Barbara Ann Scott was a Canadian figure skater and was known as “Canada’s Sweetheart”. She started skating at the age of 7 with the Minto Skating Club. By the age of 9, she switched from regular schooling to tutoring two and a half hours a day in order to accommodate her 7-hours of daily ice training. By the age of 10, she became the youngest skater to ever pass the “Gold Figures Test”. By 11, she won her First National Junior title. By the age of 15, she became Canada’s Senior National Champion and she held the Canadian Figure Skating Championship title from 1944 to 1946.
In 1947, she travelled overseas and became the first North American to win both the European and the World Figure Skating Championships. Upon her return to Ottawa, during a parade, she was given a yellow Buick convertible but, she had to return it for her to retain her amateur status to be eligible for the 1948 Winter Olympics. During the 1948 season, she was able to defend both the World Figure Skating and the European Skating Championships and reacquired the Canadian Figure Skating Championship becoming the first North American to win all three in the same year and the first to hold consecutive World titles. During the 1948 Winter Olympics, she became the first and only Canadian in history to win the Ladies’ Singles Figure Skating Gold Medal. After the Olympics, she received a telegram from the Prime Minister stating she gave Canadians the courage to get through the darkness of the post-war gloom. Upon her return, she got back the car that she had relinquished back in 1947 and she received a key to the city. In the summer of 1948, she relinquished her amateur status and began touring North America and Europe. She had retired from professional skating at the age of 25 because of the toll of the gruelling schedule of a professional skater.
As a Canadian sports icon and marking the 40th anniversary of her Olympic win, she was asked to carry the Olympic torch in the lead-up to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. In December 2009, she again carried the Olympic torch, this time to Parliament Hill and into the House of Commons in anticipation of the 2010 Winter Olympics. She was also one of the flag bearers during the opening ceremonies in Vancouver on February 12th, 2010. In 2012, the city of Ottawa created the Barbara Ann Scott Gallery which displays photographs, her championship awards, and the Olympic gold medal that had been formally donated to the city in 2011.
Although her professional career didn’t last long, she made a standing impact on skating today. She is the only Canadian in history to win the Ladies’ Singles Figure Skating Gold Medal at the Olympics. Canada has only won silver and bronze since.