Maribel Owen & Dudley Richards - Freeskate US Nationals 1961

This is Maribel Owen and Dudley Richards' gold-medal-winning freeskate from the 1961 US National figure skating championships. A month later, the plane carrying the US team to Worlds crashed, killing everyone on board. Owens, her sister (ladies' champion), and her mother (a coach and former elite figure skater herself) were three of the biggest names who perished.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• maribel
• owen
• 1961
• figure
• skating
• championships
• plane
• crash
• dudley
• richards

[MelleAndKev]

Thank you so much for sharing this rare and wonderful footage. There's a certain elegance that old school skaters have that these skaters today lack. I really think they made a mistake when they eliminated figures from competition.

[kwillyau]

Wow - they were really good. Love the jumps together. And a really difficult transition into back camel spin.

[iveyspam]

So lovely, thanks for posting this. You never see pairs like this any more - the seems to be such a mismatch in the size of the skaters now that they just aren't as pretty to watch as skaters who are better matched in size and skating ability. The last American pair I can think of that was physically well matched was Babilonia and Gardner. Now they all look like giants skating with midgets.

[faeryquene]

God rest their sweet souls. It is such an honor to finally see the performances of Maribel, Dudley and the other skaters who left this world much too soon. 

[faeryquene]

@schutzenhaus Well, I'm under 50 and I agree with those who say that the loss of figures has cost the sport as far as good basics, and edge work. I think lowering the percentage of figures versus the SP and LP a little more would have been sufficient (enough but not so much to keep great free skaters like Yamaguchi and Ito out of the medals). Jmo.

[PecanSandees23]

Thank you so much for posting this. What a treat to see this performance. How incredibly sad that they were gone all too soon. RIP the 1961 National Team.

[Tonichelle]

interesting to see a lot of ice dance type moves and lifts. oh how times have changed this disipline.

[schutzenhaus]

The reason the compulsory figures were eliminated was because the ones who did well in them were often not-so-good free skaters. Hardly anyone under the age of 50 misses them, I'm sure; they were boring to do and worse to watch, so they'd never get televised; then the good free skaters (generally Westerners) would lose to the good skaters (from the Soviet bloc) and the hoi polloi would think the competition was rigged ...

[teaeyedoubleguhur]

R.I.P. Maribel and Dudley

[figuresk8rr]

One of my skating coaches was trained by Maribel Owen.

[MissFit29]

These two were a couple off the ice too - rumor has it Dudley was going to propose in Prague.