Malcolm Cannon

Malcolm Cannon started skating at the age of four-and-a-half and once he took up skating competitively soon showed he was capable of beating boys twice his age. Encouraged by his father, who was a well-known champion angler in the Birmingham area, Malcolm was an outstanding junior before skating as a senior when he won the Midland and Northern Counties titles in 1962 and took first place at the Winter Commonwealth Ganes at Sankt Moritz. Also, that year he competed in his first European Championships, and was second to Robin Jones in the British Championships.

Cannon won the first of two British title in 1963, when he also made his World Championship début, and the following year competed at the Innsbruck Winter Olympics. After two second places behind Hywel Evans in the national championships in 1964 and 1965 Cannon captured his second title in 1966.

Having skated in pairs competitions in his younger days, Cannon turned his attention to ice dance in the mid-1960s, and in 1967 and 1968 was runner-up, with Yvonne Suddick, to Diana Towler and Bernie Ford]() in the National Ice Dance Championships. They finished second to Towler and Ford at the 1967 and 1968 Europeans and were third and second to them respectively at the worlds in both those years. Also in 1968, when ice dance was a demonstration at the Grenoble Winter Olympics, it was Towler and Ford who again pushed Cannon and Suddick out of the gold medal position.