The 1970 Canadian World team. Photos courtesy Mary Petrie McGillvray.
An opening ceremony at the three-hundred-year-old Ljubljana Town Hall hosted by ISU Vice-President John Shoemaker was well-attended, and skaters raved about the service at the illustrious host Hotel Lev at Vosnjakova 1.
Photo courtesy Judy Sladky
The hotel staff extended their hours to serve meals well into the wee hours of the morning to accommodate the schedules of the skaters and officials and adapted their menu to suit varied international tastes. Each country's team was provided an interpreter to make communication a breeze.
Transportation wasn't an issue either - Ljubljana's six-year-old Sportna Hala, the Sports Hall in the Tivoli Gardens, was only a short fifteen-minute walk from the hotel. American figure skating fans who had shelled out six hundred and sixty dollars for a two-week package tour to the event sponsored by the Central California Inter Club Association appreciated the fact that Ljubljana's lightly falling snow matched the picture on the brochure perfectly. They also appreciated the fact that the competition itself was one of the most exciting they had seen in years! How did it all play out? Let's take a look back!
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
With an unconventional free dance set to a modern piano arrangement of the music of Grieg, Moniuszko and Beethoven, Pakhomova and Gorshkov won the free dance - and the gold medal - in one of the closest ice dance events at the World Championships in history to that point. The judging panel was split five-four and only one-tenth of a point (511.4 to 511.3) separated the top two couples. Had it not been for low marks from British judge Mollie Phillips, Schwomeyer and Sladky would have made history as the first American couple to win a World title in ice dance. Phillips had told Sandra Stevenson that she placed Schwomeyer and Sladky lower because "his bottom stuck out". She told Benjamin T. Wright she gave them lower marks "because they weren't the North American Champions". Donna Taylor and Bruce Lennie, the Canadians who had won the title in 1969, had since retired. Instead, Pakhomova and Gorshkov made history as the first Soviet couple to win the title. Not long after, they returned to the Soviet Union and got married.
The Bucks took the bronze in Ljubljana, some ten points back of the leaders and fifteen points ahead of the European Bronze Medallists, Tatiana Voituk and Viacheslav Zhigalin. However, Voituk and Zhigalin's fourth place finish was quite remarkable as they had only been fourteenth at Worlds the year prior, and had stood in sixth after compulsories. Canada's only entry, Mary Church and David Sutton, placed a disappointing fourteenth after David missed a considerable amount of practice time leading up to the event due to illness.
Peter Bojanczyk of Poland finished thirteenth with his partner Teresa Weyna. He recalled, "It was my first Worlds and it was very interesting to see and watch many skaters from the U.S. and Canada, and other countries (outside Europe). I was very impressed with Judy Schwomeyer and Jim Sladky. They presented a slightly different dance style than we were used to. Different than British and different than Russian styles. My mother arranged a trip to Ljubljana so she could watch us competing (it was unusual at that time in Poland). I still remember a tour to the famous Postojna Cave, the world's biggest underground cave complex."
Not everyone was thrilled with Pakhomova and Gorshkov's victory. Their free dance was widely criticized for its excessive side-by-side skating, toe work and posing. In fact, Ann Udell, who reviewed the event for "Skating" magazine remarked, "On the whole, the free dance was a let-down. Few couples held dance positions for any length of time, and most of the free dances can be best described as 'liftless, spinless pairs.' A notable lack of unison and the inability of the dancers to skate to the beat or in reasonable time with the selected music generally characterized the dances. Some programs contained so many changes in the music that it became distracting, abrupt transitions destroying the flow and continuity of the program as a complete, unified dance."
