Tenley Albright

Tenley Albright was stricken with nonparalytic polio at the age of 11. Six years later, she made her first Olympic appearance in Oslo, Norway in 1952, winning the silver medal in figure skating behind Jeannette Altwegg of Great Britain. Less than two weeks before the 1956 Cortina d’Ampezzo Olympic Winter Games, Albright was practising when she hit a rut. As she fell, her left skate blade hit her ankle joint, cut through three layers of her right boot, slashed a vein and severely scraped the bone. Her father, a surgeon, arrived two days later and patched her up. She skated well enough to earn the gold medal with first-place votes from 10 of the 11 judges. Upon her return to the United States, Albright entered Harvard Medical School and eventually became a surgeon herself.