Jeannette Altwegg

Jeannette Eleanor Altwegg ( born September 8, 1930 in Bombay, India) is a former British figure skater who started in a single run. She is the Olympic champion from 1952, World Champion in 1951 and European champion in 1951 and 1952.

Jeannette Altwegg was born in 1930 in India as the daughter of an English mother and a Swiss father. Two years later the family moved to England. With six years Altwegg began to devote the ice and received private lessons. Her father often took her on holiday in Switzerland. There she was trained by Jacques Gerschwiler, the uncle of the World Champion from 1947, Hans Gerschwiler.

However, Altwegg also had talent in tennis. When in 1947 at Wimbledon also a junior tournament was held for the first time, she took part in it, and reached the finals. In the same year she became a British junior champion in figure skating and ended the World Cup in fifth place. After these successes, she gave up tennis and focused only on even figure skating. In 1947 she moved with her family to Switzerland.

At the Olympic Winter Games in 1948 in St. Moritz Altwegg won the bronze medal in figure skating. In 1951 she became World and European champion in this discipline and repeated their success at the European Championships the following year. The greatest success of her career, she won in 1952, when she won the gold medal in Oslo in at the Olympic Games. After this success, she was at the age of 21 years her resignation. At the forthcoming World Championships in Paris, where she could start as defending champion, they already no longer participated.

Unlike its famous predecessor Sonja Henie Altwegg not gave up her amateur status in order to act as a professional runner at runway show and gala evenings. She beat out a number of very lucrative offers and instead took a job as a supervisor in the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Trogen in to look after orphans. 1953 she was also awarded an Order of the British Empire ( CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. She was inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993.

She married Marc Wirz, the brother of the Swiss figure skater Susi Wirz. They have four children and divorced in 1973. Daughter Cristina Wirz 1983 curling world champion and won bronze at the European Championships.

Results

Winter Olympic Games 1949 World Figure Skating Championships 1950 World Figure Skating Championships 1951 World Figure Skating Championships 1949 European Figure Skating Championships 1950 European Figure Skating Championships 1951 European Figure Skating Championships 1952 European Figure Skating Championships Single skating 1947 World Figure Skating Championships 1952 World Figure Skating Championships World Figure Skating Hall of Fame 1948 World Figure Skating Championships 1947 European Figure Skating Championships 1948 European Figure Skating Championships Magda Julin Barbara Ann Scott Tenley Albright Carol Heiss Peggy Fleming Trixi Schuba Dorothy Hamill Kristi Yamaguchi Sarah Hughes Adelina Sotnikova Lily Kronberger Cecilia Colledge Megan Taylor Jacqueline du Bief Gundi Busch Petra Burka Gabriele Seyfert Karen Magnussen Christine Errath Dianne de Leeuw Elaine Zayak Rosalynn Sumners Debi Thomas Jill Trenary Chen Lu Michelle Kwan Kimmie Meissner Carolina Kostner Eva Pawlik Valda Osborn Hanna Walter Regine Heitzer Claudia Kristofics-Binder Claudia Leistner Sarah Meier (figure skater)
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