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Youngest Olympian, skater Cecilia Colledge, dies

The Associated Press

April 24, 2008

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BOSTON - Cecilia Colledge, an innovative figure skater who was the youngest athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics, has died. She was 87.

Colledge died April 12 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass., said Ben Wright, vice president of The Skating Club of Boston, where Colledge taught for nearly four decades.

Colledge was 11 when she competed for her native Britain in the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. She won a silver medal at the 1936 Olympics, second to Sonja Henie, in Germany.

Colledge was the first woman to execute a double jump (a Salchow) and is credited with inventing the camel and layback spins and the one-foot Axel jump.

She was world champion in 1937, British champion five times and European champion on three occasions. She was inducted into World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1980.

Magdalena Cecilia Colledge never married and leaves no close relatives. She will be cremated and buried in England.

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