Singles, Women

Carol Heiss had won the US Junior title in 1952 when she was 12. The next year, competing as a senior, she placed second to Tenley Albright at the US and World Championships. She trailed Albright at the 1953-55 Worlds and was the silver medalist at the 1956 Cortina Olympics. After the 1956 Winter Olympics, she won her first World title, defeating Albright. Attractive and outgoing, she seemed perfect for professional ice shows, but she promised her mother, dying of cancer in 1956, that she would remain an amateur to win a gold medal in 1960. Her mother passed in October 1956, but by the time of the Squaw Valley Olympics, there was no heavier favorite than Carol Heiss. She had not been defeated since the Cortina competition, had won the 1956-59 World Championships, the US Championships in 1957-59, and was North American champion in 1957 and 1959. The women’s event was less a competition than a coronation. Heiss opened a big lead in the compulsory figures over European Champion Sjoukje Dijkstra. Heiss also won the free skate, followed by American Barbara Ann Roles, with Dijkstra third. But Roles could not overcome Dijkstra’s lead, and the Dutchwoman won the first figure skating medal ever for that nation, with Roles winning the bronze. Heiss was placed first by every judge in school figures, and 8 of 9 in the free skate, one judge ranking Roles first. After the Olympics she married the 1956 men’s gold medalist, Hayes Alan Jenkins, and competed briefly in ice shows. She also made one forgettable movie – “Snow White and the Three Stooges.” She then left the public spotlight to raise a family but in the 1980s returned to the skating world as a highly respected coach.