 Beatrix Schuba in 2011 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Born | (1951-04-15)15 April 1951 (age 74) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 7 in (170 cm) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Figure skating career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country |  Austria | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Skating club | Wien | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 1973 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Beatrix "Trixi" Schuba (born 15 April 1951) is anAustrian former competitivefigure skater who competed in ladies' singles. She is a six-timeAustrian national champion (1967–1972), a two-timeEuropean champion (1971 and1972), a two-timeWorld champion (1971 and1972), and1972 Olympic champion.[1]
She is considered to be one of the bestcompulsory figure skaters ever.[2][3][4]
Schuba was born inVienna. After her father died when she was thirteen, she 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.[5]
Schuba's interest in 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 theVienna State Opera and theBurgtheater.[6] She was coached byHelmut Seibt from 1955 to 1962,[7] and then by Leopold Linhart.[1]
Her first major success was winning the ladies' singles portion of theAustrian 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]
Schuba's greatest success came in 1972 at the Winter Olympics atSapporo when she won the gold medal.[8] She is the first Austrian lady sinceHerma Szabo in 1924 to win gold and is the most recent.[6] Schuba, the dominant compulsory figures skater, placed first in the figures andJanet Lynn of theUnited States, the topfree 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 medalistKaren Magnussen ofCanada.[9]
TheInternational Skating Union, the governing body of the sport, would over the ensuing years decrease the weight given to the figures portion before finally eliminating it in 1990.[10] Scuba, considered one of the best compulsory figure skaters ever, was also considered weak in free skating.[2][3][4][11]
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.[12] At the end of the year, sportswriters named herAthlete of the Year for 1972.[13]
Retiring from amateur skating, Schuba appeared over the succeeding six years in the professional showsIce Follies andHoliday on Ice, after which she began a career in the insurance industry which she continues to the present.[6][14]
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.[15] Schuba has served as president of the International Panathlon Club Wien since 2007, on the board of theAustrian Paralympic Committee since 2009, and as vice president of theGraz Skating Association since 2010.[15]
| International | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Richmond Trophy | 2nd | |||||
| National | ||||||
| Austrian Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
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.
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.
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.
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.[dead link]
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.
Trixi Schuba, a sad Austrian girl who laughingly apologized for winning, has capped her international skating career by retaining her world figure-skating crown.
Austria's Beatrix Schuba, the world and Olympic figure skating champion, 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.
Media related toBeatrix Schuba at Wikimedia Commons
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