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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
CHATHAM’S SANDRA TEWKESBURY DOMINATED THE CANADIAN SKATING OLYMPIC HOPES OF 1960
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
As 2009 came to a close and Christmas quickly approached there was a rather festive, celebratory few days in Chatham-Kent as the Olympic torch passed through the municipality. Our area was one of many spots the torch passed through on its way to Vancouver and the 2010 Winter Olympics scheduled to begin on February 12th.The idea of the world getting together to celebrate sportsmanship and friendship and understand one another a bit more is an absolutely wonderful concept. However , in the to-day's world everything seems to be reduced to mere competition and winning seems to be the only thing that counts.
I prefer to recall a cold Winter Olympics fifty years ago as the hype swirls around us like a winter storm in the frenetic days leading up to the current Winter Olympics. I prefer to bring to your attention a little wisp of a girl, eight years older than I was, whose name was on the lips of everyone in Southwetern Ontario and who was the pride of Chatham at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, USA.
Sandra Tewkesbury’s path to a skating berth on the Canadian Olympic figure skating team, on the surface, seemed to be a mercurial rise. However, the average person failed to comprehend the fact that this young lady who, when she began skating, weighed only forty pounds spent seven years and over 15,000 hours preparing for her brief fleeting moment in the spotlight at Squaw Valley.
A talented athlete interested in a number of sports she, as a young girl, was an accomplished swimmer and badminton enthusiast. She once confessed, in a newspaper interview, that skating was not her favourite spectator sport but that football was what she loved to watch.
A key turning point in her young life was the day that a mysterious gentleman from the Chatham-Kent area known only as “Mr. X” asked officials of the Chatham Figure Skating Club to identify for him a young skater who showed great promise. They, of course, pointed to the little waif almost floating over the ice like a phantom.
“Mr. X” then approached Sandra Tewekesbury and her parents and offered to sponsor her if she was truly serious about embarking upon a skating career. The Tewkesburys as a family agreed and Sandra decided to pusue her dream in earnest. Pursuing her dream in earnest of course meant getting professional coaches, much more ice time and expensive skates, costumes etc.
In all likelihood, if “Mr. X” had not appeared out of virtually no where like a mysterious angel, Sandra’s ice skating career may have been only a short-lived teenage passion that was fun but quickly forgotten in the day to day pursuit of an adult life and career.
I would love to know who “Mr. X” was as his generosity is the kind of thing that local legends are constructed around. The desire to not reveal his name in any public manner makes him an even more intriguing figure. We need more people like this in to-day’s world.
It soon became apparent that the money invested in the young athlete was money very well spent. At eleven years old she became one of the youngest skaters in Canadian ice dancing history to win the Canadian Figure Skating Association Silver Dance Medal. In the very same year, Sandra also won the U.S. Figure Skating Association’s pre-gold dance medal.
As she matured, Sandra Tewekesbury ‘s career in ice dancing became secondary to her singles skating that was to occupy most her skating career.
In 1956, four years before Squaw Valley she enjoyed her most successful year. In the space of two months she became the world’s youngest and only skater to win three gold medals in international competitions. In April of that year the fourteen year old won the United States gold medal, the Canadian gold medal and then in May she went to England and captured the United Kingdom’s National Skating Association Gold Medal. It was, at the time an unheard of accomplishment, and quickly vaulted the teenager to the ranks of the worlds’ best skaters.
As the 1950s came to a close and the 1960 Winter Olympics began to come into view, the talented teenage skater from Chatham, Ontario seemed posed to tackle her biggest challenge. It must have seemed to her, at her tender age, a time when the whole world stretched out in front of her in a series of new rewards. The future must have seemed full of excitement, new challenges and the promise of an exciting life-long career doing what she loved best.
Next week…the vagaries and tragedies in the life of Chatham’s skating star of the 1950s.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
