1968 Winter Olympics / Figure Skating

Figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics
information
venue	Grenoble
Competition venue	Stade de glace
Nations	17th
Athletes	96 (46 , 50 )
date	8-16 February 1968
decisions	3
← Innsbruck 1964 Sapporo 1972 →

At the X. Olympic Winter Games in Grenoble in 1968 , three competitions in figure skating took place. The venue was the Stade de glace (today Palais des sports). The artificial ice rink had the standardized size of 60 x 30 meters and there was space for 12,000 spectators in the hall. For each participating country two women, two men and two couples were allowed to start. If a country had achieved a place in the top 12 at the previous World Cup, it received a third starting place in the respective discipline.

As part of the closing ceremony, an ice dancing competition was held as a demonstration , which has only been an Olympic discipline since 1976. There was no evaluation, the ten best couples from the last World Cup were invited.

Balance sheet

Medal table

space	country				total
1	Soviet Union	1	1	-	2
	United States	1	1	-	2
3	Austria	1	-	-	1
4th	GDR	-	1	-	1
5	BR Germany	-	-	1	1
	France	-	-	1	1
	Czechoslovakia	-	-	1	1

Medalist

competitor	gold	silver	bronze
Men's	Wolfgang Schwarz	Tim Wood	Patrick Péra
Ladies	Peggy Fleming	Gabriele Seyfert	Hana Mašková
Couples	Lyudmila Belousova / Oleg Protopopov	Tatjana Schuk / Alexander Gorelik	Margot Glockshuber / Wolfgang Danne

Results

• K = freestyle
• KP = short program
• P = compulsory
• Pz = place number
• Pts = points

Men's

Olympic Champion 1964 : Manfred Schnelldorfer (FRG / EUA) / World Champion 1967 : Emmerich Danzer (AUT)

space	country	athlete	P	K	Pz	Pt.
1	AUT	Wolfgang Schwarz	01	02	013	1904.1
2	United States	Tim Wood	02	03	017th	1891.6
3	FRA	Patrick Péra	03	07th	031	1864.5
4th	AUT	Emmerich Danzer	04th	01	029	1873.0
5	United States	Gary Visconti	06th	05	052	1810.2
6th	United States	John Misha Petkevich	08th	04th	056	1806.2
7th	CAN	Jay Humphry	09	06th	063	1795.0
8th	TCH	Ondrej Nepela	05	10	073	1772.8
9	URS	Sergei Cheetverukhin	11	11	093	1737.0
10	TCH	Marian Filc	13	08th	097	1734.2
11	GDR	Günter Zöller	10	14th	100	1727.9
12	FRG	Peter Krick	07th	16	104	1723.2
13	FRA	Philippe Pelissier	14th	12	114	1706.0
14th	ITA	Giordano Abbondati	11	18th	117	1690.9
15th	GBR	Michael Williams	15th	15th	147	1650.9
16	CAN	David McGillivray	21st	09	139	1663.7
17th	GBR	Haig Oundjian	19th	13	154	1639.5
18th	URS	Sergei Volkov	16	17th	158	1632.0
19th	HUN	Jenő Ébert	17th	24	180	1595.4
20th	FRA	Jacques Mrozek	18th	20th	179	1601.0
21st	JPN	Tsuguhiko Kozuka	24	19th	189	1584.0
22nd	CAN	Steve Hutchinson	22nd	21st	193	1578.3
23	AUT	Günter Anderl	20th	23	193	1574.7
24	FRG	Jürgen Eberwein	25th	22nd	219	1530.3
25th	JPN	Yutaka Higuchi	23	26th	218	1529.6
26th	GDR	Jan Hoffmann	26th	25th	238	1437.8
27	SWE	Thomas Callerud	27	27	241	1399.3
28	COR	Lee Kwang-young	28	28	250	1360.3

Mandatory: 13./14. February, 2:30 p.m.
Freestyle: February 16, 7:00 p.m.

28 figure skaters from 14 countries took part in this competition. A duty with five figures and a five-minute freestyle had to be shown. For the overall rating, the compulsory counted 60 percent, the freestyle 40 percent. The start of the freestyle was brought forward by 30 minutes at short notice.

Emmerich Danzer , who had not lost a competition since 1966, was considered the favorite for the Olympic victory, but the fourth of five compulsory figures failed him and he fell back to fourth place. The best runner in duty was Danzer's compatriot Wolfgang Schwarz , the vice-world champion of the two previous years. This was followed by Tim Wood and Patrick Pera .
For the freestyle, Schwarz was the last of the medal contenders with No. 36; Péra had 16, Danzer 17 and Wood number 20.
Due to the high weighting of duty in the evaluation system, nothing changed in the first four positions in the freestyle, although Danzer received by far the best evaluation for his performance. The decisive factor was not the individual grades, but the number of places: five of the nine jury members put Péra in third place. Wolfgang Schwarz was the first Olympic champion in the men's competition who never became world champion. At the age of twelve,
Jan Hoffmann from the GDR was the youngest male participant in the history of the Olympic Games.

