page_title: Barbara Ann Scott
section_title: Life and career
hierarchical_section_title: Barbara Ann Scott / Life and career
caption_attribution_description: English: Barbara Ann Scott and Hans Gerschwiler practice together before the 1948 Winter Olympics. Both went on to win medals - Scott gold and Gerschweiler silver.
context_page_description: Barbara Ann Scott OC OOnt was a Canadian figure skater. She was the 1948 Olympic champion, a two-time World champion, and a four-time Canadian national champion in ladies' singles. Known as "Canada's Sweetheart", she is the only Canadian to have won the Olympic ladies' singles gold medal, the first North American to have won three major titles in one year and the only Canadian to have won the European Championship. During her forties she was rated among the top equestrians in North America. She received many honours and accolades, including being made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991 and a member of the Order of Ontario in 2008.
context_section_description: Scott was born on May 9, 1928, the youngest of three children born to Canadian Army Colonel Clyde Rutherford Scott and Mary (née Purves) of Sandy Hill, Ottawa. She began skating at the age of seven with the Minto Skating Club, coached by Otto Gold and Sheldon Galbraith. At age nine, Scott switched from regular schooling to tutoring two-and-a-half hours a day in order to accommodate her seven hours of daily ice training. At the age of ten she became the youngest skater ever to pass the "gold figures test" and at eleven years won her first national junior title. By the age of fifteen, Scott became Canada's senior national champion, she held the Canadian Figure Skating championship title from 1944-46.
  In 1947, with funding raised by the community, Scott traveled overseas and became the first North American to win both the European and World Figure Skating championships, and remains the only Canadian to have won the European title. This led to her being voted Canadian Newsmaker of the Year in 1947. On her return to Ottawa during a parade she was  given a yellow Buick convertible (license plate: 47-U-1); however it had to be returned for her to retain amateur status, to be eligible for the 1948 Winter Olympics.
  During the 1948 season, Scott was able to defend both the World Figure Skating and the European Skating Championships, and reacquired the Canadian Figure Skating Championship, becoming the first North American to win all three in the same year and the first to hold consecutive World titles. She was featured as a Time magazine cover story on February 2, 1948, one week before her Olympic debut in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
  At the 1948 Winter Olympics, Scott became the first and only Canadian in history to win the ladies' singles figure skating gold medal. After the Olympic win she received a telegram from Prime Minister Mackenzie King, stating that she gave "Canadians courage to get through the darkness of the post-war gloom". When Scott returned to Ottawa on March 9, 1948, the car that she originally relinquished in 1947 was given back (license plate now: 48-U-1), and she also received the "Key" to the city. She was commonly referred to as "Canada's Sweetheart" in the press at this time, so much so that a collectible doll (accompanied by a letter from her) was issued in her honour in 1948.
  Scott officially relinquished her amateur status in the summer of 1948 and began touring North America and Europe, headlining in a variety of shows over the next five years. Among her early successes was Tom Arnold's Rose Marie on Ice at the Harringay Arena in London, UK. She went on to replace her childhood idol Sonja Henie in the starring role with the "Hollywood Ice Revue" in Chicago, which became the subject of a Life cover story on February 4, 1952. The grueling schedule of a professional skater took its toll, and at the age of twenty-five she retired from professional skating. 
  In 1955, aged 27, she married publicist and former professional basketball player Tom King at Rosedale Presbyterian Church in Toronto. The couple settled in Chicago, where she opened a beauty salon for a short time, then became a distinguished horse trainer and equestrian rider by her forties. During this time, Scott founded and became chancellor of the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Toronto. In 1996, the couple retired  to Amelia Island, Florida. She remained an influential figure in skating throughout her life; she appeared in films and TV, published books, served as a skating judge, and was formally recognized for her educational and charitable causes including donating a percentage of her earnings to aid crippled children.
  As a Canadian sports icon  and marking the fortieth anniversary of her Olympic win, she was asked to carry the Olympic torch in the lead-up to the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary. In December 2009, she again carried the Olympic torch, this time to Parliament Hill and into the House of Commons, in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics. She subsequently was one of the Olympic flag bearers during the opening
caption: Barbara Ann Scott and Hans Gerschwiler practice together before the 1948 Winter Olympics. Both went on to win medals - Scott gold and Gerschweiler silver.
exif: {}