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SN 140 Moments: No. 123 - Sonja Henie skates to record third straight gold medal in 1936 Olympics originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Sonja Henie set the standard by which women's figure skaters are judged to this day.
The Norwegian skater dominated the sport in the 1930s. She won gold medals in the women's singles event in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in 1928 when she was 15 years old and at Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1932, but the performance in 1936 in Garmisch-Partenkirche in Germany put her over the top.
Henie won the gold medal – then won a 10th world championship the following week. She remains the only women's figure skater to win three gold medals, a record Katarina Witt challenged with gold medals in 1984 and 1988 for East Germany.
Henie gained immense popularity and took on a career as an actress in Hollywood with an appropriate debut opposite Tyrone Power in "Thin Ice" in 1937. That combination of grace on the ice and celebrity off it remains part of being the best women's figure skater of all time.
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