Olympic Figures

Only four of the five judges wore the traditional tam-o'-shanter caps, but all five were traditionalist enough to get down on their hands & knees to peer and poke at the curlicues of ice shavings. The occasion, solemnified at Indianapolis last week by the undignified postures of the judges: the figure skating tryouts for the U.S. Olympic team.

Four-time World Champion Dick Button, an automatic qualifier, was there for an exhibition. But the real interest centered on the purposeful tussle among a group of teen-age girls, each intent on earning one of the three team placings, and hopeful of following in the Olympic skating steps of such glamour girls as Sonja Henie and Barbara Ann Scott.* After the required "school" figures, which count 60% toward the final standings, three of the girls stood head & shoulders above the rest of the field:

Tenley Albright, 16, of Newton Center, Mass., a blue-eyed blonde who did her practicing in leopard-skin tights, but put on a more conservative black & red outfit for the competition. A Boston Skating Club protegee of Old Pro Willie Frick, willowy (5 ft. 6 in., 120 Ibs.) Tenley Albright recovered well enough from a 1947 attack of polio to be runner-up in this year's nationals.

Sonya Klopfer, 17, of Long Island City, N.Y., a solid little brunette who is fond of malteds and doughnuts, got her first name, despite the difference in spelling, out of her mother's unbounded admiration for Sonja Henie. Sonya specializes in free-style skating--"The finest free skater of her age in the world today," said the conservative British Skating World, after her third-place performance in the 1951 World Championship. Sonya is the current North American and U.S. titleholder.

Virginia Baxter, 19, of Detroit, a freshman at Michigan State, who carefully arranges her classroom schedule so that she can practice five hours a day. A tiny (5 ft. 1 in., no Ibs.) honey blonde, Virginia was the 1948 junior champion, was seventh in the 1950 World Championships. Among her chief interests, after skating: "Swimming, men and clothes."

In the free-style part of the competition, Sonya's dazzling jumps, spins and double loops earned her top honors. Tenley was second. Said third-place Virginia: "I'm on a cloud." Joining incomparable Dick Button on the men's team: angular Jimmy Grogan, 20, of Colorado Springs, a frequent runner-up to Button, and Hayes Alan Jenkins, 18, a freshman at Northwestern University.

*Currently Sonja's successor (after 15 years) in the Hollywood Ice Revue (TIME, Dec. 24).

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