Читать книгу Frozen in Time - Nikki Nichols - Страница 9

As Stephanie Westerfeld walked through the Broadmoor Ice Palace, she felt right at home, down to the locker that belonged to her, to the concession stand workers who knew her name and greeted her like a favorite child. This was the rink where she had spent at least a third of every day for the last several years, and where she hoped to be crowned national champion.

“Steffi” was seventeen, seven months older than Laurence Owen, and just as talented. She represented the Broadmoor Figure Skating Club—the host club for the National Championships—and despite Laurence’s considerable reputation, Steffi was a formidable challenger who many skating insiders felt was equally able to be America’s next ice queen.

Where Laurence’s enthusiasm and energy were raw and unfettered, Steffi was the snapshot of grace and softness in everything she did. She had tremendous polish—never was there a hair out of place, and she was always neatly and conservatively dressed. She had the air of a debutante without seeming snobbish. She was somewhat shy, but still managed to be popular in school. She was a homecoming queen, a gifted pianist, and a straight-A student. She managed to excel at everything despite family upheaval that may have toppled a weaker person.

Stephanie Westerfeld had high championship hopes in 1961.

She was tiny—weighing only about a hundred pounds—and had a round, cherubic face with glowing pink cheeks and a dimpled chin. Her honey-brown hair was perfectly curled just under her ears, her short bangs drawing attention to her brown, deep-set eyes. She had a high voice—like something that you’d hear from a windup doll—a voice that, from all accounts, was never used to utter an unkind word to anyone. She was the girl in high school who had it all—the looks, the grades, the grace, and the musical and athletic ability. She was quite accomplished, yet modest and never full of herself, instead possessing a kind of angelic quality.

The only demon she displayed was the one she’d unleash on herself. Steffi was, most of all, a perfectionist. Second place was considered failure in her eyes. Any grade lower than an “A” was not acceptable. Falling in a competition was cause for personal punishment. While skating gave her great joy, it could, in its frustrating moments, be her undoing. Perfection was the only key to Steffi’s happiness. Until she could attain it, she would not relax.

Though friends called her an introvert, Steffi was becoming accustomed to star treatment. The local papers had written many stories about her successes on the ice. After a time, the papers stopped using her last name altogether, just calling her “Steffi.” This attention may well have caused some students who attended Cheyenne Mountain High School to resent her. The school contained a wide-ranging mélange of economic and social classes—a real mix of the “haves” and “have-nots.” Many of the students there skated at the Broadmoor Ice Palace—and because skating was so expensive, this gave the impression that the skaters were of the wealthier set. Many military families populated Colorado Springs, and some of the military children often felt like economic and social outcasts. Steffi never bought into the class system. Her focus on achieving her best in skating and all endeavors made it impossible to get caught up in the usual high school drama. She didn’t have time for it.

Steffi’s delicate persona concealed a desire that burned hot within her—a desire to pursue the Olympic dream. Steffi’s dynamic mother, Myra, helped keep those dreams alive through her devotion to the sport and its role in her daughters’ lives. Like Maribel, Myra’s very existence revolved around her two daughters and their various skating pursuits. Steffi’s older sister, Sharon, eight years Steffi’s senior, had also pursued the Olympic dream, and fell short. Steffi had become a stronger skater than her sister, but in her previous attempts at achieving her dream, she had fallen short too, and Laurence was the cause.

Before the 1961 Nationals, Steffi and Laurence had met in competition only one other time, and that was in 1960. Since Steffi lived in Colorado Springs and Laurence in Boston, they were never in the same competitive region—meaning they wouldn’t have met in the sectional and regional competitions that qualified skaters to Nationals. Steffi and Laurence both advanced from their sectional meets to qualify for the 1960 U.S. Nationals. The top two American women seemed obvious—Carol Heiss and Barbara Roles. Carol was the reigning world champion, and Barbara had placed fifth in the world in 1959. With Heiss and Roles sure to win gold and silver, the bronze medal was the most coveted piece of hardware available to the lesser-known skaters.

