Cecilia Colledge

Magdalena Cecilia Colledge, a British figure skater born in London on 28 November 1920, never married and had no children. She died on 12 April 2008 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father, Lionel, was a surgeon who researched throat cancer treatments; her mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Admiral John Brackenbury. Colledge had one brother, Maule, a Royal Air Force member who died in 1943 during World War II.

Colledge’s skating career began after she watched the 1928 World Championships in London, where Sonja Henie and Maribel Vinson inspired her. Coached by Eva Keats and Jacques Gerschwiler—a former gymnastics teacher she described as “very progressive”—she took ballet and acrobatics lessons from a former circus performer named Miss Lee. Gerschwiler devised the layback spin while watching Lee train Colledge in backbends using a rope around her waist. At age eleven years and four months, Colledge competed at the 1932 Winter Olympics, finishing 8th. (While remarkably young, she was not the youngest Olympic figure skater in history; that record belongs to Sonja Henie, who was 11 years and 10 months old in 1924.)

She won silver at the 1933 European Championships, her first British national title in 1935, and bronze at the 1935 Europeans alongside silver at the 1935 World Championships. In 1936, she claimed a second national title and another Europeans silver. At the 1936 European Championships, she landed a double salchow, becoming the first woman to execute a double jump in competition. At the 1936 Winter Olympics, aged fifteen, she took silver behind Henie after a close contest. Following the school figures, Colledge trailed Henie by only a few points, which reportedly angered Henie, who tore up the posted results. The free skating draw placed Colledge second of 26 competitors and Henie last, a perceived advantage later addressed by a staggered draw system.

Two British Championships were held in 1937, and Colledge won both. She earned her first European title and first World title that same year. In 1938, she added a fifth national title and a second European title, plus silver at the World Championships. T.D. Richardson wrote in 1938 that her free skating program was the most difficult attempted by anyone, man or woman, executed with such ease and speed that experts sometimes misjudged its worth.