Peggy Fleming

Peggy Gale Fleming (born July 27, 1948 in San José, California) is an American former figure skater who competed in individual skating. She is the 1968 Olympic champion and the 1966-1968 world champion.

Peggy Fleming was born in San José, California, the daughter of Doris Elizabeth Deal and newspaper journalist Eugene Fleming. She began figure skating at the age of nine. Initially, she trained with William Kipp. When the latter died in the 1961 plane crash of the U.S. team on its way to the World Championships in Prague, Carlo Fassi became her new coach. Fleming was considered an extraordinarily elegant skater and was a direct competitor of Gabriele Seyfert.

From 1964 to 1968, Fleming became the U.S. champion in women's figure skating. In the same period she participated in world championships. She won her first medal there on her second participation, in 1965 in Colorado Springs. She won bronze behind the Canadian Petra Burka and the Austrian Regine Heitzer. Her first world championship title followed a year later in Davos. She won by unanimous judges' decision ahead of her main rival Gaby Seyfert from the GDR. At the 1967 World Championships in Vienna, she again defended her title with a unanimous decision over Seyfert. Fleming succeeded again in 1968 in Geneva. There she won her third gold in a row at her last World Championship. At the Olympic Games in Grenoble, her second after 1964 in Innsbruck, where she had finished sixth, she became Olympic champion ahead of Seyfert, as expected. Peggy Fleming became very famous because the 1968 Winter Olympics were televised in color for the first time in the U.S., she won the only gold medal for the U.S. at those Games, and she was also the first internationally successful U.S. figure skater since the 1961 plane crash. She was honored with the Associated Press Athlete of the Year award in 1968.

After her Olympic victory, she turned pro and joined the revue Ice Capades. She also made guest appearances on the revue Ice Follies, where the much-admired highlight was her blue-light solo run to Ave Maria. Fleming skated for four U.S. presidents. In 1976, she was inducted into the Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

Fleming has three siblings. She married dermatologist Greg Jenkins, who had been an ice dancer in earlier years, in 1970. The couple has two sons, Andy, born in 1977, and Todd, born in 1988. In 1998, Fleming was diagnosed with breast cancer, which was successfully treated. In 1999, she became a grandmother. She now has three grandchildren.

Fleming has been a television commentator for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) for over 20 years. She is also a spokesperson for the National Osteoporosis Foundation in the US and is an activist for breast cancer control and prevention. Fleming and her husband own a vineyard in California.

Results

Works

• Peggy Fleming, Peter Kaminsky: The Long Program: Skating Toward Life's Victories. Pocket Books, New York 1999, ISBN 0-671-03886-9.