Judy Sladky recalled, "Pakhomova and Gorshkov used classical music, which was absolutely outlawed but Lawrence Demmy said 'Oh no, we didn't want to bother them at the competition.' They didn't tell the judges. I think at that time the judges couldn't watch the skaters in practice, so I don't think they heard their music 'til the day of... There was a Czechoslovakian judge [Miroslav Hansenöhrl] there that we'd met when we won the St. Gervais competition in '68. He was there when the Russian tanks had come into Czechoslovakia. He and a bunch of us sat down and talked about what his choices were - he couldn't go back or he could but he didn't know what to do. At the end of that conversation in '68 he said, 'Boy, I hope I get to judge you when you're World Champions'. Well, he was on the panel in '70 and he didn't put us first - he was East Bloc. He actually came up to me afterward and sided up and said, 'Well, I couldn't help it. They wouldn't let me out of the country if I [voted for you]. That was the time."
Before heading to Ljubljana, Janet Lynn spent some time training in Switzerland. In her book "Peace And Love", she recalled, "It snowed every day. Every morning [Slavka Kohout] and my mom would be out there shoveling up to a foot of snow off the rink themselves. They worked as hard as i did. Mom would have to keep shovelling patches throughout the day while I spent fix to six hours on figures. When it came to practicing my program, there was simply no way to shovel the entire rink. So I just had to go plowing through drifts. [Slavka would] keep making me do it, skating right behind me until, out of sheer desperation, I landed every jump."
In the women's school figures, defending World Champion Gaby Seyfert had a serious case of déjà vu. She found herself in exactly the same position as she'd been the year prior at the World Championships in Colorado Springs, over twenty points behind eighteen-year-old Trixi Schuba of Austria. Hungary's Zsuzsa Almássy was third after the first two figures, but an uncharacteristic error on the paragraph loop dropped her to fifth, behind America's Julie Lynn Holmes and Great Britain's Patricia Dodd. Janet Lynn placed as high as fifth on one figure but placed a disappointing eighth after the final figure, the paragraph bracket, one spot behind Canada's Karen Magnussen, who was skating in her first World Championships.
As was so often the case during that era, the stars of the free skate were Janet Lynn and Karen Magnussen. Though they finished second and third in that phase of the event, the audience at the Sportna Hala gave them both ovations that surpassed the eventual unanimous winner, Gaby Seyfert.
Seyfert's free skate was set to gypsy music. Seven judges gave her 5.9s for technical merit; the other two gave her 5.8s. On the second mark, she received one 6.0, six 5.9s and two 5.8s.
Trixi Schuba placed a disappointing seventh but still managed to win the silver medal, some fifteen points ahead of the bronze medallist, Julie Lynn Holmes. Karen Magnussen ended up fourth and Janet Lynn sixth, but both skaters received a second-place ordinal overall. Magnussen's was from the British judge; Lynn's was from the Swiss. Canada's second entry, Cathy Lee Irwin, delivered an outstanding free skate of her own to move up from an unlucky thirteenth after figures to tenth place overall.
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
Winning five of the six school figures, nineteen-year-old Ondrej Nepela of Czechoslovakia took an early lead over defending World Champion Tim Wood of the United States. East German auto mechanic Günter Zöller placed a strong third, ahead of the winner of the final figure, France's Patrick Péra. Harvard student John 'Misha' Petkevich and Kenneth Shelley (the only skater to compete in both singles and pairs) sat in fifth and eighth places, and Canadians David McGillivray and Toller Cranston were twelfth and fifteenth.
Though Nepela was a master at figures and had made great strides in his free skating, not even a triple Salchow would allow him to overtake Tim Wood in the free skate. Though Wood overrotated his triple Salchow attempt, he landed a fine triple toe-loop and received two 6.0's for technical merit and one for artistic impression for his free skating performance.
John 'Misha' Petkevich stole the show with his performance to "On The Waterfront" and finished second in the free skate... but remained fifth overall behind Nepela, Zöller and Péra. The same fans who expressed frustration with the fact that Janet Lynn and Karen Magnussen hadn't won medals in the women's event were positively outraged by Petkevich's result in the men's event. Toller Cranston finished an unlucky thirteenth in his debut at Worlds, two spots back of David McGillvray, and Didier Gailhaguet of France placed second to last. One of the most interesting tidbits about the judging in the men's event was the fact that both North American judges - Yvonne Sherman McGowan and Ralph McCreath - placed Tim Wood behind Ondrej Nepela.
