MILAN (AP) — Seventy years after she won the gold medal at the original Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics, figure skating great Tenley Albright put on her Team USA uniform again to watch the women’s free skate at the Milan Cortina Games on Thursday.
Speaking with arena announcers and onetime Olympians Valentina Marchei and Ben Agosto, Albright opened up her coat to reveal a U.S. sweater she said was issued originally for the 1956 opening ceremony.
“I wasn’t able to wear it because I had injured my ankle and wasn’t able to parade in the opening ceremony,” Albright said.
Albright paid tribute to the team spirit among the U.S. “Blade Angels” as Alysa Liu prepared to compete for a medal, and the sense of camaraderie among skaters. All those competing would be trying to convince themselves they weren’t nervous as the competition approached, she predicted.
At a practice in the lead-up to the 1956 Olympics, Albright’s skate blade sliced into her ankle after she hit a rut on the outdoor ice rink. She couldn’t walk for days, but when the time came to compete, she skated through the pain to win gold.
“It was so beautiful, up there in the mountains,” Albright recalled in an interview with The Associated Press last month. “I remember when they started humming my music, and that really lifted me, and I took off my double axel in the sun and landed in the shade, and it was the most unbelievable thing.”
Albright went on to graduate from Harvard Medical School and became a surgeon. She later served as chief physician for the U.S. Olympic team and vice president of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
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