Silver at first try
Tenley Albright made her first Olympic appearance in 1952, winning the silver medal behind Jeannette Altwegg.
An near tragedy
Less than two weeks before the 1956 Cortina Olympics, Albright was practising when she hit a rut. As she fell, her left skate hit her ankle joint, cut through three layers of her right boot, slashed a vein, and severely scraped the bone. Her father arrived two days later and patched her up. In the Olympic competition she skated well enough to earn the first-place votes of ten of the 11 judges.
Following her father’s footsteps
Back in the United States Tenley entered Harvard Medical School to eventually become a surgeon herself.