THE PAIRS COMPETITION
The absence of two-time Olympic Gold Medallists Ludmila and Oleg Protopopov was certainly felt in Ljubljana. The talented pair had fallen out of favour with the 'powers that be' in the Soviet Union and placed only fourth at the Soviet Championships, missing a spot on the World team. This paved the way for a two-way battle between two other Soviet pairs, Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov and Lyudmila Smirnova and Andrei Suraikin.
With a confident performance, Rodnina and Ulanov took a strong lead over Smirnova and Suraikin and East Germans Heidemarie Steiner and Heinz-Ulrich Walther in the compulsory short program. In the warm-up before the first phase of the event, America's Melissa Militano collided with East Germany's Annette Kansy. Annette was so badly cut that she was taken directly to the hospital, given stitches and admitted for the duration of the competition. Then, in a practice session before the free skate, Melissa fell from a lift and suffered a concussion. She skated the free skate with her brother Mark sporting a huge bruise on her forehead... and actually managed to move up two places from tenth to eighth. In her "BBC Book Of Skating", Sandra Stevenson recalled, "Melissa and Mark Militano were executing a death spiral at the same time as an East German couple were practicing flying camels. The East German girl jumped into Melissa's path and had an artery in her leg slashed. Melissa said later that she could find no blood on her skates, although it covered the ice, and she felt that the injury might have been inflicted by the German boy's blade, colliding with his partner as he lost unison in the jump. In any case, the German girl never skated again."
Rodnina and Ulanov managed to defend their World title, but it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Ulanov fell on the pair's first side-by-side jump - the double Salchow - and two-footed the landing of a double toe-loop. Though the judges from East and West Germany had Smirnova and Suraikin first, the rest of the panel still favoured the dynamic Rodnina and Ulanov. Steiner and Walther were unanimously third, over ten points ahead of the third Soviet team, Galina Karelina and Georgi Proskurin.
Sandra and Val Bezic with their parents at the airport in Toronto before leaving for Yugoslavia. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.
Transportation wasn't an issue either - Ljubljana's six-year-old Sportna Hala, the Sports Hall in the Tivoli Gardens, was only a short fifteen-minute walk from the hotel. American figure skating fans who had shelled out six hundred and sixty dollars for a two-week package tour to the event sponsored by the Central California Inter Club Association appreciated the fact that Ljubljana's lightly falling snow matched the picture on the brochure perfectly. They also appreciated the fact that the competition itself was one of the most exciting they had seen in years! How did it all play out? Let's take a look back!
THE ICE DANCE COMPETITION
Ice dance medallists. Photo courtesy Judy Sladky.
The retirement of Diane Towler and Bernard Ford paved the way for a classic East/West showdown between Soviets Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov, Americans Judy Schwomeyer and James Sladky and West Germans Angelika and Erich Buck. After eighteen teams had weaved their way through three compulsory dances - the Westminster Waltz, Rocker Foxtrot and Silver Samba - the Soviets and Americans were in a virtual tie. Pakhomova and Gorshkov had 150.1 points to Schwomeyer and Sladky's 149.8. Judy Sladky recalled, "Computers were a new thing for scoring and so we went back to the hotel thinking we were second. At that point, I was in bed, I had washed my hair and put it into the rollers. I didn't have a hair dryer or anything. I heard, 'All ice dancers please report to the arena after this event' so I had to get dressed, somehow get my hair done, get make-up on and everything else and go over the rink and that's when we found out we were first. There was something with the ordinals that hadn't been done in the computer. We thought we were second!"
Judy Schwomeyer and James Sladky performed a Paso Doble for their OSP and managed to overtake Pakhomova and Gorshkov by the slimmest of margins. Things looked good for the talented young American couple who managed to fit their practices around Jim's military duties at West Point.
