JENKINS, David Wilkinson

(b. 29 June 1936 in Akron, Ohio), three-time world champion figure skater and Olympic gold medallist.

Jenkins was the third child of Hayes R. Jenkins, a lawyer and tire company executive, and Sarah Wilkinson Jenkins, a homemaker and judge for skating events. All three Jenkins offspring enjoyed skating as children, but the two brothers, David and Hayes, became the most successful siblings in figure skating history. Together they dominated the sport between 1953 and 1960. Hayes Jenkins won the gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games, Jenkins won gold at the 1960 Olympic Games.

Jenkins was about six when he followed his older brother and sister to the Akron skating rink. He was a fearless youngster who loved to jump, sometimes with unfortunate results. At nine he invented what his then teacher Walter Arian called the Jenkins "forehead flop," knocking himself out for a considerable time. This setback did not diminish Jenkins's love of the sport. In 1953, five years after his brother had won the title, Jenkins became the U.S. junior champion. A few months later he joined his brother as part of the U.S. team and competed in his first world championship. His older brother won and Jenkins came fourth.

Neither brother would have reached this level if their talent had not been recognized by others. As Jenkins explained, "Skating was very expensive and the money dried up. We could not have continued without support from the Broadmoor Club in Colorado Springs." The two brothers and their mother had moved to Colorado in 1952 to take advantage of the club's sponsorship offer. In the 1950s, when athletes had to show they were not being paid to compete in order to retain their amateur status, the offer was both limited and controversial.

When his brother retired after winning Olympic gold and his fourth world crown in 1956, Jenkins took over his place at the top. As a skater Jenkins was nurtured by his brother, but because their skating styles were so different their abilities were not really compared. While Hayes was respected for his artistry, David was known for his athleticism, performing as many as three different types of triple rotation jumps—the flip, loop and salchow—in a single routine, fifteen years before this became the norm. Jenkins finished fourth in the 1956 Olympic Games and won the bronze medal in the 1956 world championships, but he was never beaten again.

The governing body of figure skating, the International Skating Union, did not rule that championships must be held indoors until after 1967, and in Europe events mostly took place outdoors. European skaters referred to American competitors as "hot house plants" because of their inexperience with skating in bad weather. At the 1956 world championship, there was one place on the rink where the ice level suddenly dropped six inches, and Jenkins fell four times in the free skating because the brittle ice broke up under his skates. Even so, he managed to finish third and fell in competition only once more in the next four years. At other times, skaters in outdoor competitions were knocked over by the wind and drenched by the rain. The world championships were held in the United States in 1957, the first time since 1930, and only the second time ever. Under ideal conditions, and skating on home ice at the Broadmoor Club, Jenkins won the first of three successive world titles. All nine judges placed him first in both the school figures and the free-skating sections, a very rare occurrence.

Jenkins was unbeatable in the next years despite carrying a full academic load, first at Colorado College, where he earned a B.A. degree in 1958, and then at Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, where he earned an M.D. in 1963. As on the rink, Jenkins showed a stubborn streak in his determination to succeed in his medical studies, and his student draft deferment only gave him a greater incentive to succeed in both arenas. Amazingly, from 1954 on he skated in a back brace because of a weight lifting injury, and is probably the only person to manage triple jumps in that condition. Jenkins was also one of the first to try a triple axel jump in which the skater makes three and a half rotations in the air. Jenkins said of his attempts, "In practice I was landing it about thirty percent of the time. I gave up trying because I didn't need it and there was too much risk of injury." The jump was not accomplished in a world championship until 1978.

Jenkins's greatest glory came at the 1960 Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, California, where he won the gold medal. The 1960 games were the first to be televised. Jenkins, who was relatively unknown to the general public before the games, was thrust into the limelight, although his fame did not match that accorded to today's star athletes. Jenkins describes the experience of winning gold as a profound one: "There are very few things in life that you can complete, take to the limit and say, 'That's it, I accomplished all that was possible. I can now set it aside.'"

Jenkins did not compete in the 1960 world championships, held a short time after the Olympics, because he felt he had lost too much study time to altitude training for the Squaw Valley Olympics. He retired to concentrate on his medical studies, taking a year off (1961–1962) to perform in an ice show to help pay for medical school. Jenkins graduated with an M.D. in 1963 and immediately after served two years in the U.S. Air Force. In June of 1965 he married Barbara Ruth Boling and settled in Tulsa, where he became a gastroenterologist. Neither his wife nor his three children skate.

Information about Jenkins's career can be found in Benjamin T. Wright's Reader's Guide to Figure Skating's Hall of Fame (1978); the International Skating Union's 75 years (1892–1967) of European and World's Championships in Figure Skating (1970); and The Official Book of Figure Skating (1998), produced by the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA). Various issues of Skating, the official magazine of the USFSA, contain articles on Jenkins, including Theresa Weld Blanchard's "Meet the Champions" (June 1953); Theodore G. Patterson's report "World Championships" (Apr. 1955); Blanchard's report "The World Championships" (May 1956); Blanchard's and Edith Ray's "The Championships of the World" (May 1957); and a further article on Jenkins by Blanchard, "David W. Jenkins" (June 1957). The report on the 1958 world championships is credited to "several U.S. observers" (Apr. 1958), and there is a further review of Jenkins's 1958 successes in Ray, "Meet the United States Champions" (June 1958).

Sandra Stevenson