Winning bronze put the world on notice about America’s future in the sport. It would also earn the winner a trip to the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. Laurence and Steffi emerged as bronze medal front-runners. One of them would inevitably go home in a placement worse than dead last—fourth. In today’s glamorous world of figure skating, even a fourth-place finisher in a deep field of talent can be asked to tour and even can become quite wealthy as a skater. These rare moneymaking opportunities were forbidden to skaters in 1960. Fourth place most assuredly equaled anonymity.

Laurence’s mother drew attention to the strictness of the amateur rules in one of her three instructional skating books. In The Fun of Figure Skating, published in 1960, she is careful to mention in the opening pages that the skaters used to demonstrate technique in photos and illustrations “received no remuneration either directly or indirectly.” In 1960, amateur guidelines had to be strictly followed, or athletes would face expulsion from the sport. There were no big-salary touring contracts, no television specials, no endorsement deals of any kind. The sport could not bring a penny of profit to the athlete, or else amateur status was revoked. One of the American ice dance competitors, Larry Pierce, had been forced to give up his job at the Coliseum ice skating rink in Indianapolis, because even his job resurfacing the ice constituted a violation of the rules.

Figure skaters were also expected to attend school full time. They did not have the tutors or home-schooling opportunities many sports stars have today. If they hoped to attend a good university, they had to be standout students. There were no figure skating programs at universities, so there were no scholarships connected to the sport.

In addition to the lack of compensation or rewards, there was a much slimmer chance of actually succeeding in a sport such as figure skating. Skating at the Olympics was and is all about the individual or pair. There is really no concept of “team,” the way there is in soccer or basketball, in which a dozen players make up an Olympic or World delegation. Even Maribel Vinson Owen acknowledged the sacrifice and its frequent failure to bear fruit. “You could spend a decade on skating and only end up with heartbreak,” she once told a student.

So why endure the sacrifices, the hardships, the long training hours, and the time away from family and friends? It’s the athlete’s creed to believe that one day the efforts will pay off. There is no room for self-doubt. There is no room to believe that fourth place is the best result possible. At the 1960 U.S. National Championships, only three young ladies could stand on the podium. Only three could go to the Olympics. If Heiss and Roles performed as expected, even if Laurence or Steffi did well, one would have to go home.

In the ladies’ and men’s competitions, the judges awarded points in two segments: the compulsory figures—the esoteric pattern work carved into the ice—and the long program, also known as the free skate. In the latter segment, skaters chose their own music, as they do today, and performed the most visually appealing part of skating—the jumping, spinning, and choreography—in programs that last more than four exhausting minutes.

Compulsory figures, from which the name “figure skating” derives, were worth two-thirds of the overall score. Each move was based on the famous “figure eight” maneuver, in which an actual number “8” could be seen traced into the ice. Also called “school figures,” there were many variations on this shape, some of which resembled snowflakes and stars. Each variation required a mastery of “edging.” Each skate blade contains two edges—the inside and outside edge. Edges produce speed, power, and traction. A trained figure skater can look at the ice after a move and determine which edge touched the ice. Beginners often ride on the “flats” of the blades—that part of the steel between edges that keeps the speed slow and carves thick lines into the ice.

Figures demand control. They take a precise, steady blade, perfect placement of body weight, strong ankles and torso muscles, and correct timing to trace just the right marks into the ice. The figures consist of two or three circular lobes with different variations in position and edge of the blade. Some of the more complex figures required tracing a pattern, then retracing over it with the other foot. Judges looked for perfect, wobble-free circles, all with the same shape and diameter. The judges hovered nearby as skaters completed this portion of the competition, then they inspected the marks up close.