Judy Schwomeyer and James Sladky performed a Paso Doble for their OSP and managed to overtake Pakhomova and Gorshkov by the slimmest of margins. Things looked good for the talented young American couple who managed to fit their practices around Jim's military duties at West Point.
Video courtesy Frazer Ormondroyd
With an unconventional free dance set to a modern piano arrangement of the music of Grieg, Moniuszko and Beethoven, Pakhomova and Gorshkov won the free dance - and the gold medal - in one of the closest ice dance events at the World Championships in history to that point. The judging panel was split five-four and only one-tenth of a point (511.4 to 511.3) separated the top two couples. Had it not been for low marks from British judge Mollie Phillips, Schwomeyer and Sladky would have made history as the first American couple to win a World title in ice dance. Phillips had told Sandra Stevenson that she placed Schwomeyer and Sladky lower because "his bottom stuck out". She told Benjamin T. Wright she gave them lower marks "because they weren't the North American Champions". Donna Taylor and Bruce Lennie, the Canadians who had won the title in 1969, had since retired. Instead, Pakhomova and Gorshkov made history as the first Soviet couple to win the title. Not long after, they returned to the Soviet Union and got married.
Video courtesy Frazer Ormondroyd
The Bucks took the bronze in Ljubljana, some ten points back of the leaders and fifteen points ahead of the European Bronze Medallists, Tatiana Voituk and Viacheslav Zhigalin. However, Voituk and Zhigalin's fourth place finish was quite remarkable as they had only been fourteenth at Worlds the year prior, and had stood in sixth after compulsories. Canada's only entry, Mary Church and David Sutton, placed a disappointing fourteenth after David missed a considerable amount of practice time leading up to the event due to illness.
Left: Judy Schwomeyer and Jim Sladky. Photo courtesy Judy Sladky. Right: Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov. Photos courtesy "Skating" magazine.
Peter Bojanczyk of Poland finished thirteenth with his partner Teresa Weyna. He recalled, "It was my first Worlds and it was very interesting to see and watch many skaters from the U.S. and Canada, and other countries (outside Europe). I was very impressed with Judy Schwomeyer and Jim Sladky. They presented a slightly different dance style than we were used to. Different than British and different than Russian styles. My mother arranged a trip to Ljubljana so she could watch us competing (it was unusual at that time in Poland). I still remember a tour to the famous Postojna Cave, the world's biggest underground cave complex."
Not everyone was thrilled with Pakhomova and Gorshkov's victory. Their free dance was widely criticized for its excessive side-by-side skating, toe work and posing. In fact, Ann Udell, who reviewed the event for "Skating" magazine remarked, "On the whole, the free dance was a let-down. Few couples held dance positions for any length of time, and most of the free dances can be best described as 'liftless, spinless pairs.' A notable lack of unison and the inability of the dancers to skate to the beat or in reasonable time with the selected music generally characterized the dances. Some programs contained so many changes in the music that it became distracting, abrupt transitions destroying the flow and continuity of the program as a complete, unified dance."
Judy Sladky recalled, "Pakhomova and Gorshkov used classical music, which was absolutely outlawed but Lawrence Demmy said 'Oh no, we didn't want to bother them at the competition.' They didn't tell the judges. I think at that time the judges couldn't watch the skaters in practice, so I don't think they heard their music 'til the day of... There was a Czechoslovakian judge [Miroslav Hansenöhrl] there that we'd met when we won the St. Gervais competition in '68. He was there when the Russian tanks had come into Czechoslovakia. He and a bunch of us sat down and talked about what his choices were - he couldn't go back or he could but he didn't know what to do. At the end of that conversation in '68 he said, 'Boy, I hope I get to judge you when you're World Champions'. Well, he was on the panel in '70 and he didn't put us first - he was East Bloc. He actually came up to me afterward and sided up and said, 'Well, I couldn't help it. They wouldn't let me out of the country if I [voted for you]. That was the time."
THE WOMEN'S COMPETITION
Julie Lynn Holmes, Gaby Seyfert and Trixi Schuba. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.
