Henie's Tenth Championship.

Henie's Tenth Championship. Norwegian ice skater Sonja Henie not only won three Olympic gold medals and ten consecutive world championships, but also she redefined figure skating when she combined choreography and classical ballet techniques with her skating routines. . Henie Captures Tenth World Championship On a winter day in Paris, France, in 1936--a week after winning her third Olympic gold medal--ice skater Sonja Henie capped her sensational amateur career with her tenth consecutive world championship. A sellout crowd, along with 16 opponents from nine countries, watched "The Norwegian Doll" breeze to a comfortable victory with a subdued but near-flawless routine of her trademark jumps, spins, and twirls. Yet few who watched her performance realized that Henie's technical mastery masked a severe case of exhaustion. Henie always performed with a self-assured ease that lulled audiences into believing that she was just warming up. She single-handedly elevated figure skating from a stilted, technical activity to a graceful art form. Her masterful use of choreography, costumes, and charisma set new standards for the sport. Inspired by ballet, Henie frequently incorporated ballet moves into her skating routines. No skater before had ever attempted such a marriage of styles. Crowds and critics alike were endlessly impressed by Henie's ability to merge an athlete's skill with a dancer's grace. Together with her captivating smile, she exuded the star power of a polished entertainer. Never had a skater--man or woman--enthralled audiences with such beauty and elegance. In 1928 in Saint Moritz, Switzerland, Henie won her first of a record three consecutive Olympic gold medals. Four years later, in Lake Placid, New York, she claimed her second. She won both with relative ease. Her third gold at the 1936 Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, proved significantly more difficult. Less than a month before the Olympics, Henie, only 23 years old, announced plans to retire from competitive skating after the 1936 season. She said in a prepared statement: "I will defend all my titles for the last time this year, then withdraw from active sport to do only fancy skating for my numerous friends in the world. Preparations for competitions take too long." At her final Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Henie found herself in danger of losing to the tall, slender, 14-year-old Cecilia Colledge from England. After the compulsories Henie stood a mere three points ahead of Colledge. Henie, who appeared nervous at the start of the competition, rallied with what many observers called the most glittering routine since her first world championship a decade earlier. The crowd of 11,000 fell silent when she skated onto the ice. That silence gave way to near-pandemonium when Henie produced an immaculate double axel and ended her performance with a trademark split. Colledge also skated superbly, but Henie prevailed by a score of 424.5 to 418.1 to claim her third gold medal in three Olympics. Henie's whirlwind winter culminated a week later at the world championships in Paris. "She glided through a series of safe and sure figures," wrote the Associated Press, "with smooth, effortless precision to an easy victory." She easily topped the field of 17 skaters from nine countries. England's Megan Taylor chose a particularly difficult routine in an attempt to catch Henie, but she suffered two falls and finished second. Sweden's Vivi-Anne Hulten placed third. Henie was a weary champion. She was so exhausted that doctors strongly recommended that she cancel her forthcoming performances and rest for several weeks. She was back on the ice a month later, however, appearing at "Sonja Henie Night" in New York City's Madison Square Garden. According to media reports, more than 10,000 people saw Henie perform. The well-rested star dazzled the crowd with the most challenging of her three main routines. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.