Friederike "Fritzi" Burger (6 June 1910 – 16 February 1999) was an Austrian

figure skater Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are me ...

. She was a two-time

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

silver medalist (1928, 1932), a four-time

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

medalist (silver in 1929 and 1932, bronze in 1928 and 1931), the 1930 European champion, and a four-time Austrian national champion (1928–1931).

Life and career

Burger was born on 6 June 1910 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. Her family was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. She won the first-ever contested

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

, held in 1930.

Sonja Henie Sonja Henie (8 April 1912 – 12 October 1969) was a Norway, Norwegian figure skating, figure skater and film star. She was a three-time List of Olympic medalists in figure skating, Olympic champion (Figure skating at the 1928 Winter Olympics, ...

, who held a monopoly in women's figure skating at the time, was not present at this championship and Burger never defeated her in competition. She placed second behind Henie at the

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris Bazhanov, J ...

and

1932 Winter Olympics The 1932 Winter Olympics, officially known as the III Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Lake Placid 1932, were a winter multi-sport event in the United States, held in Lake Placid, New York, United States. The games opened on February ...

, and in the 1929 and 1932

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

. After the 1932 Olympics, Burger ended her skating career and went to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where in 1935 she married Shinkichi Nishikawa, a grandson of the Japanese pearl tycoon

Kōkichi Mikimoto Kōkichi, Kokichi or Koukichi (written: 幸吉, 小吉, 浩吉 or 鋼吉) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese baseball player *, Japanese samurai *, Japanese footballer and manager *, Japanese phot ...

. She returned with her husband to Vienna, where she gave birth to her son in the summer of 1937, just before the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

(annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany).She, her husband and son moved to London in 1938 and a few years later moved to Tokyo, Japan where Mr. Nishikawa was from. In the 1990s, living in the United States, Burger was interviewed for several documentaries on the history of figure skating. She joked in a 1994 interview, "I had two husbands. onja Henieeven beat me at that. She had three." She died on 16 February 1999 in

Bad Gastein Bad Gastein (; formerly ''Badgastein''; Southern Bavarian: ''Bod Goschdei'') is a spa town in the district of St. Johann im Pongau District, St. Johann im Pongau, in the Austrian state of Salzburg (state), Salzburg. Picturesquely situated in a hig ...

, Austria.

Results

References

External links

Picture of Fritzi Burger

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070125115151/http://www.jewsinsports.org/olympics.asp?sport=olympics&ID=214 Jews in sports – Burger, Fritzi
Preface to "Searching for Fritzi"

Reviews of "Searching for Fritzi," 1999

Book

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