JANUARY 1976 Luster" A JOURNAL OF BETTER LIVING MAKING MARIJUANA LEGAL 41. World Champion Figure Skaters- Their Journey to Innsbruck Do You Have an Energy Crisis? Ideas for Combating Loneliness Terry Kubicka, U.S.A. Dianne de Leeuw, Netherlands ■ Gordy McKellen, U.S.A. Toiler Cranston, Canada Dorothy Hamill, U.S.A. the role discipline plays in their lives; about the respect they have for their bodies, especially regarding the use of drugs; about their goals; about their attitudes toward life. One of the more outspoken and JOURNEY TO flamboyant of the skaters interviewed in Colorado was Gordon McKellen, Jr., the 1975 United States Senior Men's Champion. McKellen's advancement in world competition has been a picture of predictability. His escalating finishes of ninth, eighth, seventh, sixth, and INNSBRUCK fifth last year, prompted him to remark in jest, "Four more years and I should make it, right?" Harry Cummins McKellen is just 22, but he's already been skating for 20 years. Both parents YOU WON'T find them sipping regional qualifying. This earns the right were professional skaters who owned champagne on the sun jets to Tahiti or to compete in sectional qualifying. If and operated an ice rink in Reading, Spain this winter. However, make no they finish in the top three, they ad- Pennsylvania. His godmother cut a mistake about it, these are Beautiful vance to the national level. Having fancy figure eight in her day too—a lady People. somehow survived there, a select by the name of Sonja Henie. Rising at dawn, they toil in frigid handful now compete against the best The intrepid McKellen is one of the temperatures, eight hours a day, 365 skaters from around the globe for the few skaters ever to land the difficult days a year. If they were ever to popu- world championship held once a year. triple axle in exhibition. The three- late a picket line or scale a soapbox, it Maintaining this incredible intensity and-one-half-revolution jump has wouldn't be for want of higher wages. for four straight years merits the skater never been successfully negotiated in Just a wage would do nicely, thank you. a spot in the Olympic Games. That is, if actual competition. McKellen appears Still, their exuberance for life re- all goes well. the one skater with the salience to pull mains as strong as a kid with a box of One slip, one fall, one injury, at any it off. Hershey bars and an all-day pass to level, and a skater faces the probability "Every time I get in actual compe- Disneyland. They are probably the of waiting another year to try it all over tition, my psyche starts working most dedicated yet unheralded group again. overtime," says Gordy. "It keeps saying of athletes anywhere—the figure skat- Then there is the problem of judging. that no one has ever done this—if I fall, ing champions of the world. When there are no objective standards I'll have to skate twice as hard to make The twelfth Olympic winter games, by which to measure perfection, the up for the mistake." Psyche or no, February 4 through 15 in Innsbruck, results are left to human judgment. The McKellen remains the ultimate Austria, is a rare opportunity for this inevitable fallibility of the judges has showman among male skaters, and in deserving gathering of young given birth to a system that finds skat- the true spirit of show biz, says, "I just people—a chance for worldwide ers being marked on reputations rather want the public to enjoy me, that's my recognition. Most of them have labored than performances. Where a skater has only goal." a lifetime for the few brief minutes they finished the preceding year will dictate, McKellen claims that self-discipline will spend on the ice in Innsbruck. to a large degree, where he will finish and good training habits are basic for What matters is the double toe loop, the current year. Also political prej- any successful figure skater. "Every the sit-spin, the flying camel, the triple udice is built into the scoring of skaters foot of the rink must be planned in axle. And the gold medal. in international competition. advance. Your mind cannot waver, as it The journey to Innsbruck, as to all There are solid ingredients, however, must function with your body as a unit. Olympic sites preceding it, is a long that go into making a champion. LIS- The slightest interference in con- pilgrimage. Even before a skater em- TEN traveled to Colorado Springs, centration could be damaging.