Tenley Albright

Tenley Albright was the first American woman to win the world figure skating championships and an Olympic gold medal. The Newton Center, Massachusetts, native was also the first to win the world, North American and United States titles in a single year. Albright began dominating the sport in 1952, when she won five consecutive U.S. women’s championships through 1956, while also claiming two North American and two world championship titles in 1953 and 1955. During her skating career, Albright enrolled as a pre-med student at Radcliffe College with the hopes of becoming a physician like her father. She retired from skating shortly after the Olympic Winter Games Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956, rejecting offers to skate professionally and entering Harvard Medical School instead. Dr. Albright became a general surgeon and taught at Harvard Medical School. She received eight honorary degrees, was the first woman on the executive committee of the United States Olympic Committee and served as a delegate to the World Health Assembly.