Madge Syers

Madge Syers
Madge Syers on the ice (photo published in Irving Brokaw's book The Art of Skating in 1915 )
Full name	Florence Madeleine Syers Cave
nation	United Kingdom
birthday	September 16, 1881
place of birth	London
date of death	September 9, 1917
Place of death	Weybridge
Career
discipline	Single run, pair run
Partner	Edgar Syers
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 1 × World Cup medals 2 × 1 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold London 1908 Ladies bronze London 1908 Couples  World figure skating championships silver London 1902 Men's gold Davos 1906 Ladies gold Vienna 1907 Ladies

Florence Madeleine "Madge" Syers , b. Cave (born September 16, 1881 in London , † September 9, 1917 in Weybridge ) was a British figure skater who started in single and pair skating . She is the first world and Olympic champion in figure skating for women.

Career

Madge Syers was one of 15 children of the wealthy Edward Jarvis Cave. Like many other high-ranking young girls, she began ice skating at Prince's Skating Rink in Knightsbridge. Unlike the other girls, she took this activity seriously and through sport she also met her future husband, the sports official, figure skater and figure skating coach Edgar Syers , who was 19 years older and had a great influence on her figure skating development. He encouraged them to abandon the old-fashioned English style with its minimal body movement and adopt the modern, free and flowing international style that Jackson Haines had popularized. She quickly became the best figure skater in the world. In 1899 she and her husband won the first British pair skating competition. In the same year, the couple married after Edgar Syers had just won bronze at the World Championships in Davos . In one of the first international pair skating competitions, the couple came second in Berlin.

Although the figure skating pair formed a fairly successful combination, it was the individual competitions that made Madge Syers famous. Since there was only one men's competition at the world championships at that time, but no rule that explicitly forbade women to participate, when she discovered this loophole in the regulations, she sensationally announced her participation in the 1902 World Cup in her native London. At the time, it was unheard of for women to participate in sports competitions, and so the officials of the International Skating Union (ISU) had never thought that a woman would even try to participate. Participation was won by the British association, the National Skating Association. Syers' husband was the union's general secretary.

However, Syers created the greatest sensation in the competition, where she became vice world champion behind Ulrich Salchow in ankle-length rock . He was said to be so impressed with her performance that he gave her his gold medal. After their participation, the organizers closed the loophole in the regulations and issued a rule that prohibited women from participating in the men's competition. They justified this with the fact that the long skirts of the ladies made it too difficult for the judges to correctly assess the footwork. In 1905 a women's competition was launched, but it was not until 1920 that it was recognized as an official world championship competition. Madge Syers became the first world figure skating champion in history in Davos in 1906 . A year later, she defended her title in Vienna , as in the previous year before Jenny Herz and Lily Kronberger .

Syers also won the first British figure skating championship in 1903. Again, there was only one competition for men. She relegated Horatio Torromé to second place and a year later her husband to defend the title.

Syers went as the clear favorite to the Olympic Games in London in 1908 , where she eventually became the first Olympic female figure skating champion . All five judges put them in first place in the compulsory figures as well as in the freestyle. At 27, she is still the oldest female Olympic champion to this day.

Together with her husband, Syers also took part in the pair skating competition of the Olympic Games and won bronze behind the first Olympic champions in pair skating Anna Hübler and Heinrich Burger from the German Empire and their compatriots Phyllis Johnson and James H. Johnson . Syers is - next to the German Ernst Baier , who succeeded in doing this in 1936 - one of only two people and the only woman who could win medals at the same Olympic Games in both individual and pair skating.

After the Olympics, Madge Syers, who was also an excellent swimmer and rider, said goodbye to active sport due to heart problems. She died of flu in 1917 at the age of only 35 .

Results

Single run

Competition / year	1902	1903	1904	1905	1906	1907	1908
Olympic games							1.
World championships	2. *				1.	1.
British Championships		1.*	1.*

* In the men's competition, as there was no women's competition yet

Pair skating

(with Edgar Syers )

Competition / year	1908
Olympic games	3.

Web links

• Madge Syers in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Eduard Hoffmann: Died 100 years ago - Madge Syers, first Olympic champion in figure skating . Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Calendar Sheet”, September 9, 2017