Ladies

Olympic champion 1964 : Sjoukje Dijkstra (NED) / World champion 1967 : Peggy Fleming (USA).

space	country	sportswoman	P	K	Pz	Pt.
1	United States	Peggy Fleming	01	01	009	1970.5
2	GDR	Gabriele Seyfert	02	02	018th	1882.3
3	TCH	Hana Mašková	04th	03	031	1828.8
4th	United States	Albertina Noyes	05	07th	040	1797.3
5	AUT	Beatrix Schuba	03	12	051	1773.2
6th	HUN	Zsuzsa Almássy	06th	08th	057	1757.0
7th	CAN	Albertina Noyes	10	04th	063	1759.4
8th	JPN	Kumiko Ōkawa	08th	05	061	1763.6
9	United States	Janet Lynn	14th	16	090	1698.7
10	FRG	Monika Feldmann	11	13	099	1687.1
11	GBR	Sally-Anne Stapleford	07th	17th	105	1680.9
12	URS	Elena Shcheglova	13	10	110	1670.4
13	CAN	Linda Carbonetto	24	09	111	1662.9
14th	JPN	Kazumi Yamashita	15th	14th	139	1639.0
15th	GBR	Patricia Dodd	09	27	140	1634.6
16	URS	Galina Grschibovskaya	25th	11	144	1628.5
17th	FRG	Petra Ruhrmann	16	18th	161	1611.2
18th	AUT	Elisabeth Mikula	17th	19th	164	1612.5
19th	FRG	Eileen Zillmer	12	23	171	1600.3
20th	FRA	Micheline Joubert	28	15th	182	1594.8
21st	TCH	Marie Víchová	20th	16	187	1580.4
22nd	SUI	Charlotte Walter	21st	26th	202.5	1571.5
23	AUT	Elisabeth Nestler	26th	21st	208	1562.6
24	GBR	Frances Waghorn	22nd	28	211	1557.2
25th	ITA	Rita Trapanese	27	24	216.5	1549.2
26th	JPN	Haruko Ishida	18th	25th	218	1552.7
27	FRA	Sylvaine Duban	19th	29	219	1551.4
28	GDR	Sonja Morgenstern	29	22nd	251	1475.9
29	ROME	Beatrice Huştiu	31	20th	257	1457.2
30th	COR	Lee Hyun-joo	30th	30th	271	1359.9
31	COR	Kim Hae-kyung	32	31	277	1336.2
	CAN	Lyndsai Cowan	23	withdrawn

Mandatory: 7./8. February, 7:30 a.m.
Freestyle: February 10, 6:30 p.m.

31 figure skaters from 15 countries took part in this competition. In duty, these had to show five figures, followed by a four-minute freestyle. As with the men, the duty counted 60 percent for the overall rating, the freestyle 40 percent.

After the duty, Peggy Fleming was already unassailable at the top, she had been placed first by all judges. Her lead over Seyfert was 77.2 points, which for her part also had silver. Schuba, who was third at the time, was not expected to be able to hold onto that position, fourth-placed Mašková was 41.7 points behind Seyfert.
Fleming also showed the best performance in the final freestyle. Seyferth stayed in second place, while Mašková advanced to third place. Schuba fell back to fifth place.

Couples

Olympic champion 1964 and world champion 1967 : Lyudmila Belousova / Oleg Protopopow (URS).

space	country	Pair	KP	K	Pz	Pt.
1	URS	Lyudmila Belousova / Oleg Protopopov	01	01	010	315.2
2	URS	Tatjana Schuk / Alexander Gorelik	02	02	017th	312.3
3	FRG	Margot Glockshuber / Wolfgang Danne	03	03	030th	304.4
4th	GDR	Heidemarie Steiner / Heinz-Ulrich Walther	04th	04th	037	303.1
5	URS	Tamara Moskwina / Alexei Mishin	06th	05	044	300.3
6th	United States	Cynthia Kauffman / Ronald Kauffman	05	07th	058	297.0
7th	United States	Sandi Sweitzer / Roy Wagelein	08th	06th	64.5	294.5
8th	FRG	Gudrun Hauss / Walter Häfner	07th	09	067	293.6
9	GDR	Irene Müller / Hans-Georg Dallmer	09	08th	082	289.4
10	TCH	Bohunka Šrámková / Jan Šrámek	10	10	91.5	285.8
11	FRG	Mariane Streifler / Herbert Wiesinger	12	11	100	282.7
12	TCH	Liana Drahová / Peter Bartosiewicz	11	15th	116	276.8
13	United States	JoJo Starbuck / Kenneth Shelley	14th	12	121	276.0
14th	POLE	Janina Poremska / Piotr Sczypa	13	14th	120	274.1
15th	AUT	Evelyne Schneider / Wilhelm Bietak	15th	13	129	272.2
16	CAN	Anna Ford / Richard Stephens	16	16	138	269.2
17th	CAN	Betty McKilligan / John McKilligan	17th	17th	154	254.8
18th	GBR	Linda Bernard / Raymond Wilson	18th	18th	160	251.2

Belousova / Protopopow, 1968

Short program: February 11, 2:30 p.m.
Freestyle: February 14, 8:00 p.m.

The scoring scheme for pair skating, in which 18 pairs from nine countries took part, differed considerably from that of the individual competitions. The newly introduced short program counted 25 percent for the overall rating, with the number of elements to be shown being limited to six. The freestyle counted 75 percent and lasted five minutes. In the freestyle, nothing changed in the first four positions.
After the compulsory freestyle, Beloussowa / Protopopow led with 12th place and 103.6 points ahead of Schuk / Gorelik (15; 103.3), Glockshuber / Danne (40; 99.8), Steiner / Walther (47; 89.3). Schneider / Bietak were fifteenth (129.5; 89.6), although the seam of the trousers had burst in an improper place for the gentleman and the trainer Wächter was able to sew it in time.
It was reported that the Austrian couple Schneider / Bietak had to return home on February 17th because they had not used the days after the Olympic competitions for training, which is why they may not be sent to Geneva for the World Championships .

Web links

• Figure skating at the 1968 Winter Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Black has gold within reach" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 16, 1968, p. 13 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
2. ↑ «Schuba held third place firmly» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 9, 1968, p. 13 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
3. ↑ «Oleg and Ludmilla again in front» . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 13, 1968, p. 12 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
4. ↑ «Couple walkers are traveling home today», POS. Columns 2 and 3 below . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 17, 1968, p. 13 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).