By the time the 1960 Nationals had arrived, Steffi was known as one of the best practitioners of figures in the country. Being as modest as she was, she nearly competed at the junior level in 1960 but decided instead that she should challenge herself and skate on the senior level. If she could perform her figures perfectly, a medal would be within reach. In fact, if her figures went well, she could create a sizeable enough lead over other bronze medal contenders to secure her Olympic berth before the free skate even began.

This lopsided kind of judging frustrated many fans, and ultimately led to the abandonment of school figures. American skater Janet Lynn, a superb artist on the ice who seemed to practically float along the surface, never won a World Championship or Olympic gold medal—largely because she was not strong in school figures. At the 1972 World Championships, Austrian Beatrix Schuba had built such an enormous lead after the school figures that she won the gold despite placing ninth in the free skate. Lynn finished third after a breathtaking free skate performance.

Television helped lead to the demise of school figures. Because only the more visually exciting free skate was shown on television, audiences at home were confused and appalled by the outcome of the 1972 Worlds. The complaints were so abundant that the International Skating Union created what we now know as the short program to lessen the overall importance of figures in the final placements. The death knell for figures rang in 1990, when they were removed from international competition altogether. In their place, skaters are now required to perform what are known as “moves in the field,” a mixture of dance steps, turns, edgework, and stroking. These moves are designed to show a command of both blade and body. They are not part of national or international competitions, but skaters do have to take proficiency tests in these moves in order to “graduate” to different levels of competition.

Laurence was similar to Janet Lynn in that she was known to be better in the free skate than in school figures. At the 1960 Nationals, Laurence performed admirably in the school figures, allowing Steffi to take only a slight lead for the bronze. The free skate would settle the matter. As predicted, Carol Heiss and Barbara Roles won the gold and silver, respectively, and when the bronze medal was decided, Laurence bested Stephanie by only one sixteenth of a point.

Laurence was jubilant. Steffi was crushed. It would have been much easier to take had she finished near the bottom of the field. Finishing fourth, however, was truly painful; being first alternate was proof that Steffi did belong in the senior level, but they may as well have named it the “oh-so-close-but-you’re-not-going-to-the-Olympics” award.

The Owen family celebrated not one, but two Olympics berths. In a fortuitous, but not entirely surprising, turn of events, Mara and Dudley had claimed the silver medal in the pairs event. Laurence’s mother, as their coach, viewed this moment as an affirmation of her own coaching abilities. Her pride in her daughters’ accomplishments was beyond measure.

It didn’t seem possible to make Steffi a harder worker, but her fourth-place finish had just that effect. Her disappointment simmered for a year. She had something to prove at Nationals. She entered the Ice Palace in January of 1961 and began her customary routine of stretching in the hallways and performing off-ice jumps, sometimes getting so lost in her practice maneuvers that she didn’t notice the people coming perilously close to her as she heaved herself into the air.

Steffi was the golden girl of the Broadmoor. Despite this, she must have felt like an underdog. The Boston club members stormed into the rink with a confident swagger. They were fully aware that Boston’s skating scene was synonymous with winning championships.

Laurence had a slight advantage over Steffi. She had, after all, already appeared in one Olympic Games and one World Championships. Laurence finished sixth at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, and ninth at the World Championships (at Worlds, she was skating on an injured knee). Sports reporters at the time felt Laurence’s dance elements were so modern the judges did not know how to score her in the Olympics. Laurence was not a skater to simply jump and spin to music. The music took hold of her soul and she interpreted it with an unabashed joy. The judges were not accustomed to this type of exuberance. Laurence’s sister and pairs partner finished tenth in both the 1960 Games and Worlds.

The 1960 Squaw Valley Olympic Team included two members of the Owen family. Mara is second from left, and Laurence is third from left.

In the 1960 Olympics, Laurence had her fair share of admirers. Carol Heiss, en route to her gold medal, shared a room with Laurence in the Olympic Village. Heiss recognized the younger skater’s potential and knew she was on the cusp of a magnificent career.

