Last British woman to win an individual ice-skating gold medal at the Winter Olympics
Jeannette Altwegg, who has died aged 90, was the last British woman to win an Olympic individual ice-skating gold medal – at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. Her rare and celebrated triumph, at the age of 21, would normally have led to a lucrative professional career – or at least another couple of tilts at the Olympics as an amateur. But in fact Altwegg opted shortly afterwards to leave skating altogether, taking up a domestic position at a home for child refugees in Switzerland before getting married and raising four children. When she unexpectedly came back into the public eye in 2011, she explained unapologetically that “my family has been, and is, my career”.
However, Altwegg also revealed that injury had played a part in her disappearance. “I messed up my knee in my last year of competing and at that time they were not able to operate on it as they are now,” she said. “In a way it’s good to stop when you’re at your peak. It’s nice that you don’t go on and on.”