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 Bombay, India |
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| Former coach | Jacques Gerschwiler | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Skating club | Queens Ice Dance Club, London | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 1952 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Jeannette Altwegg, CBE (married name: Wirz; born 8 September 1930)[1] is a British former 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.
Contents
Life and career
Early life
Altwegg was born in Bombay, India and raised in Lancashire, the daughter of a British mother and Swiss father.[1] She was a competitive tennis player, reaching the junior finals at Wimbledon in 1947 before giving up the sport to focus on skating.
Skating career
Altwegg was coached by Jacques Gerschwiler. 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] In 1953, she was awarded the CBE. She was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993.[3]
Later life
After retiring from skating, Altwegg worked at Pestalozzi Children's Village in Switzerland.[4] She married Marc Wirz, the brother of Swiss skater Susi Wirz. They had four children before divorcing in 1973.[1] Their daughter Christina Wirz was a member of Switzerland's 1983 World champion curling team.[5]
Results
| International | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 |
| Winter Olympics | 3rd | 1st | ||||
| World Championships | 5th | 4th | 3rd | 2nd | 1st | |
| European Championships | 4th | 5th | 3rd | 2nd | 1st | 1st |
| National | ||||||
| British Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | ||
References
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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 medallists for Great Britain
- Olympic bronze medallists for Great Britain
- Olympic medalists in figure skating
- English Olympic medallists
- British people of Swiss descent
- World Figure Skating Championships medalists
- European Figure Skating Championships medalists
- Sportspeople from Mumbai
- World Figure Skating Hall of Fame inductees
- Medalists at the 1948 Winter Olympics
- Medalists at the 1952 Winter Olympics