Heiss told Laurence affectionately, “My time is over. I’ll be looking forward to seeing you on the podium in the future.”

Laurence, like Steffi, was a perfectionist, and a stubborn one, too. Laurence’s reflections of how she viewed her own drive to succeed, and how skating shaped her life, appeared in a school essay saved by a classmate.

As mum has often said, my determination is fine just so long as I use it in the right direction, but use it in the wrong way …. This stubbornness is curiously mixed. Although I enjoy being independent and often resist control, I went through a stage of longing for protection from the world’s realities. I resented and enjoyed responsibility at the same time. As I see it now, this resentment was a childish dream, merely a longing for that which I didn’t have. However, I feel that it is good to have a bit of the romantic thrown in with the realistic. Otherwise my outlook might too easily become cynical and any creative impulse be stifled.

As a corollary to this romanticism, I am very inclined to over-dramatize myself. I often build up a pleasant fantasy over my “deplorable” position when it is anything but that. I also attach too much importance to a relatively minor catastrophe, such as “B” on a composition for which I confidently expected an “A.” My instantaneous reaction is complete disappointment, sometimes even to the point of despair. Such a reaction is slightly ridiculous to many people. Certainly to me, also, in the clear perspective of later reasoning. Perhaps this poem states my feelings better:

Ah despair, what are you?

A sinking of the heart, of hope?

You are many things but mainly

Loss of clarity, of perception.

Nevertheless, I will probably go on being disappointed when I fail to do as well as I feel I should, or could, have done. This feeling is part of the influence which skating has had on me.

All my life I have Figure Skated, an exacting sport at the least. The older I have grown, the higher the standard of perfection in this pastime has become. Now, at the top level of international competition, I must constantly strive to keep my average of performance between 86 percent and 100 percent. Consequently, my standard of perfection has also risen in other fields. I cannot be content with a mediocre piece of work, or with one that a few years ago might have seemed quite good. I’m used to comparing my skating with the best in the world; thus I do the same everywhere. For instance, in comparison with Margot Fonteyn, I am not an exceptional ballet dancer, nor even a good one. Yet I feel that with work I could compare favorably to her standard. Often people mistake this self-confidence for conceit. Nothing could be farther from the truth, for usually conceit is a sign of insecurity. However, I must constantly guard against over-confidence. Realizing one’s own potential is a great aid to success, but unless you support your talents with good solid work, such a realization does [a few illegible words]. This is a lesson which I feel I have learned well—that there is no substitute for work, work, and still more work. Ability without effort is worthless. Before learning the true meaning of this moral, though, I wasted a great deal of time.

Laurence Owen placed sixth at the 1960 Winter Olympics.

As a child of seven entering my first Figure Skating competition I had been a hard worker, taking pleasure and pride in the results of my efforts. Not being too concerned with the business of competing, I skated as well as I could and came in sixth in the juvenile class …. “She skated well and the audience loved it. The only thing she muffed at all was her camel spin, which is usually a real highlight. Anyway, for seven she is terrific ….” Apparently I thought so too because the next year I didn’t work at all. When mother reprimanded me for my lack of concentration, I (still confident) blithely replied, “Oh, don’t worry about me, mother. When the time comes I’ll be all right.” After I had failed my third test three times and was thus unable to compete, I realized how foolish this attitude was. Still, even today, I must constantly remind myself to concentrate on the job at hand.

Above all, skating has taught me the power of the mind. How easily the mind can control nervousness or hesitancy. If only everyone realized the power of positive thinking. I firmly believe with Dr. Norman Peale that a positive mental approach can accomplish twice as much as might otherwise be expected. Certainly, this has been my experience. In 1958 before the Eastern Championships I decided that I was going to win them. I felt that I was capable of winning; thus why shouldn’t I? Accordingly, I wrote first place in my engagement calendar, then won the championship.

