An Olympic gold medal that briefly made her one of the most famous women in Canada
Barbara Ann Scott
Ottawa-born but closely associated with the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club where she trained, Barbara Ann Scott won Olympic figure skating gold in 1948, becoming a national hero at the peak of postwar Canadian optimism.
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Barbara Ann Scott trained for much of her competitive figure skating career at Toronto skating clubs, refining the technical precision that carried her to the Canadian, North American, European and World championships in the years immediately after the Second World War. Her rise coincided with a period when Canadians, emerging from wartime rationing and years of bad news, were eager for a genuine international sporting hero to celebrate.
Olympic gold and a doll in her honour
Scott won Olympic gold in figure skating at the 1948 St. Moritz Winter Games, becoming the first North American woman to win the event and an instant national celebrity, greeted by enormous crowds on her return to Canada. Her fame was significant enough that a "Barbara Ann Scott doll" became a bestselling Canadian children's toy in the following years, an unusual level of mainstream commercial celebrity for a figure skater in that era, and she remains one of the most celebrated Canadian Olympic champions in the sport's history.
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