Before heading to Ljubljana, Janet Lynn spent some time training in Switzerland. In her book "Peace And Love", she recalled, "It snowed every day. Every morning [Slavka Kohout] and my mom would be out there shoveling up to a foot of snow off the rink themselves. They worked as hard as i did. Mom would have to keep shovelling patches throughout the day while I spent fix to six hours on figures. When it came to practicing my program, there was simply no way to shovel the entire rink. So I just had to go plowing through drifts. [Slavka would] keep making me do it, skating right behind me until, out of sheer desperation, I landed every jump."
In the women's school figures, defending World Champion Gaby Seyfert had a serious case of déjà vu. She found herself in exactly the same position as she'd been the year prior at the World Championships in Colorado Springs, over twenty points behind eighteen-year-old Trixi Schuba of Austria. Hungary's Zsuzsa Almássy was third after the first two figures, but an uncharacteristic error on the paragraph loop dropped her to fifth, behind America's Julie Lynn Holmes and Great Britain's Patricia Dodd. Janet Lynn placed as high as fifth on one figure but placed a disappointing eighth after the final figure, the paragraph bracket, one spot behind Canada's Karen Magnussen, who was skating in her first World Championships.
Seyfert's free skate was set to gypsy music. Seven judges gave her 5.9s for technical merit; the other two gave her 5.8s. On the second mark, she received one 6.0, six 5.9s and two 5.8s.
Trixi Schuba, Gaby Seyfert and Julie Lynn Holmes
Trixi Schuba placed a disappointing seventh but still managed to win the silver medal, some fifteen points ahead of the bronze medallist, Julie Lynn Holmes. Karen Magnussen ended up fourth and Janet Lynn sixth, but both skaters received a second-place ordinal overall. Magnussen's was from the British judge; Lynn's was from the Swiss. Canada's second entry, Cathy Lee Irwin, delivered an outstanding free skate of her own to move up from an unlucky thirteenth after figures to tenth place overall.
THE MEN'S COMPETITION
Ondrej Nepela, Tim Wood and Günter Zöller
Winning five of the six school figures, nineteen-year-old Ondrej Nepela of Czechoslovakia took an early lead over defending World Champion Tim Wood of the United States. East German auto mechanic Günter Zöller placed a strong third, ahead of the winner of the final figure, France's Patrick Péra. Harvard student John 'Misha' Petkevich and Kenneth Shelley (the only skater to compete in both singles and pairs) sat in fifth and eighth places, and Canadians David McGillivray and Toller Cranston were twelfth and fifteenth.
Though Nepela was a master at figures and had made great strides in his free skating, not even a triple Salchow would allow him to overtake Tim Wood in the free skate. Though Wood overrotated his triple Salchow attempt, he landed a fine triple toe-loop and received two 6.0's for technical merit and one for artistic impression for his free skating performance.
John 'Misha' Petkevich stole the show with his performance to "On The Waterfront" and finished second in the free skate... but remained fifth overall behind Nepela, Zöller and Péra. The same fans who expressed frustration with the fact that Janet Lynn and Karen Magnussen hadn't won medals in the women's event were positively outraged by Petkevich's result in the men's event. Toller Cranston finished an unlucky thirteenth in his debut at Worlds, two spots back of David McGillvray, and Didier Gailhaguet of France placed second to last. One of the most interesting tidbits about the judging in the men's event was the fact that both North American judges - Yvonne Sherman McGowan and Ralph McCreath - placed Tim Wood behind Ondrej Nepela.
THE PAIRS COMPETITION
Lyudmila Smirnova and Andrei Suraikin, Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov and Heidemarie Steiner and Heinz-Ulrich Walther
The absence of two-time Olympic Gold Medallists Ludmila and Oleg Protopopov was certainly felt in Ljubljana. The talented pair had fallen out of favour with the 'powers that be' in the Soviet Union and placed only fourth at the Soviet Championships, missing a spot on the World team. This paved the way for a two-way battle between two other Soviet pairs, Irina Rodnina and Alexei Ulanov and Lyudmila Smirnova and Andrei Suraikin.