Many times, however, this formula doesn’t work. Hard work, positive thinking, and ability are not enough; at such moments I feel very depressed. Will I ever succeed? These thoughts are usually short-lived because my optimism is quick in returning. Although nothing succeeds like success, I have found (even in these few years) that one actually learns more from failure. Moreover, I feel that every failure must have some purpose, that God does help those who help themselves.

To me, God is a nebulous concept. Just what is He? So far my life has not given me a definite answer to this question. I do think that God, in relation to people, must be a symbol of the conscience. His purpose is to help each human being lead a better life. Thus I recognize failure as part of His purpose: to make us realize the true value of success. Consequently, I feel it is right to maintain an abiding sense of optimism.

Before she could skate her way to the podium in 1961, Laurence would endure a week of practice, final coaching sessions with her mother, and plenty of glares from other competitors who, underneath the polite smiles, wondered if they could overtake Laurence when the competition got underway.

Laurence and Steffi certainly knew of each other, and must have considered themselves the top two skaters, based on their finishes at the championships of the previous year. In an odd twist, both Laurence and Steffi almost didn’t make it to the 1961 Nationals. A few months before the event, Laurence slipped, fell forward, and badly banged up her knee during practice. This was the same knee she’d hurt during the 1960 World Championships. For several weeks, the knee was swollen and bruised. She was beginning to have doubts that it would heal for Nationals, and to fear that she’d miss the chance to secure the family legacy that was so important. Finally, the swelling subsided and Laurence regained her jumps—and her confidence—just in time.

Steffi almost didn’t make it to Nationals for other reasons. Her virtuoso skills at the piano had earned her first place at the Colorado State Piano Competition. She was asked to represent Colorado in the National Piano Competition. The timing could not have been worse. The piano event was happening the same week as Nationals. Steffi’s goal was to be a concert pianist, and most agree she loved playing piano just as much, if not more, than skating, but she chose to skate at Nationals instead. She was eager to win a medal after barely missing the podium the year before.

Five judges were to score each event, using a 6.0 scale in each set of marks. They would award one mark for technical merit, and another for manner of presentation, what was later known as “artistic impression.” The competition referee gave last-minute instructions to the judges, and the accountant made sure his adding devices were all calibrated and performing their critical task to perfection. These preparations were all carried out with no significant bobbles or missteps. Only one minor mishap occurred when the Russian-style fur hats given to judges for warmth caused an allergic reaction for one judge, who suffered sneezing fits and watery eyes.

In a last-minute panic, parents began to fear the ice rink wasn’t perfectly level after some skaters complained of feeling off balance. Even just a slight slope could throw off the body’s natural timing. In the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics, the gymnastics vault was set too low and many competitors had some scary misses on this apparatus. The outrage was understandable—in all sports, equipment must be set perfectly to ensure both safety and fair play. In ice skating, the most important piece of equipment besides the skates is the skating surface.

The rink manager approached the ice, nervously anticipating a drastic ice resurfacing, and placed a carpenter’s level on the rink. A hushed crowd awaited the verdict. “The ice is perfectly level,” the manager said, almost astonished.

With that piece of business now settled, the competition was ready to commence. Newspaper reporters interviewed competitors somewhat freely, in an era free of the talent agents, managers, and security now present in the world of elite figure skating.

Laurence, always modest, gushed about her outstanding mother to reporters.

“Mother deserves all the credit for our victories,” she said. “We started on double runners at the age of two and formal lessons began at six. This means practicing as long as six hours a day. That sounds a like a lot of work, but we find it fun.”

Laurence spoke with a sense of wonderment about skating, always beaming about the joy it brought her. Steffi, on the other hand, seemed less concerned with having fun and more on achieving her ultimate goals.

One Colorado Springs reporter asked Steffi for her final thoughts before skating.

“I have my heart set on a trip to Europe,” she said. “If nothing unforeseen happens, I’ll skate toward the 1964 Olympics.”