Vivi-Anne Hultén

Vivi-Anne Hultén in 1932
Personal information
Born	(1911-08-25)25 August 1911 Antwerp,Belgium
Died	15 January 2003(2003-01-15) (aged 91) Corona del Mar, California,United States
Figure skating career
Country	Sweden
Skating club	Stockholms Allmänna Skridskoklubb
Medal record Representing Sweden Figure skating:Ladies' singles Olympic Games 1936 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Singles World Championships 1937 London Singles 1936 Paris Singles 1935 Vienna Singles 1933 Stockholm Singles European Championships 1932 Paris Singles 1930 Vienna Singles

Vivi-Anne Hultén (25 August 1911 – 15 January 2003) was aSwedishfigure skater who competed in ladies' singles. She was the1936 Olympic bronze medalist, a four-timeWorld medalist, a two-timeEuropean bronze medalist, and a ten-timeSwedish national champion.^[1][2]

Vivi-Anne Hultén was born inAntwerp,Belgium. She was married twice, first to the American steel importer Nils Tholand.^[2] In 1942, she married Gene Theslof, a Finnish figure skater and gymnast,^[3] with whom she had a son by the same name.^[4] The Teslofs trained their son Gene Theslof III to become a leading adagio skater who toured withHoliday on Ice in the USA during the 1960s. He later became a business executive in California. Hultén died at 91 of heart failure inCorona del Mar, California, surviving her husband by 20 years.^[5] She was the grandmother of American professional soccer coachNick Theslof.

Hultén was coached by a brother ofGillis Grafström.^[3] She finished fifth at the1932 Winter Olympics. In 1933, she finished second toSonja Henie at the1933 World Championships held in Stockholm.^[3]

Hultén won the bronze medal at the1936 Winter Olympics inGarmisch-Partenkirchen. When told to do aNazi salute toHitler, she declined and said "I am from Sweden. I don't do things like that."^[6] Swedish newspapers have named her the country's all-time female athlete. A lake inBudapest has a statue of her performing a spiral.^[5]

After turning professional, Hultén toured with theIce Follies,Ice Cycles, andIce Capades. She formed an adagiopair with Theslof, her future husband, who had skated with Henie for seven years, and the pair toured the United States and Europe. In the mid 1960s, she settled in the United States and opened a large skating school inSt. Paul, Minnesota with Theslof.^[1]

Hultén was hired as a skating coach byHerb Brooks for his Minnesota North Stars hockey team. She performed for theKing andQueen of Sweden and also skated in ten ice shows with the Ice Capades in Minneapolis, Minnesota up until the age of 80. She actively taught on the ice until age 86.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toVivi-Anne Hultén.

• Vivi-Anne Hultén atSvenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon

• 1911 births
• Swedish female single skaters
• Olympic figure skaters for Sweden
• Figure skaters at the 1932 Winter Olympics
• Figure skaters at the 1936 Winter Olympics
• Olympic bronze medalists for Sweden
• 2003 deaths
• Olympic medalists in figure skating
• World Figure Skating Championships medalists
• European Figure Skating Championships medalists
• Medalists at the 1936 Winter Olympics
• 20th-century Swedish sportswomen

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• SKBL template using Wikidata property P4963