Dick Button
Richard Totten "Dick " Button ( born July 18, 1929 in Englewood, New Jersey) is a former American figure skater, who started in a single run. He is the Olympic champion of 1948 and 1952, the world champion from 1948 to 1952 and European champion in 1948.
Career
Richard Button grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. At the age of 12 he began to train seriously. His father sent him to New York for hours at Eistanztrainer Joe Carroll to take. This recommended him Gustave Lussi, the button should train for the rest of his career.
At 16 Button 1946, after he was a year ago already become Junior Champion, American Champion in seniors. This earned him qualification for the World Cup 1947., Where he promptly won the silver medal behind the Swiss Hans Gerschwiler. It was the last time that he underperformed first place in a competition. In this World Cup, he met Ulrich Salchow, who was disappointed that Button did not win him and therefore his first international cup, which he had won in 1901 gave. After the 1972 Olympics Button gave this trophy for the same reasons John Misha Petkevich on.
At the European Championships in 1948 came again to the meeting with Hans Gerschwiler. This time won button. Because from now on, no non-Europeans were more admitted to the European Championships, Button was the only American to ever win a European Figure Skating Championships.
Also at the Olympic Games in 1948, Button and Gerschwiler contrasted with. Button dared take a double Axel in his program because he had this been the first time in training, one day before the competition. He succeeded also in the competition to stand the double Axel, which made him the first figure skater who managed this in a competition. Button defeated Gerschwiler and thus became the first Americans, the figure skating Olympic champion. He is still the youngest male Olympic gold medalist in figure skating. Button was able to win and the subsequent World Cup, he met for the last time on Gerschwiler.
In February 1948, Button, his mother and his coach at a skating exhibition in Prague. After the Communists seized power, they had to be brought from the U.S. Army out of the country.
Button was planning to study at Yale University in the fall of 1947, but postponed the one year due to the Olympics. Originally assured him that he could continue to pursue figure skating alongside their studies, as long as his grades were good enough, but later he was told that he had to give up figure skating when he einschriebe in Yale. Then he applied to Harvard University in Boston and was accepted there. He was here with his studies on figure skating, which he did until 1952, when he left the university with a degree. Button trained in the Skating Club of Boston and commuted between Boston and Lake Placid.
Button won every competition in which he participated from now on. 1949 and 1950 he won for the world championship title before Hungary Ede Király. As the reigning champion, and the first figure skaters who jumped a double Axel and the "Camel Spin" at all, Button fell from now on under pressure because they expected a new jump or a new element of him in every season. In 1949 he showed a combination with two double ride salvors, 1950, a combination with three double ride salvors, in 1951, a combination with a double Axel and a double Rittberger and another with two double Axel jumps. For the 1952 season, he worked with Gustave Lussi on a triple jump. They trained for a triple Rittberger, the button in the training was for the first time in December 1951 and later in a show running in Vienna. At the Olympics 1952 he landed the triple loop jumps successfully and was thus the first figure skater, in a competition was a triple jump. Button defended his Olympic title and subsequently for the fifth consecutive time world champion, just like last year ahead of his compatriot James Grogan.
With five world titles is Richard Button until today the most successful Americans in World Championships and a total third best figure skater Ulrich Salchow behind and Karl Schäfer. Also he is the only American with two Olympic victories. Only the Swede Gillis Grafström got a title more in the Olympics. At the national level button keeps with his seven consecutive titles from 1946 to 1952 with Roger Turner, the the same in the period from 1928 to 1934 managed to break the record.
Since 1962 he worked as a figure skating commentator for ABC Sports. By analyzing the figure skating competitions at the Olympic Games in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, to button enjoyed great popularity. In 1981, he won an Emmy.
1976, the year of its founding, Button was inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Button married figure skating coach in 1975 Slavka Kohout, the marriage ended in divorce in 1983. He has two children, Edward and Emily.
On July 5, 1978 Button suffered a serious head injury when he was one of the victims of a gang, armed with baseball bats in Central Park, passers slapped together.
At 31 December 2000 Button suffered a fractured skull when he fell on a public ice rink in New York State. He recovered from it again.
Still in 2010 he commented on the figure skating competitions of the Olympic Games for NBC.
Results
- N = Novice; J = Junior