Monday, Feb. 13, 1956
The Saving Skates
By any system of scoring, Russia ran off with the seventh Winter Olympics. In the unofficial arithmetic of sideline experts, the Soviets won with 121 points. Second: Austria, 78 1/2 third: Finland, 66 1/2. But strangely, it was a group of grim and driving U.S. females known in Cortina as "the Skating Mothers" who had the most to cheer about. Like mothers of most virtuosos, they drove their children hard, with fierce jealousy of their rivals. "They look like women who were born 150 years too late," said one newsman. "Otherwise. they would have been shouldering Madame Defarge away from her front seat at the guillotine." But the fierce ambition of the Skating Mothers paid off. In the midst of defeat in other events, the U.S. could still salve its pride with the lilting skill of Tenley Albright and Hayes Alan Jenkins, of Ronald Robertson and Carol Heiss, the spectacular figure skaters who swept past all opposition.
The precise and polished performance of World Champion Jenkins gave the U.S. its first gold medal. No sooner had the strains of The Star-Spangled Banner faded away than the Colorado stylist was all but forgotten. Accompanied only by his proud mother and his brother David (who finished third, behind California's Robertson), he hiked back through bitter cold to his hotel. No one had thought to send a car. Now everyone was worried about honey-haired Tenley Albright, the hard-luck kid from Newton, Mass. Only two weeks before, she had gashed her right ankle in a practice accident.
But Tenley Albright thrives on trouble. She started skating in the first place to speed her recovery from childhood polio. Poised and sure in her dark rose sweater, red flowers bright against her bobbed blonde hair, she swung into her free-skating routine. Gliding to the beat of a bright Offenbach medley, she picked up speed and leaped into a stag (a twisting jump in which the skater takes off backwards, turns, and sails forward, back arched and trailing leg extended).
Moving as if her leg had never been hurt, Tenley whirled through her complicated routine. Axels, splits, cross-foot spins were all combined in a daring dance. Only once did her bad ankle seem to buckle, but she recovered quickly. Judges gave her an almost perfect score.
Closest competition came from Long Island's Carol Heiss, 16. Blonde pony tail flying, she missed out by the narrowest of margins in the rigid requirements of school figures. "We call her the bridesmaid," said Carol's disappointed mother. "Always second to Tenley."
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