Linda Crutchfield

Linda Crutchfield (born April 3, 1942 in Shawinigan ) is a former Canadian ski racer, luge and water skier. In the course of her sporting career, she won a total of 18 Canadian national championships in various sports.

biography

Crutchfield began her career as an alpine racer. From 1959 to 1966 she was a member of the Canadian national ski team. In 1960 she slipped into the team for the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley as a substitute runner for Anne Heggtveit , but was not used there. In the same year she confirmed her nomination by winning the Ryan Cup . The following year she took part in the legendary Hahnenkamm race in Kitzbühel and finished in 11th place. In 1962 and 1964 she won her first two Canadian championship titles. In February 1964 she made her debut at the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck . She started in all three races, the best result was 16th place in the slalom. Crutchfield was six times Canadian champion (downhill 1962 and 1964, giant slalom 1963, slalom 1962, combination 1962 and 1964).

Thanks to her acquaintance with the Canadian Olympic bobsleigh champion Victor Emery , Crutchfield discovered luge in 1967. She immediately became Canadian champion in one of the women twice in a row in 1967 and 1968 and also qualified in this sport for the Winter Olympics in 1968 . In Grenoble she finally came twelfth in the women's competition.

She built her third successful sports career in water skiing. Over the course of her career, she added a total of 14 more to her collection of titles. To do this, she set several national records in water ski long jump. She was the first Canadian to jump over 100 feet.

In 1984 she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Canada Ski Museum for her athletic merits .

Web links

• Linda Crutchfield in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )