Trixi Schuba

Beatrix "Trixi" Schuba (born 15 April 1951) is an Austrian former competitive figure skater who competed in ladies' singles. She is a six-time Austrian national champion (1967–1972), a two-time European champion (1971 and 1972), a two-time World champion (1971 and 1972), and 1972 Olympic champion.[1]

Trixi Schuba
Beatrix Schuba in 2011
Personal information
Country represented Austria
Born (1951-04-15) 15 April 1951
Height5 ft 7 in (170 cm)
Former coachHelmut Seibt
Leopold Linhart
Skating clubWien
Retired1973

She is considered to be one of the best compulsory figure skaters ever.[2][3][4]

Early life

Schuba was born in Vienna. After her father died when she was thirteen, she went to trade school and eventually took over the bookkeeping of her family's lumber business in Vienna; mornings were given to skating and afternoons to work.[5]

Competitive career

Schuba's interest in figure skating began as a young child in 1955 when she happened to see an American competition on the television bought by her parents to watch performances of the Vienna State Opera and the Burgtheater.[6] She was coached by Helmut Seibt from 1955 to 1962,[7] and then by Leopold Linhart.[1]

Her first major success was winning the ladies' singles portion of the Austrian Championships at the age of sixteen in 1967; she would go on to defend her title five straight times. Schuba steadily improved throughout the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, placing in the top five several times and eventually taking first twice each at the European Championships and the World Championships in 1971 and 1972.[1]

Schuba's greatest success came in 1972 at the Winter Olympics at Sapporo when she won the gold medal.[8] She is the first Austrian lady since Herma Szabo in 1924 to win gold and is the most recent.[6] Schuba, the dominant compulsory figures skater, placed first in the figures and Janet Lynn of the United States, the top free skater, placed first after the free skate. As the scoring system used at the time placed more weight on figures, Schuba won the gold medal and Lynn won the bronze behind silver medalist Karen Magnussen of Canada.[9]

The International Skating Union, the governing body of the sport, would over the ensuing years decrease the weight given the figures portion before finally eliminating it in 1990.[10]

After winning gold at Sapporo, Schuba did the same the next month at the World Championships, successfully defending against silver medalist Magnussen and bronze medalist Lynn.[11] At the end of the year, sportswriters named her Athlete of the Year for 1972.[12]

Later career

Retiring from amateur skating, Schuba appeared over the succeeding six years in the professional shows Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice, after which she began a career in the insurance industry which she continues to the present.[6][13]

In addition to her career in insurance, Schuba is involved in various sports organizations in Austria. She is a former president of the Austrian Ice Skating Association, the first woman to hold that position, and she sat on the board of the Austrian Olympic Committee from 2004 to 2009.[14] Schuba has served as president of the International Panathlon Club Wien since 2007, on the board of the Austrian Paralympic Committee since 2009, and as vice president of the Graz Skating Association since 2010.[14]

Results
International
Event 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972
Winter Olympics5th1st
World Championships9th4th2nd2nd1st1st
European Championships5th3rd3rd2nd1st1st
Richmond Trophy2nd
National
Austrian Championships1st1st1st1st1st1st

References
  1. "Trixi Schuba Biography and Olympic Results". Sports Reference. Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  2. Hamill, Dorothy; Clairmont, Elva (1983). Dorothy Hamill On and Off the Ice. A.A. Knopf. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-394-85610-0. Still, it was exciting to see all the famous foreign skaters, Karen Magnussen from Canada (the local girl); Beatrix Schuba, the girl from Austria who was said to have the best figures in the history of skating; little Christine Errath from East Germany and her teammate Sonja Morgenstern.
  3. Künzle-Watson, Karin; DeArmond, Stephen J. (1996). Ice Skating: Steps to Success. Steps to Success. 1. Human Kinetics. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-87322-669-1. To this day, there are two individuals considered the best at this art: Gillis Grafström of Sweden, who was the men's Olympic champion in 1920, 1923, and 1928, and Beatrix "Trixi" Schuba of Austria, who was the women's Olympic champion in 1972.
  4. Sivorinovsky, Alina (2000). Inside Figure Skating. MetroBooks. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-58663-005-8. Her closest competitor, 1972 Olympic champion Beatrix "Trixie" Schuba of Austria, was a lethargic freestyler but arguably the greatest figure skater the world had ever seen.
  5. "Trixi Schuba - Sportpersönlichkeit aus Wien" [Trixi Schuba - Sports Personality of Vienna]. Wien.gv.at (in German). Vienna: Vienna Sports Department, City of Vienna. Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 8 February 2011.
  6. "Biographie". Trixi Schuba. Zenker und Co. Archived from the original on 15 March 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  7. "Hellmut Seibt - A Life For Figure Skating". Vienna: Eissport Klub Englemann.
  8. "U.S. men win on ice, but not like Dutchman". The Miami News. Miami, FL. Associated Press. 7 February 1972. Retrieved 22 January 2010. And, just as she said she would, Miss Schuba used that lead to breeze to victory and a gold medal while Miss Holmes faded to fourth, giving Miss Magnussen, the North American champion, the silver and Miss Lynn, the four-time U.S. titlist, the bronze, America's second in the games.
  9. "Figure Skating at the 1972 Sapporo Winter Games: Women's Singles". Sports Reference. Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2011.
  10. "No More Figures In Figure Skating". The New York Times. Associated Press. 9 June 1988. Retrieved 4 February 2011. Under the rule change, the figures' share of the total score, which was 60 percent 20 years ago, will go down immediately from 30 to 20 percent. A revamped short program's value will be increased to 30 percent from 20.
  11. "Trixi wins title and then retires". The Montreal Gazette. Montreal. Canadian Press. 13 March 1972. p. 23. Retrieved 9 February 2011. Trixi Schuba, a sad Austrian girl who laughingly apologized for winning, has capped her international skating career by retaining her world figure-skating crown.
  12. "Schuba Edges Proell As Athlete of Year". Lawrence Daily Journal-World. Lawrence, KS. Associated Press. 22 December 1972. p. 15. Retrieved 24 August 2011. Austria's Beatrix Schuba, the world and Olympic figure skating champion, beat double World Cup ski winner and current leader in the Cup standings, Annemarie Proell, in a sports writers' poll of Best Athlete of the Year.
  13. Neumann, Fritz (2 February 2006). "Trixi Schuba: "Mehr als zwei Schnitzel kann ich auch nicht essen am Tag"" [Trixi Schuba: "I can't eat more than two schnitzels a day"]. Der Standard (in German). Archived from the original on 26 February 2014.
  14. "Erfolge". Trixi Schuba. Zenker und Co. Archived from the original on 16 March 2011. Retrieved 1 February 2011.

Media related to Beatrix Schuba at Wikimedia Commons

Awards
Preceded by
Ilona Gusenbauer		 Austrian Sportspersonality of the year
1972		 Succeeded by
Annemarie Moser-Pröll
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