Alena Vrzáňová

Alena "Ája" Vrzáňová (* 16 May 1931 in Prague; † 30 July 2015 in New York City, USA) was a Czechoslovak figure skater. She was the 1949 and 1950 World Champion and the 1950 European Champion.

Vrzáňová started winter sports at the age of three, when her parents bought her skis. The family spent every winter in the Giant Mountains. This tradition was interrupted because of the Second World War. So she started figure skating. The conditions for it were not easy, because due to the blackout regulations she could train only on early winter mornings in the dark. The training sessions took place in the open winter stadium Štvanice (Zimní stadión Štvanice), before the training time of the ice hockey players, or on the club's own tennis courts, which were flooded and the water then frozen. In addition to figure skating training, she attended a ballet school and played the piano.

In 1946 she became Czechoslovak youth champion in figure skating. In the autumn of that year she moved to London to train with Arnold Gerschwiler. In 1947, she won the national senior championships for the first time and competed in the European and World Championships for the first time, placing sixth and seventh, respectively. After the communist party came to power in Czechoslovakia, Vrzáňová was criticized for training in London.

At the 1948 European Championships in Prague, she won her first international medal, taking bronze behind Barbara Ann Scott and Eva Pawlik. At the World Championships in Davos, as well as at the Olympic Games in St. Moritz, she finished fifth, both times still behind her compatriot Jiřina Nekolová.

In 1949, she was runner-up in the European Championships in Milan behind the Olympic silver medallist of the previous year, Eva Pawlik, who was also the favourite at the 1949 World Figure Skating Championships in Paris. However, the reigning European champion from Austria was unable to compete in the free skate due to a broken heel on her skate. Alena Vrzáňová seized this opportunity and won her first World Championship gold.

After spending the winter of 1949 at home in Czechoslovakia, her father advised her not to return after the upcoming World Cup. She agreed, absconded during the 1950 World Cup in London and was granted political asylum. Her mother followed her in March under dramatic circumstances. Her plane was hijacked. Her father, a professional cello player, visited them several times but never decided to stay there with them and leave his country as well. Vrzáňová herself did not return to Prague until 1990. In 1950 she won her fourth and last national championship title in a row and became European champion in Oslo as well as world champion in London.

After her amateur career, Vrzáňová moved to the USA and skated for ice shows such as Ice Follies and Ice Capades. She also appeared on television and in commercials. In 1969, she married Pavel Steindler, a native of the Czech Republic, and they adopted two children. They ran the Duck Joint restaurant in New York City and later the Czech Pavilion. After her husband's death, she worked for Ice Capades and ran New York City's largest public skating rink, Wollman Rink.

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