Sports Legends Figure Skaters

Profile manager: David Randall [send private message]

Winter never quite made it here to Dallas in December, so were going to another winter sport for January. This month we celebrate one of my favorite sports, the sport of figure skating.

People have been ice skating for centuries. However, figure skating in its current form didn't originated until the mid-19th century, although this original style of skating was stiff and formal and bore very little resemblance to modern figure skating. In the mid-1800s, improvements were brought about by American skater Jackson Haines, who is considered to have been the "father of modern figure skating". In the mid-1860s, Haines introduced a new style of skating, incorporating free and expressive techniques, which became known as the "international style". The International Skating Union was founded in 1892. The first European Figure Skating Championships were held in 1891 in Hamburg, Germany (won by Oskar Uhlig), and the first World Figure Skating Championships were held in 1896 in Saint Petersburg, Russia (won by Gilbert Fuchs). Britain's Madge Syers was the first woman to compete in the men's competition, finishing in second place behind Sweden's Ulrich Salchow. The ISU quickly banned women from competing against men and established a separate "ladies" competition in 1906. Pair skating was introduced at the 1908 World Championships, where the title was won by Anna Hübler and Heinrich Burger of Germany.

Figure skating was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when it was contested at the 1908 Olympics in London, sixteen years before the first Olympic Winter Games. The Olympic figure skating disciplines are men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. The four individual disciplines are also combined into a team event, which was first included in the Winter Olympics in 2014. The non-Olympic disciplines include synchronized skating, theater on Ice, and four skating.

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Note: If the final column in the below table is empty, it means that the Notable was already connected to the Global Tree at the time of this project began.

Figure Skating Legends

Name	Image	Born	Died	Nation	Starting CC7	Current CC7	CC7 Increase	Connection Status
Jackson Haines		1838	1875	USA	0	120	+120	Connected
Axel Paulsen		1855	1938	Norway	0	120	+120	Connected
Gilbert Fuchs		1871	1952	Germany	0	-	+	Not Connected
Ulrich Salchow		1877	1949	Denmark	0	225	+225	Connected
Lily Kronberger		1890	1974	Hungary	255	-	+	Connected
Madge Syers		1891	1919	England	2	109	+109	Connected
Gillis Grafström		1893	1938	Sweden	0	231	+231	Connected
Beatrix Loughran		1900	1975	USA	138	-	+	Connected
Gustav Lussi		1898	1993	USA	0	14	+14	Connected
Jacques Gerschwiler		1898	2000	Switzerland	0	-	+	Not Connected
Theresa Weld		1901	1972	USA	80	-	+	Connected
Andrée Burnet		1901	1993	France	1	16	+15	Connected
Herma Szabo		1902	1986	Austria	0	-	+	Not Connected
Ernest Baier		1905	2001	Germany	0	-	+	Not Connected
Karl Schäfer		1909	1976	Austria	0	9	+9	Not Connected
Montgomery Wilson		1909	1976	Canada	0	35	+35	Not Connected
Maribel Vinson		1911	1961	USA	0	1013	+1013	Connected
Sonja Henie		1912	1969	Norway	693	695	+2	Connected
Felix Kaspar		1915	2007	USA	0	2	+2	Not Connected
Werner Groebli		1915	2008	Switzerland	0	19	+19	Not Connected
Cecilia Colledge		1920	2008	England	508	509	+1	Connected
Norris Bowden		1926	1991	Canada	0	-	+	Not Connected
Barbara Ann Scott		1928	2012	Canada	356	-	+	Connected
Frances Dafoe		1929	2016	Canada	671	-	+	Connected
Jeannette Altwegg		1930	2021	England	0	5	+5	Not Connected
James Grogan	Image:Grogan-652-1.jpg	1931	2000	USA	1	192	+191	Connected
Ludmilla Belousova		1935	2017	Russia	0	-	+	Not Connected
Ronald Robertson		1937	2000	USA	0	6	+6	Not Connected
John Curry		1949	1994	England	0	2	+2	Not Connected
Sergi Grinkov		1967	1995	Russia	0	-	+	Not Connected