Austrian Olympic Figure Skating Champion and Salzburg 2014 Ambassador, Trixi Schuba, and Executive Director of Salzburg 2014, Gernot Leitner, are both attending the World Figure Skating Championships in Tokyo from the 19th to the 25th March in their capacity as official representatives of the Salzburg bid to host the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
The 2014 Olympic Games would give Austria the chance to once again be at the forefront of international figure skating, with targeted development and advancement programmes for talents such as Viktor Pfeiffer and young Mona-Lisa Weinberger from Salzburg. Mona- Lisa notably gave a demonstration of her talent to the IOC Evaluation Commission with a short freestyle display.
Austria’s figure skating glory days stretch right back to the very beginning of the Olympic Winter Games. The first 12 Olympic medals won by Austria between 1924 and 1936 were all for figure skating. The fact that Austria, with the help of the legendary American Jackson Haines, the innovator of modern figure skating who rocked Vienna with his performances, was also the cradle of modern figure skating is a little-known fact.
When his style was rejected in the USA, Jackson Haines came to Europe in 1865 and enjoyed huge success in Vienna in 1868. At his first appearances, he astonished Viennese audiences by waltzing on the ice, a feat that would have far-reaching consequences. A joint appearance by 500 pairs of figure skaters waltzing on ice was the impetus for the founding of the “Viennese school”.
The surge in popularity of figure skating in Vienna attracted the attention and interest of Eduard Engelmann. This Viennese man not only built the first private ice rink in his garden, he is also considered to be the founder of a figure skating dynasty. His son Eduard Junior built the world’s first artificial ice rink in 1909, his niece Herma Plank- Szabo was five-times world champion and won Austria’s first Olympic gold medal in 1924. Even Karl Schaefer, Austrian figure skating legend and the Olympic champion in 1932 and 1936, was related, albeit by marriage, to the family. For decades the world’s first artificial ice rink was considered a mecca for the world’s best figure skaters.
Trixi Schuba, 1972 Olympic Champion and Salzburg 2014 Ambassador, commented: “For me it is a great personal wish to see Austria establish itself once again as a world leader in figure skating, a position we once held thanks to Jackson Haines. It was alreadya dream come true in those days. Viktor Pfeiffer and young Mona-Lisa Weinberger have great potential and could make the jump forward. My dream is for the Olympic Games to be held in Austria. For me it is wonderful to be acting as an ambassador for dreams. I am putting all my energy into the Salzburg bid for the 2014 Winter Games and hope that the IOC will award the Games to Salzburg on the 4th of July.“