Robert Paul (figure skater)

Robert Paul
nation	Canada
birthday	June 2, 1937
place of birth	Toronto
Career
discipline	Pair skating
Partner	Barbara Wagner
society	Toronto Skating Club
Trainer	Sheldon Galbraith
status	resigned
End of career	1960
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 4 × 0 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold Squaw Valley 1960 Couples  World figure skating championships gold Colorado Springs 1957 Couples gold Paris 1958 Couples gold Colorado Springs 1959 Couples gold Vancouver 1960 Couples

Robert Paul (born June 2, 1937 in Toronto ) is a former Canadian figure skater who started in pair skating .

Career

Initially, Robert Paul concentrated on his career as a single runner , but began to run in pairs in 1952 as a partner of Barbara Wagner . The pair were coached from the start by Sheldon Galbraith .

Wagner and Paul celebrated their first success at national championships in 1954 when they won the Canadian Junior Championships in pair skating. Two years later, they were also able to win the national title among the seniors. From then on until the end of their amateur career, they remained unbeaten at the Canadian Championships and won the pair skating title five times in a row between 1956 and 1960.

Paul and Wagner also remained undefeated at the World Figure Skating Championships between 1957 and 1960 . They also won the North American Figure Skating Championships in 1957 and 1959.

At the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley , Paul and Wagner initially broke off their freestyle routine because the record jumped while playing the freestyle music and irritated them. However, they were allowed to start again and became the undisputed Olympic champion with a flawless freestyle. They were the first Canadian Olympic champions in pair skating. Until the Olympic Games in 2002 , they also remained the only Canadian couple to win the Olympics.

After the successful year 1960 Paul and Wagner left the amateur sport, but appeared as professionals at the ice revue Ice Capades until 1964 .

After his competitive career, Paul became a trainer and choreographer. His students included Peggy Fleming , Linda Fratianne, and Dorothy Hamill . The American champion 2008, Mirai Nagasu , is also supervised by Paul, among others.

Results

Pair skating

(with Barbara Wagner )

Competition / year	1955	1956	1957	1958	1959	1960
winter Olympics		6th				1.
World championships	5.	5.	1.	1.	1.	1.
Canadian Championships	2.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.

Web links

• Robert Paul in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Biography in Canada Sports Hall of Fame (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} cshof.ca: Canada Sports Hall of Fame - Honored Members: Profile . Retrieved March 17, 2008
2. ↑ ^{a b} Hall of Fame: Honored Members ( Memento from December 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ GoldenSkate: North American Figure Skating Championships ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved March 17, 2008 
4. ↑ Profile of Mirai Nagasu . Retrieved March 11, 2014