ABSTRACT
Hollywood staged the Lake Placid Winter Olympics of 1932, where Britain had its first, and only, all-female team of four figure skaters: Mollie Phillips, the senior member of the team at the age of 24; Joan Dix was 13 years of age; Cecilia Colledge and Megan Taylor were both just 11 years old. Colledge was 11 years and 83 days, making her slightly younger than Taylor, at 11 years and 102 days, and she remains the youngest ever Olympian. Dix’s father had also been an Olympian. Following the only gender-based boycott of the 1928 Olympic Games by the Women’s Amateur Athletic Association, in protest at the limited schedule of events, this chapter shows that women’s access to Olympic competition could depend upon a number of factors including individual skill, team politics and, importantly in the case of the figure skaters, social class. Ice dancing had its own professional entertainment forms by 1932, particularly in the USA and Europe, and so the amateur British contestants in 1932 benefitted from aspects of professional sport, including intensive specialist preparation, from a very young age.
