Strictly 24-Carat

It was the culmination of 20,000 hours of labor over ten years. And to Peggy Fleming, 19, a raven-haired Colorado College coed, the effort was all worthwhile when she stepped onto the winner's podium at Grenoble last week and heard played The Star-Spangled Banner for the first and perhaps only time in the 1968 Winter Olympics. "This feeling," said Figure Skater Fleming, "can never be shared--even by the richest people."

The performance that won Peggy her Olympic gold medal was strictly 24-carat. For two days, under the intense scrutiny of nine judges, she traced on the ice "paragraph loops," "rockers" and "brackets" (all variations on the basic figure eight) with such precise symmetry that by the end of the compulsory figures--which count for 60% of a skater's score--she had a virtually unassailable lead of 77.2 points over her closest competitor.

Discretion called for playing it safe with her free-skating routine--but that was not for Peggy. "I am competing against myself," she said. "I'll skate as well as I can." Dressed in chartreuse, and skating to the strains of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, she began a dazzling array of acrobatic leaps and spins. Her artistry won her a rousing ovation from the crowd and a total score of 1,970.5 points, 88.2 more than Runner-Up Gaby Seyfert of East Germany.

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