Karen MAGNUSSEN

Figure skater Karen Magnussen began her career on the ice at the age of six and, by the age of twelve, she was already the Canadian junior figure skating champion. The following year she finished fourth at the Canadian senior championships and, in 1967, was Canada’s senior runner-up in addition to attending her first World Championship, where she placed 12th in the singles competition. She began to rise in prominence with the 1968 retirement of Petra Burka and captured the Canadian championship that year, although she placed only 7th at the World Championships and the Winter Olympics. The following season brought triumphs, as she placed second in the Canadian and North American Championships, as well as tragedy when, as she prepared for the World Championships, it was discovered that she had stress fractures in both of her legs and she spent the next three months in leg casts.

Nevertheless, Magnussen made a quick recovery and comeback in 1970, capturing the Canadian championship and placing fourth in the World Championships. In addition to her silver medal at the 1972 Winter Olympics she continued her reign as Canadian champion through 1973, for a total of five years, as well as becoming North American champion in 1971, and climbing the podium at the World Championships every year, from bronze in 1971, to silver in 1972 and, finally, gold in 1973. In that year, she was not only a World champion (a feat that, as of 2009, has yet to be repeated by a Canadian female), but was also named Canadian female athlete of the year, inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She ended her amateur career and skated professionally with the Ice Capades until 1977, and then took up a career as a skating coach, first in Boston, and then in her home town of Vancouver. She was made a member of the Skate Canada Hall of Fame in 1996. As of 2009 she was the director of skating and head coach at the North Shore Winter Club. She has also founded the Karen Magnussen foundation to help young and talented skaters received affordable, professional training.