- Drugs, barks on a competitive career, he must Colorado, for the 1975 World Figure alcohol, and tobacco? "No way!" says demonstrate a certain degree of pro- Skating Championships at the Gordy, dismissing the query with an air ficiency, measured by prescribed tests Broadmoor Arena, the final interna- of absurdity. which must be passed in order of tional competition prior to the '76 McKellen hopes to skate profes- difficulty. These tests determine the Olympics. sionally following his competitive category of competition, either novice, The conversation naturally centered career and indicates the strong junior, or senior. around skating, but these young likelihood of joining a European ice Skaters advance in their category by people proved far from being one- company this year, thus eliminating finishing first, second, or third in dimensional. They talked freely about him from the Innsbruck games. LISTEN • January 1976 • 3 an autograph and being told to get lost. danger he wants in attempting to I promised myself I would never be like complete another triple lutz in that. I try hard never to be rude to Innsbruck, and trying not to trip on all people. I think that's important." So, those flowers. too, does a small boy somewhere in The girl that outpointed Dorothy Los Angeles, California, who wrote a Hamill and walked away with the gold local TV station last year and asked if medal at the '75 World Championships they might fulfill his childhood fantasy was Dianne de Leeuw of the of skating with Dorothy Hamill. Take a Netherlands. Her victory in Colorado I was just about to ask if such lifelong guess how the story ended? came as a mild surprise. Although devotion to skating had put a crimp in Fashioning a fantasy story all his own placing second behind defending his social life. I never got the chance. is 19-year-old Terry Kubicka, a strong world champion Christine Errath of The interview ended abruptly with a bet to unseat Gordy McKellen and cop East Germany in the European crush of female autograph seekers. the 1976 United States Men's championships just concluded, she Probably no one has even bothered Championship in the process. wasn't figured to outdistance both asking if skating has blotted the social Kubicka brought the house down in Errath and Hamill in world competition. register of Dorothy Hamill, the reigning Colorado Springs with a free-style Dianne currently lives in California United States ladies champion and performance in which he successfully world silver medalist. The popular completed a triple Lutz, a triple Riverside, Connecticut, native has a Salchow, and wound up his program hard act to follow. She is the heir with five consecutive Arabian apparent to former champions Peggy cartwheels. When he finished, the en- Fleming and Janet Lynn. That's tire arena acknowledged his efforts tantamount to following Hank Aaron to with a 45-second standing ovation bat just after he's hit home run number while raining a shower of flowers down 715. You've got yourself a dandy iden- on the ice as well. The judges were also tity crisis! impressed, handing out five 5.9s, just .1 Right now Dorothy is having fun off a perfect 6.0 mark. skating, and her only goal is to rep- Currently riding the upswing of a resent the United States in the brilliant career, Terry remains Olympics. "I don't think people should philosophical about much of his life. "I be obsessed with becoming a world believe that all things must end at one champion," says 19-year-old Miss time or another, and such will it be with Hamill. "Only one can become my skating. I do believe, though, that champion, and not everyone is willing my skating has taught me responsi- to put in the hard work required for bility, discipline, and, most important, skating. But there are so many other what great rewards can come from areas of life to excel in. The most hard work." Irina Rodnina important thing for anybody is to find Kubicka says he simply doesn't have and Aleksandr something to do that is right for them." the time, or the desire, to experiment Having encountered a number of with drugs and drinking. "When you're temperamental athletes in the past, I under the influence of these things, and trains in the U.S. but is allowed to found Dorothy Hamill to be a welcome you don't always know what you are represent the Netherlands as a result of change. "I always like to take time to doing, and that's a dangerous way to her Dutch parentage. She got her initial talk to people," says Dorothy. "I live." taste of Olympic competition in 1972 at remember as a child asking a skater for For Terry Kubicka, he'll have all the Sapporo, Japan, and is eagerly await- ing Innsbruck. "I think it's important always to work toward a goal," says the 20-year-old world champion.