Trixi Schuba

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Trixi Schuba
Personal information
Country represented  Austria
Born (1951-04-15) 15 April 1951
Height 5'7" (170 cm)
Former coach Helmut Seibt
Leopold Linhart
Skating club Wien
Retired 1973
Olympic medal record
Women's figure skating
Competitor for  Austria
Gold 1972 Sapporo Singles

Trixi Schuba (born Beatrix Schuba on 15 April 1951) is an Austrian figure skater and is a six-time Austrian champion (1967–1972), a two-time European champion (1971 and 1972), a two-time World champion (1971 and 1972), and Olympic champion of 1972, all in ladies' singles.[1]

She is considered to be one of the best compulsory figure skaters ever.[2][3][4]

Biography

Born in Vienna, Schuba's passion for figure skating began as a young child in 1955 when she happened to see an American competition on the television bought by her parents to watch performances of the Vienna State Opera and the Burgtheater.[5] Her coach from 1955 to 1962 was Helmut Seibt[6] and then was Leopold Linhart.[1] After her father died when she was thirteen, Schuba went to trade school and eventually took over the bookkeeping of her family's lumber business in Vienna; mornings were given to skating and afternoons to work.[7]

Her first major success was winning the ladies' singles portion of the Austrian Championships at the age of sixteen in 1967; she would go on to defend her title five straight times. Schuba steadily improved throughout the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, placing in the top five several times and eventually taking first twice each at the European Championships and the World Championships in 1971 and 1972.[1]

Olympics

Schuba's greatest success came in 1972 at the Winter Olympics at Sapporo when she won the gold medal.[8] She is the first Austrian lady since Herma Szabo in 1924 to win gold and is the most recent.[5]

Schuba, the dominant compulsory figures skater, placed first in the figures and Janet Lynn of the United States, the top free skater placed first after the free skate. As the scoring system used at the time placed more weight on figures, Schuba won the gold medal and Lynn won the bronze behind silver medalist Karen Magnussen of Canada.[9]

The International Skating Union, the governing body of the sport, would over the ensuing years decrease the weight given the figures portion before finally eliminating it in 1990.[10]

Post-olympic career

After winning gold at Sapporo, Schuba did the same the next month at the World Championships, successfully defending against silver medalist Magnussen and bronze medalist Lynn.[11] At the end of the year, sportswriters named her Athlete of the Year for 1972.[12]

Retiring from amateur skating, Schuba appeared over the succeeding six years in the professional shows Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice, after which she began a career in the insurance industry which she continues to the present.[5]

In addition to her career in insurance, Schuba is involved in various sports organizations in Austria. She is a former president of the Austrian Ice Skating Association, the first woman to hold that position, and she sat on the board of the Austrian Olympic Committee from 2004 to 2009.[13] Schuba has served as president of the International Panathlon Club Wien since 2007, on the board of the Austrian Paralympic Committee since 2009, and as vice president of the Graz Skating Association since 2010.[13]

Results

Event 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972
Winter Olympics 5th 1st
World Championships 9th 4th 2nd 2nd 1st 1st
European Championships 5th 3rd 3rd 2nd 1st 1st
Austrian Championships 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Trixi Schuba Biography and Olympic Results". Sports Reference. Sports Reference. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  2. ↑ Hamill, Dorothy; Clairmont, Elva (1983). Dorothy Hamill On and Off the Ice. A.A. Knopf. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-394-85610-0. "Still, it was exciting to see all the famous foreign skaters, Karen Magnussen from Canada (the local girl); Beatrix Schuba, the girl from Austria who was said to have the best figures in the history of skating; little Christine Errath from East Germany and her teammate Sonja Morgenstern." 
  3. ↑ Künzle-Watson, Karin; DeArmond, Stephen J. (1996). Ice Skating: Steps to Success. Steps to Success 1. Human Kinetics. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-87322-669-1. "To this day, there are two individuals considered the best at this art: Gillis Grafström of Sweden, who was the men's Olympic champion in 1920, 1923, and 1928, and Beatrix "Trixi" Schuba of Austria, who was the women's Olympic champion in 1972." 
  4. ↑ Sivorinovsky, Alina (2000). Inside Figure Skating. MetroBooks. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-58663-005-8. "Her closest competitor, 1972 Olympic champion Beatrix "Trixie" Schuba of Austria, was a lethargic freestyler but arguably the greatest figure skater the world had ever seen." 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Biographie". Trixi Schuba. Zenker und Co. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  6. ↑ "Hellmut Seibt - A Life For Figure Skating". Vienna: Eissport Klub Englemann. 
  7. ↑ Vienna Sports Department. "Trixi Schuba - Sportpersönlichkeit aus Wien" [Trixi Schuba - Sports Personality of Vienna]. Wien.at (in German). Vienna: City of Vienna. Retrieved February 8, 2011. 
  8. ↑ "U.S. men win on ice, but not like Dutchman.". The Miami News (Miami, FL). Associated Press. February 7, 1972. Retrieved January 22, 2010. "And, just as she said she would, Miss Schuba used that lead to breeze to victory and a gold medal while Miss Holmes faded to fourth, giving Miss Magnussen, the North American champion, the silver and Miss Lynn, the four-time U.S. titlist, the bronze, America's second in the games." 
  9. ↑ "Figure Skating at the 1972 Sapporo Winter Games: Women's Singles". Sports Reference. Sports Reference. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 
  10. ↑ "No More Figures In Figure Skating". The New York Times. Associated Press. June 9, 1988. Retrieved February 4, 2011. "Under the rule change, the figures' share of the total score, which was 60 percent 20 years ago, will go down immediately from 30 to 20 percent. A revamped short program's value will be increased to 30 percent from 20." 
  11. ↑ "Trixi wins title and then retires". The Montreal Gazette (Montreal). Canadian Press. March 13, 1972. p. 23. Retrieved February 9, 2011. "Trixi Schuba, a sad Austrian girl who laughingly apologized for winning, has capped her international skating career by retaining her world figure-skating crown." 
  12. ↑ "Schuba Edges Proell As Athlete of Year". Lawrence Daily Journal-World (Lawrence, KS). Associated Press. December 22, 1972. p. 15. Retrieved August 24, 2011. "Austria's Beatrix Schuba, the world and Olympic figure skating cham-pion, beat double World Cup ski winner and current leader in the Cup standings, Annemarie Proell, in a sports writers' poll of Best Athlete of the Year." 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Erfolge". Trixi Schuba. Zenker und Co. Retrieved 1 February 2011. 

External links

Awards
Preceded by
Austria Ilona Gusenbauer		 Austrian Sportspersonality of the year
1972 		Succeeded by
Austria Annemarie Moser-Pröll
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