Mothers & Daughters

Early one morning last week, a pert young blonde stuck her head through a rinkside doorway at Philadelphia's Arena and called to a friend across the ice:

"Mary Ann, where do you change?" The easy informality lasted about as long as it took to get an answer. Once she found the locker room and laced on her skates, World Figure Skating Champion Carol Heiss, 16, became all business. She was about to compete for the U.S. title in the rubber match with Massachusetts' Tenley Albright, four times U.S. champion, and winner of the Olympic championship last month in Cortina, Italy.

Far from acting like enemies who had been staring icicles at each other for weeks. Olympic Champion Albright and World Champion Heiss all but smothered each other in warm hugs for the benefit of photographers. All that talk of a feud between them, volunteered Carol's mother, Marie, was "started by a newspaperwoman." But when they skated onto the rink, all became cold precision.

Smooth Curves. Pony-tailed Carol stood aside, in the loquaciously doting care of her mother, while Tenley glided into the "school figures," the required set of tight patterns that each contestant had to trace and retrace with geometric certainty. Around the smooth curves of a figure eight pretty Pre-Med Student Albright floated through her intricate gyrations. She was careful to lean so that she rode on only one edge of her hollow-ground blades, careful to switch from edge to edge without "flatting," i.e., scraping the ice with both edges at once, careful always to give the appearance of complete control.

Even the sound of the skates gliding along told the judges the difference between a missed "change" or a smartly executed maneuver. So the five judges listened to the whisper of steel on ice, watched Tenley's flashing feet, her graceful arms and shoulders as she kept her delicate balance. And after each figure the judges skated out to inspect the size of the circles cut by Tenley's skates, the accuracy of her retracings, the telltale scrapings that signified "flats."

With a skill that seemed equal to the casual eye, Carol Heiss performed the same graceful maneuvers and the judges went through it all again. Using computations too complicated for the casual spectator, they parceled out points. Albright got 1,001; Heiss got 9.4 fewer.

Barring an unexpected turnabout in the next day's free figure trials, this meant that Tenley Albright had beaten Carol Heiss again. No one else was close. "Oh, the judges like Tenley." whispered Mrs. Heiss to a companion. "They always do." Then she searched out Tenley Albright's mother, Elin, and congratulated her. "We've just lost the championship," Mrs. Heiss told newsmen. "I have already congratulated Tenley's mother, and I asked her to put it on record that I congratulated her this year one day ahead of time."

Decimal Close. Carol, though, was no defeatist. She skated all-out in the free figures in an effort to overtake Tenley, and thrilled the crowd with a four-minute repertory of spins, splits, axels and loops (the same one that won the world title at Garmisch). She had never done better. But Tenley Albright also was in top form; the ankle she injured before the Olympics was healed. Her spectacular mazurka, witches' jump followed by a drag, and an Axel Paulsen jump, were woven into a pattern of almost unbelievable perfection. The final score was decimal close, but the judges proclaimed Tenley Emma Albright winner and U.S. champion for the fifth straight year. It was the eighth time in nine meetings that she had beaten Carol.

Once more the girls posed arm in arm.

"We each know how the other feels right now," said Tenley.

"I think we do," said Carol.

Said Mrs. Heiss: "I'm delighted about everything. What would you want me to say? There would never be any champions if people were willing to settle for second, third or fourth."

The men skaters, too, finished in familiar order. Just as he had at the Olympics, the world championships, and three previous competitions for the U.S. title, Colorado's Hayes Alan Jenkins put on a performance that dazzled the judges and earned him a winning 1,694.33 points. Close behind (with 1,674.09) was the perennial runner-up, California's Ronnie Robertson. Third, as he had been all year: Hayes Jenkins' younger brother, David, with 1,646.97.

But a complaint from the German Skating Federation, accusing Ronnie Robertson of demanding more than legal expense money for his European exhibitions this winter, threw his second-place victory into doubt. As vocal as any of "the skating mothers," Ronnie's father. Naval Architect Albert R. Robertson, blew his stack: "It's politics, stinking politics." Said Ronnie's coach, Gus Lussi: "The whole thing is fishy, and I think it started in this country, not abroad."

Ronnie quietly skated his best amid the furor, then decided to leave all future amateur hassles behind. For a guarantee of $100,000, he signed a two-year contract with John Harris' Ice Capades.

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