| Barbara Roles | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Barbara Ann Roles | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Other names | Barbara Ann Roles-Pursley Barbara Roles Williams | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | April 6, 1941 San Mateo, California, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Figure skating career | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Country |  United States | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Skating club | Arctic Blades | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Retired | 1960, 1962 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Barbara Ann Roles (married names: Pursley, Williams, born April 6, 1941) [1] is an American former figure skater who currently works as a coach. She is the 1960 Olympic bronze medalist and the 1962 U.S. national champion.
Barbara Ann Roles is the daughter of Carl A. Roles. [2] She married after retiring in 1960. [3] Her daughter, Shelley Pursley Boatright, was born on June 24, 1961. [4] In 1962, she gave birth to a son, Ronald Dean Pursley Chorak. She chose his middle name to honor her mentor, Deane McMinn, who died in the 1961 plane crash. She is the stepmother[ citation needed ] of U.S. skater Scott Williams.
Roles won the U.S. junior title in 1958. The next year, she won the senior bronze medal and was assigned to her first World Championships, where she placed fifth. After taking silver at the 1960 U.S. Championships, Roles was sent to the 1960 Winter Olympics and 1960 World Championships. She won the bronze medal at both competitions. She retired following that season and started a family.
Roles was asked to come out of retirement following the crash of Sabena Flight 548, which killed the entire 1961 U.S. figure skating team. [3] [5] She complied and won the gold medal at the 1962 U.S. Championships, making her the first skater[ citation needed ] to win U.S. national titles on the novice, junior and senior levels. Roles was the only skater to accomplish this until Kimmie Meisner performed the same feat in 2007. She missed the following season to give birth to her second child.
Roles returned to competition in an attempt to qualify for the 1964 Winter Olympics, but placed fifth at the national championships and failed to make the team. [6] She took up coaching in 1964. [4] Her pupils have included Lisa-Marie Allen, Wendy Burge, Nicole Bobek, Brian Pockar, Vikki DeVries, Geoffry Varner, and Scott Williams.
| International | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event | 1956 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 |
| Winter Olympics | 3rd | |||||||
| World Championships | 5th | 3rd | 5th | |||||
| National | ||||||||
| U.S. Championships | 1st N. | 1st J. | 3rd | 2nd | 1st | 5th | ||
| Levels: N. = Novice; J. = Junior | ||||||||
Laurence Rochon "Laurie" Owen was an American figure skater. She was the 1961 U.S. National Champion and represented the United States at the 1960 Winter Olympics, where she placed 6th. She was the daughter of Maribel Vinson and Guy Owen and the sister of Maribel Owen. Owen died, along with her mother, sister and the entire United States Figure Skating team, in the crash of Sabena Flight 548 en route to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships. In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the crash, Owen and the entire team was inducted to the United States Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Maribel Yerxa Vinson-Owen was an American figure skater and coach. She competed in the disciplines of ladies' singles and pair skating. As a single skater, she was the 1932 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time World medalist, the 1937 North American champion, and a nine-time U.S. national champion. As a pair skater, she was the 1935 North American champion and four-time national champion with George Hill. She also won two national titles with Thornton Coolidge. She was the first female sportswriter at The New York Times, and continued competing and winning medals while working as a full-time reporter.
Sabena Flight 548 was a Boeing 707-329 flight operated by Sabena that crashed en route from New York City to Brussels, Belgium on 15 February 1961. The flight, which had originated at Idlewild International Airport, crashed on approach to Brussels Airport, killing all 72 people on board and one person on the ground. The fatalities included the entire United States figure skating team, who were traveling to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The precise cause of the crash remains unknown; the most likely explanation was thought to be a failure of the mechanism that adjusts the tail stabilizer.
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Figure skating is a sport with participants across the world. Originally based in North America and Europe, the sport has experienced a major expansion in the countries of East Asia. The international governing body of the sport is the International Skating Union (ISU). Only those nations which are members of the International Skating Union are allowed to compete in the figure skating events in the Olympic Games.
Maribel Yerxa Owen was an American figure skater.
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Dudley "Dud" Shaw Richards was an American figure skater who competed in men's singles and pairs. In singles, he won the bronze medal at the 1953 United States Figure Skating Championships and finished sixth at that year's World Figure Skating Championships. In pairs, he once skated with future Olympic gold medalist Tenley Albright, before later teaming up with Maribel Owen. After winning the bronze medal at Nationals in 1958 and 1959, the pair captured the silver in 1960 and finished tenth at that year's Winter Olympic Games. In 1961, Owen and Richards won the gold medal at the U.S. Championships and finished second at the North American Figure Skating Championships.
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Figure Skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. Although ice skating began in 3,000 BCE in Scandinavia, American Edward Bushnell's 1855 invention of steel blades and Jackson Haines bringing elements of ballet to figure skating were critical to the development of modern-day figure skating. Since then, figure skating in the United States has grown to have 186,038 members as of the 2020–2021 season.
