The 1961 United States Figure Skating Championships was an event organized by U.S. Figure Skating to determine the U.S. national champions and the U.S. team for the 1961 World Championships. Medals were awarded in four colors: gold (first), silver (second), bronze (third), and pewter (fourth) in four disciplines – men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing – across three levels: senior, junior, and novice. The event was held at the World Arena in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from January 25 to January 29, 1961. The competition was dedicated to the memory of Howard D. Herbert, president of the United States Figure Skating Association, who had died suddenly just a few days before the competition opened.
The event is noted especially for its catastrophic aftermath, in which most of the U.S. team died in the crash of Sabena Flight 548 on their way to the World Championships in Prague. Because many of the top American figure skaters (including Carol Heiss and David Jenkins) had retired from the sport after the 1960 Winter Olympics, new champions were crowned in all four disciplines.
In the ladies' event, Stephanie Westerfeld had a narrow lead over Laurence Owen after the compulsory figures and performed well enough in the free skating that she might have won the competition. However, Owen followed with a superior effort in the free skate and won the title on a 4-1 split of the first-place ordinals. The men's competition was won by Bradley Lord, likewise in a come-from-behind victory in the free skating after having been second to Gregory Kelley in the compulsory figures. Maribel Owen and Dudley Richards, the silver medalists from the previous year, were the clear winners of the pairs event, while Diane Sherbloom and Larry Pierce -- skating in their first season together—took the ice dance championship.
A notable feature of this event is that it was the first time the United States Figure Skating Championships were covered on national television, with a modest rights fee being paid by CBS. Sportscaster Bud Palmer provided the "play-by-play", and Dick Button provided the commentary for the event, a role Button continued to perform for decades after the Championships broadcasts were picked up by ABC Sports in subsequent years.
Read more about 1961 United States Figure Skating Championships: Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words united, states, figure and/or skating:
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get it—Spain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United States—but do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“If the Soviet Union can give up the Brezhnev Doctrine for the Sinatra Doctrine, the United States can give up the James Monroe Doctrine for the Marilyn Monroe Doctrine: Let’s all go to bed wearing the perfume we like best.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)
“He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb, the feats of a lion.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go, and is only right admirable when to all its beauty and speed a subserviency to the will, like that of walking, is added.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)