Photo courtesy German Federal Archive
With a confident performance, Rodnina and Ulanov took a strong lead over Smirnova and Suraikin and East Germans Heidemarie Steiner and Heinz-Ulrich Walther in the compulsory short program. In the warm-up before the first phase of the event, America's Melissa Militano collided with East Germany's Annette Kansy. Annette was so badly cut that she was taken directly to the hospital, given stitches and admitted for the duration of the competition. Then, in a practice session before the free skate, Melissa fell from a lift and suffered a concussion. She skated the free skate with her brother Mark sporting a huge bruise on her forehead... and actually managed to move up two places from tenth to eighth. In her "BBC Book Of Skating", Sandra Stevenson recalled, "Melissa and Mark Militano were executing a death spiral at the same time as an East German couple were practicing flying camels. The East German girl jumped into Melissa's path and had an artery in her leg slashed. Melissa said later that she could find no blood on her skates, although it covered the ice, and she felt that the injury might have been inflicted by the German boy's blade, colliding with his partner as he lost unison in the jump. In any case, the German girl never skated again."
Protocols for pairs short program. Photo courtesy Mary Petrie McGillvray.
Rodnina and Ulanov managed to defend their World title, but it wasn't exactly smooth sailing. Ulanov fell on the pair's first side-by-side jump - the double Salchow - and two-footed the landing of a double toe-loop. Though the judges from East and West Germany had Smirnova and Suraikin first, the rest of the panel still favoured the dynamic Rodnina and Ulanov. Steiner and Walther were unanimously third, over ten points ahead of the third Soviet team, Galina Karelina and Georgi Proskurin.
Galina Karelina and Georgi Proskurin
Sandra and Val Bezic's teammates Mary Petrie and Bob McAvoy had an equally memorable experience in Ljubljana. Before the event, the Canadian team trained at an army base in Lehr, West Germany. Unfortunately, Bob McAvoy fell ill on the plane and was admitted to the army hospital before even making it to Lehr. Even though he was extremely sick, Toller Cranston encouraged him to fly with the rest of the Canadian team to Ljubljana. Petrie and McAvoy made it through the short program - but the free skate was a different matter entirely. In his book "Zero Tollerance", Cranston recalled, "Everything appeared to be fine in Bob and Mary's warm-up and at the beginning of the performance. They did a number of difficult manoeuvres: double flips, throw Axels, and whatever else one did then. But right in the middle of the program, during an extended overhead lift, the fact that Bob had no strength hit him like a bolt of lightning. He was paralyzed. He just stopped. His face turned green, and his arms buckled like spaghetti. Mary dropped flat on her face and lay there on her stomach, her legs splayed. Bob also fell on his stomach and lay where he landed. The music kept going, which added a macabre touch. The referee [Karl Enderlin] - the person who was supposed to do something - did nothing. The audience was flabbergasted... They must have lain on their faces for at least thirty seconds. Bob then raised himself up a bit. His face was scraped, and he had blood on his cheeks. On his hands and knees, he made his way to his semi-conscious partner, put his arm around her, and pulled her up. Somehow they managed to stand. Her face was severely scraped. The audience remained in a state of shock. No one knew what to do, and the music played on." Then, Bob gestured to Mary asking if she'd like to continue. She nodded yes, and within seconds of them re-starting their program, the roar of the audience in support of them was so loud that the music was drowned out. They went on to skate the performance of their lives, received a massive standing ovation... and were rewarded with dismal marks despite their bravery - finishing fifteenth of the seventeen pairs entered.
It is hard to believe that over fifty years have passed since this star-studded competition took place. Looking back at fascinating figure skating competitions like this one is a wonderful reminder that every decade of the sport's history is peppered with interesting anecdotes worth learning more about. The stories of past champions and cherished performances will remain relevant for generations to come.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Bluesky, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering one of six fascinating books highlighting the history of figure skating: https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.
