Theresa Weld

Theresa Weld
Full name	Theresa Weld Blanchard
nation	United States
birthday	August 21, 1893
place of birth	Brookline, Massachusetts
date of death	March 12, 1978
Place of death	Boston, Massachusetts
Career
discipline	Single run, pair run
Partner	Nathaniel Niles
society	SC of Boston
Medal table
Olympic medals 0 × 0 × 1 ×
Olympic games bronze Antwerp 1920 Ladies

Theresa Weld Blanchard (born August 21, 1893 in Brookline , Massachusetts , † March 12, 1978 in Boston , Massachusetts) was an American figure skater who started in single and pair skating .

Theresa Weld was the daughter of A. Windsor Weld, a founding member of the Boston Figure Skating Club, who taught the modern, free, and flowing international style that Jackson Haines had popularized, rather than the old-fashioned English style with its minimal body movement. Weld began taking professional figure skating lessons at the age of twelve.

In the individual run, she became the first US champion in 1914 . From 1920 to 1924 she won the national championship five times in a row. She did not take part in any single world championships . For this she played three Olympic Games . At her first Olympic Games in Antwerp in 1920 she won the bronze medal behind the Swedes Magda Julin and Svea Norén . She was the first athlete who did not come from Europe and won an Olympic medal in figure skating. At these games she was the first woman to show a Salchow , and she also jumped a Rittberger . For this, however, she was reprimanded, because this was regarded as unladylike and punished with deductions by some judges. Weld finished fourth in Chamonix in 1924 and tenth in St. Moritz in 1928 .

In pair skating, Weld won the US championship title at the side of Nathaniel Niles in 1918 and 1920 to 1927. With these nine titles, they are record holders in the couples competition at US championships. You took part in three world championships , but could not win a medal. They finished seventh in 1928 , sixth in 1930 and eighth in 1932 . They also played three Olympic Games. They placed fourth in Antwerp in 1920 , sixth in Chamonix in 1924 and ninth in St. Moritz in 1928 .

Weld married Charles Blanchard in 1920. She remained closely connected to figure skating even after her career ended. In 1923 she founded Skating Magazine, the official figure skating magazine of the US Figure Skating Association, together with Nathaniel Niles, and remained its editor until 1963. Until Nathaniel Niles' death in 1932, he was co-editor.

Results

Single run

Competition / year	1914	1918	1920	1921	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928
winter Olympics			3.				4th				10.
American championships	1.	2.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	2.	2.	3.

Pair skating

(with Nathaniel Niles )

Competition / year	1914	1918	1920	1921	1922	1923	1924	1925	1926	1927	1928	1929	1930	1932
winter Olympics			4th				6th				9.
World championships											7th		6th	8th.
American championships	2.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.	2.	2.

Web links

• Theresa Weld in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biography ( Memento from April 30, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )