Dario Villalba Flores

Darío Villalba Flores (born February 22, 1939 in San Sebastián - † June 15, 2018 ) was a Spanish figure skater and artist .

Villalba started ice skating at the age of eleven. He first trained in Philadelphia , where his father worked as a Spanish consul. When his parents returned to Spain with him, Villalba could only continue his training to a limited extent, as the training field was very small and of poor quality. To enable him to train better, his parents sent him to Chamonix , where he was trained by Thea Frenssen .

At the age of 16, Villalba took part in the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina d'Ampezzo in a single run , making it the first figure skater to represent Spain at the Olympic Games. He compared his exotic position with that of a torero from a Scandinavian country. His goal was not to be last. He did this by finishing the competition in 14th place , leaving two figure skaters, Australian Charles Keeble and Finn Kalle Tuulos , behind. A little later Villalba appeared in Garmisch-Partenkirchen at his first and only world championship and finished in 15th place.

As a pioneer of figure skating in Spain, Villalba was enthusiastic and touched by the sporting career of his compatriot Javier Fernández , with whom it came to a meeting.

After his sports career, Villalba devoted himself to painting. He had his first exhibition at the age of 18. Since 2002 he has been a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando . In 2003, King Juan Carlos I presented him with the gold medal for services to the fine arts.

Results

Championship / year	1956
winter Olympics	14th
World championships	15th

Web links

Darío Villalba in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Dario Villalba: “En los Juegos mi obsesión era no quedar último” ( Memento of the original from June 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on hieloespanol.es, July 24, 2012. Retrieved June 17, 2018. @1@ 2

personal data
SURNAME	Villalba Flores, Dario
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Spanish figure skater and artist
DATE OF BIRTH	February 22, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH	San Sebastían , Spain
DATE OF DEATH	June 15, 2018

[hieloespanol.es-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Dario Villalba: “En los Juegos mi obsesión era no quedar último” ( Memento of the original from June 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , on hieloespanol.es, July 24, 2012. Retrieved June 17, 2018. @1@ 2