Figure Skating At The 1972 Winter Olympics
Figure skating was contested at the 1972 Winter Olympic Games . The competition took place at the Makomanai Skating Rink & Mikaho Indoor Skating Rink.
Results of both the men's and ladies' singles events were dominated by placements in the compulsory figures, which at this time were nominally worth 50% of the total score but in fact weighted more heavily than the free skating due to being judged using a wider range of marks.
In the men's event, Ondrej Nepela, the figures winner, took the gold in spite of placing only 4th in the free skate after falling on his triple loop jump. The free skate winner was Sergei Chetverukhin, who skated one of his best performances at this event to take the silver medal. Patrick Péra, second in the figures, had a poor free skate in which he fell on a triple salchow jump early in his program and then made other mistakes. Nonetheless the weight given to figures allowed him to take the bronze medal ahead of John Misha Petkevich, Kenneth Shelley, and Toller Cranston, who all skated dynamic programs with at least one cleanly-landed triple jump apiece.
The effect of the figures was even more pronounced in the ladies' competition, where gold-medal winner Beatrix Schuba placed only 7th in the free skating, performing mostly single jumps. The free skate was won by Janet Lynn, who received a perfect mark of 6.0 in spite of falling on a flying sit spin. Lynn's skating captivated the Japanese audience, especially when she got up smiling from her fall. Lynn took the bronze while Karen Magnussen, second in the free skate with a strong performance, took the silver. The third-place skater in the free skate, Sonja Morgenstern, included a triple salchow in her program, which at this time was very rare for a female skater. She placed 6th overall.
The pairs competition was a tight battle between the two top Russian teams. Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov did not skate their best, with Ulanov missing his required double salchow jump in the short program and Rodnina making an error in the jump combination at the beginning of their free skate. In the end they won a 6-3 decision over their teammates Liudmila Smirnova and Andrei Suraikin. The bronze-medal team of Manuela Groß and Uwe Kagelmann made no major errors and received the highest technical merit marks from some of the judges for their program. Their elements included a throw double axel which at this time was rarely attempted.
Read more about Figure Skating At The 1972 Winter Olympics: Medal Table
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