| 1972 United States Figure Skating Championships | |
|---|---|
| Type: | National Championship |
| Date: | January 13 – 16 |
| Season: | 1971–72 |
| Location: | Long Beach, California |
| Venue: | Long Beach Arena |
| Previous: 1971 U.S. Championships | |
| Next: 1973 U.S. Championships | |
The 1972 United States Figure Skating Championships was an event organized by U.S. Figure Skating to determine the U.S. national champions and the U.S. teams for the 1972 Winter Olympics and 1972 World Championships. Medals were awarded in three colors: gold (first), silver (second), and bronze (third) in four disciplines – men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing – across three levels: senior, junior, and novice. The event was held from January 13–16 at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California.
U.S. Figure Skating is the national governing body for the sport of figure skating on ice in the United States. It is recognized as such by the United States Olympic Committee "USOC" under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and is the United States member of the International Skating Union ("ISU"). Although the name of the organization is “the United States Figure Skating Association” it is now known as and conducts business under the name “U.S. Figure Skating.” Founded in 1921, U.S. Figure Skating regulates and governs the sport and defines and maintains the standard of skating proficiency. It specifies the rules for testing, competitions and all other figure skating related activities. U.S. Figure Skating promotes interest and participation in the sport by assisting member clubs, skaters, and athletes, appointing officials, organizing competitions, exhibitions, and other figure skating pursuits, and offering a wide variety of programs.
The 1972 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XI Olympic Winter Games, were a winter multi-sport event which was held from February 3 to February 13, 1972, in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, Japan. It was the first Winter Olympics to be held outside Europe and North America, and only the third game held outside those regions overall, after Melbourne and Tokyo.
The 1972 World Figure Skating Championships were held at the Stampede Corral in Calgary, Canada from March 7 to 11. At the event, sanctioned by the International Skating Union, medals were awarded in men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dance.
Contents
- Senior-level results
- Men
- Ladies
- Pairs
- Ice dancing (Gold Dance)
- Junior-level results
- Men 2
- Ladies 2
- Pairs 2
- Ice dancing (Silver Dance)
- Novice-level results
- Men 3
- Ladies 3
- References
The competition opened with the ladies' compulsory figures, in which Julie Lynn Holmes took the lead over Janet Lynn. But Lynn easily won the free skating with a faultless performance while Holmes skated cautiously. Second place in the free skating went to Dorothy Hamill, who probably performed the most difficult program but nonetheless could not overcome her deficit in the figures to reach the podium. Suna Murray captured the bronze medal.
Compulsory figures or school figures were formerly a segment of figure skating, and gave the sport its name. They are the "circular patterns which skaters trace on the ice to demonstrate skill in placing clean turns evenly on round circles". For approximately the first 50 years of figure skating as a sport, until 1947, compulsory figures made up 60 percent of the total score at most competitions around the world. These figures continued to dominate the sport, although they steadily declined in importance, until the International Skating Union (ISU) voted to discontinue them as a part of competitions in 1990. Learning and training in compulsory figures instilled discipline and control; some in the figure skating community considered them necessary to teach skaters basic skills. Skaters would train for hours to learn and execute them well, and competing and judging figures would often take up to eight hours during competitions.
Julie Lynn Holmes is an American former figure skater. She won one silver medal and one bronze medal at the World Figure Skating Championships and competed in the 1972 Winter Olympics.
Janet Lynn Nowicki is an American figure skater. She is the 1972 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time world championships medalist, and a five-time U.S. national champion.
The previous years' champions in the pairs and dance events, JoJo Starbuck / Kenneth Shelley and Judy Schwomeyer / Jim Sladky, respectively, easily defended their titles without serious challenge. The pairs competition this year was notable for the new and innovative lifts performed by the second-place team Melissa and Mark Militano as well as by Starbuck / Shelley. The Militanos also included a throw double axel and side-by-side double axels in their program, elements that only a few top pairs in the world were attempting in this era, but they could not match the speed and unison of the champions.
Alicia "JoJo" Starbuck, is an American figure skater. With partner Kenneth Shelley, she is a three-time United States pair skating champion (1970–72) and two-time Olympian.
Kenneth Gene Shelley is an American figure skater who competed in both singles and pairs. As a single skater, he won the 1972 United States Figure Skating Championships and placed 4th at the 1972 Winter Olympics. His highest placement at the World Figure Skating Championships was a single skater was 7th, in 1972. As a pair skater, he competed with JoJo Starbuck, with whom he is a three-time National Champion. Starbuck and Shelley competed in two Olympic Games, placing 13th in 1968 and 4th in 1972, and won two bronze medals at the World Figure Skating Championships. When they made the 1968 Olympic team, they were the youngest athletes the United States had ever sent to the Olympics.
Judith Kay Schwomeyer is an American actress and former competitive ice dancer. With her skating partner and then-husband, Jim Sladky, she became a four-time World medalist and five-time U.S. national champion (1968–1972).
The men's competition saw something of an upset as defending champion John Misha Petkevich had a poor free skate, missing both his triple salchow and triple loop jumps. Kenneth Shelley, on the other hand, had one of the best performances of his career, allowing him to take the title with the first-place votes of 4 of the 7 judges. He became the first skater to win national titles in both senior men and pairs since 1941, and the first in postwar history to qualify for the Winter Olympics in two disciplines.
John Misha Petkevich is an American former figure skater. He is the 1971 U.S. national champion and North American champion. He placed 6th at the 1968 Winter Olympics and 5th at the 1972 Winter Olympics. His best finish at the World Championships was 4th in 1972; he placed 5th in 1969, 1970, and 1971. In 1972, he won the gold medal at the World University Games. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/figure-skating-john-misha-petkevich/1100066256?ean=9781568000701
The 1972 Championships also marked the introduction of a significant innovation: the use of a computer to calculate the competition results for the first time at the U.S. Championships. The initial version of the scoring software, called "Hal", was written by volunteer Al Beard in FORTRAN, and ran via a remote terminal link on a time-sharing system donated by Honeywell in Minneapolis, where Beard was employed. Although the computer results were used for public announcements of the results, the rules of the time actually required hand computation of the official results, so this was done after the fact. [1]
A computer is a machine that can be instructed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically via computer programming. Modern computers have the ability to follow generalized sets of operations, called programs. These programs enable computers to perform an extremely wide range of tasks. A "complete" computer including the hardware, the operating system, and peripheral equipment required and used for "full" operation can be referred to as a computer system. This term may as well be used for a group of computers that are connected and work together, in particular a computer network or computer cluster.
In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking at the same time.
Honeywell International Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate company that produces commercial and consumer products, engineering services and aerospace systems. The company operates four business units, known as Strategic Business Units – Honeywell Aerospace, Home and Building Technologies (HBT), Safety and Productivity Solutions (SPS), and Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies.
