Jeannette Altwegg
| Jeannette Altwegg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Jeannette Eleanor Altwegg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented |  United Kingdom |
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| Born | 8 September 1930 Mumbai, India |
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| Skating club | Queens Ice Dance Club, London | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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| Olympic medal record | ||
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| Figure skating | ||
| Gold | 1952 Oslo | Ladies' singles |
| Bronze | 1948 St. Moritz | Ladies' singles |
Jeannette Altwegg CBE (married name: Wirz; born 8 September 1930 in Mumbai, India)[1] is a British figure skater. She is the 1952 Olympic champion in ladies' singles, the 1948 Olympic bronze medalist, the 1951 World champion, and the 1951 & 1952 European champion.
Altwegg was born in Mumbai, India and raised in Lancashire, the daughter of a British mother and Swiss father.[1]
Altwegg was a competitive tennis player, reaching the junior finals at Wimbledon in 1947 before giving up the sport to focus on skating. She was known for her strong compulsory figures.[1]
Her win at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo was the first individual gold medal won by a British woman in the Winter Olympics. Her achievement as a British female individual Winter Olympics gold medalist was not matched until the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver when Amy Williams won gold in Skeleton.[2] She remains the only British woman to have won two individual medals (gold and bronze) at the Winter Olympics.
After her Olympic victory, Altwegg bypassed a lucrative professional career due to a knee injury.[1] She went to work in Pestalozzi Children's Village in Switzerland[3] and married Marc Wirz, the brother of Swiss skater Susi Wirz.[1] They had four children and divorced in 1973.[1] Their daughter Christina Wirz was a member of the Swiss 1983 World champion and European bronze medalist curling team.[4]
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[edit] Honours
In 1953 she was awarded the CBE.
She was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993.[5]
[edit] Results
| Event | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 |
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| Winter Olympics | 3rd | 1st | ||||
| World Championships | 5th | 4th | 3rd | 2nd | 1st | |
| European Championships | 4th | 5th | 3rd | 2nd | 1st | 1st |
| British Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f Russell, Susan D. (August 1, 2011). "Jeannette Altwegg: Recollections from the Past". IFS Magazine. http://www.ifsmagazine.com/articles/570-jeannette-altwegg-recollections-from-the-past.
- ^ "Amy Williams wins historic gold medal at Winter Olympics". Bath Chronicle. 20 February 2010. Archived from the original on March 28, 2010. http://www.thisisbath.co.uk/sport/Sensational-start-puts-Williams-sight-Olympic-gold/article-1849853-detail/article.html.
- ^ Goodbody, John (21 February 2010). "Jeannette Altwegg: the tennis player who skated her way to gold". Sunday Times. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/article7034802.ece.
- ^ "European Curling Federation: ECC Winners". http://www.ecf-web.org/ecc_winners.html.
- ^ "World Figure Skating Hall of Fame". http://www.worldskatingmuseum.org.
[edit] External links
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- 1930 births
- Living people
- British female single skaters
- Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- Figure skaters at the 1948 Winter Olympics
- Figure skaters at the 1952 Winter Olympics
- Olympic figure skaters of Great Britain
- Olympic gold medalists for Great Britain
- Olympic bronze medalists for Great Britain
- Olympic medalists in figure skating
- British people of Swiss descent
