.		1.	2.
European championships		2.		3.	2.	1.	1.	1.
British Championships	2.	2.	2.	1.	1.	1./1. 1	1.		1.

¹In 1937 there were two British figure skating championships. Colledge won both times ahead of Megan Taylor .

literature

• Richard Goldstein: Cecilia Colledge, Olympian, Dies at 87 . In: The New York Times . April 24, 2008 ( nytimes.com ).

Web links

• Cecilia Colledge in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cecilia Colledge: Champion figure skater. In: The Independent . April 21, 2008, accessed June 15, 2020 .