Yvonne Sugden

Yvonne Sugden was the daughter of a London chartered accountant. She started figure skating by chance after going to the cinema one day to watch a film, but it was full so she went to a nearby ice skating rink to watch the skaters instead. She was mesmerised and took up the sport two days later.

Sugden won her first competition, at the Empire Pool Wembley, at the age of nine in 1949. The following year she was third in the British junior championships and also competed in the senior British Figure Skating Championships. Sugden won the senior title three years in succession from the 1953/54 season. She also won the coveted Richmond Trophy three times, in 1952-53 and 1955.

Sugden took part in the World Championships five times between 1951-56, with a fourth-place in 1956 being her best result. She also took part in five European Championship (1952-56), finishing third in 1954 and second in both 1955 and 1956, when she also finished a creditable fourth at the Cortina Winter Olympics. Sugden retired from competitive skating after that and enjoyed her pastimes of swimming, rowing, playing golf, and ballroom dancing, at which she won many medals. Sugden married Michael Love in 1960 and they divided their time between their homes in England and Portugal.