| Tenley Albright | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Albright in 1953 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Tenley Emma Albright | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1935-07-18)July 18, 1935 (age 89) Newton Centre, Massachusetts, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hometown | Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Figure skating career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country |  United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Skating club | Skating Club of Boston[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 1956 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Tenley Emma Albright (born July 18, 1935) is an American formerfigure skater and surgeon. She is the 1956Olympic champion, the 1952Olympic silver medalist, the 1953 and 1955World Champion, the 1953 and 1955North American champion, and the 1952–1956U.S. national champion. Albright is also a graduate ofHarvard Medical School. In 2015, she was inducted into theNational Women's Hall of Fame.[2]
Albright was born inNewton, Massachusetts.[3] Her father Hollis was a prominent surgeon and her mother Elin was an artist.[4][5] She has a younger brother, Nile.[6]
She began skating at age 8, on a homemade rink in the backyard of her family home.[7]
In 1946, Albright contractedpolio, which was deemed to be pre-paralytic.[8] As figure skating historian James R. Hines put it: "Skating provided much needed physical therapy."[9] Since her illness left her muscles “weak and withered”, she started training at theSkating Club of Boston as part of her rehabilitation. She found her rehabilitation "exhilarating". She would later say: "Did you ever notice how many athletes my age once had polio? I think it's because being paralyzed makes you aware of your muscles and you never want to let them go unused again."[10][3]
Albright had two coaches in her career: Willie Frick andMaribel Vinson.[11][9] She won the silver medal at the1952 Olympics. She won her first World title in1953, silver in1954, a second gold medal in1955, and her fourth medal, another silver, in1956.[12] She was the first American female skater to win a world title.[13] In 1955, she recorded a triple: winning the US, North American, and World Championships that year. She managed to do this while enrolled as a full-timepre-med student atRadcliffe College.[3]
Albright won the US Nationals Novice Championships at the age of 13 and the US Junior Championships at the age of 14, and then won five consecutive national titles starting at age 16.[9][3] In 1956, while training for the Olympics, Albright fell due to a rut in the ice and cut her right ankle joint to the bone with her left skate.[14] The cut was stitched by her father, a surgeon.[14][15] At the1956 Winter Olympics inCortina d'Ampezzo,Italy, she became the first American female skater to win an Olympic gold medal.[16][13]
Albright retired from competitive skating after 1956 but remained attached to figure skating as a sports functionary.[15]
In 1982, Albright became a vice president of theU.S. Olympic Committee.[1]
A graduate ofThe Winsor School in Boston, Albright enteredRadcliffe College in 1953 as a pre-med student,[15] and focused on completing her education after the 1956 Olympics.[16] She graduated fromHarvard Medical School in 1961 at the age of 25,[17] went on to become asurgeon.[16][18] She practiced for 23 years, continuing as a faculty member and lecturer atHarvard Medical School.
She chaired the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. She has served as director for non-profits such as theWhitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution and companies such as West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., and State Street Bank and Trust Company.[19]
In 1976 she served as the chief physician for the US Winter Olympic team. TheAmerican Academy of Achievement presented her with aGolden Plate Award in 1976.[20] Her accomplishments earned her an induction into theInternational Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1983.[17]
Albright married to Tudor Gardiner, a lawyer and son ofWilliam Tudor Gardiner, in 1962.[21] Together they had three daughters.[22] The couple divorced and in 1981, she married former Ritz-Carlton hotel owner Gerald Blakeley.[23] He shared her association with Woods Hole and was chair of theMorehouse School of Medicine. Blakeley died on July 2, 2021.[24]
| Results | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| International | ||||||
| Event | 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 |
| Olympic Games | 2nd | 1st | ||||
| World Championships | 6th | WD | 1st | 2nd | 1st | 2nd |
| North American Championships | 3rd | 1st | 1st | |||
| National | ||||||
| U.S. Championships | 2nd | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
| Eastern Sectionals | 1st | 1st | ||||
| WD = Withdrew | ||||||
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