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Karen Diane Magnussen (born April 4, 1952) is a
Canadian figure skater. Olympic silver medalist,
1972 Winter Olympic Games. Gold medalist, 1973
World Figure Skating Championships|World
Championships.

In 1973 she was made an Officer of the Order of
Canada.

Although overshadowed in the American media by her
rival, Janet Lynn of the United States, Karen
Magnussen was one of the greatest figure skaters
of her era, dominating both Canadian and
International events in the early 1970s by winning
five Canadian National titles, three World
Championship medals, and an Olympic medal.
Magnussen's 1972 Olympic silver medal and 1973
World Championship gold medal made her a Canadian
covergirl and media darling, a girl-next-door in
the tradition of Barbara Ann Scott, Canada's
original skating sweetheart. 

Like her contemporary Janet Lynn, Magnussen
possessed a short but sturdy frame that propelled
a tremendous freestyle skating ability. Indeed,
both she and Lynn, who took the top two spots in
the free skating portion of the ladies' figure
skating event at the 1972 Olympics, are largely
credited for fueling a movement to reduce the
significance of compulsory figures or school
figures in the sport, which at the time counted
for 50 percent of the overall score.  

While both were competent at the compulsory
figures, they were outshone by Beatrix Schuba, the
great Austrian skater and 1972 Olympic Champion in
Ladies' Figure Skating, who is acknowledged to be
the best practitioner of the school figures in the
entire history of the sport. Schuba, who was a
satisfactory-if-unscintillating freeskater,
commanded such a lead after the figures component
that even a seventh-place finish in the freeskate
failed to make a dent in her overall first-place
standing at the Olympics, leaving Magnussen and
Lynn, who had finished second and third behind her
in the figures while claiming the top two spots in
the freeskate, to win the silver and bronze
overall.

The uproar from television audiences worldwide,
who had largely seen only the freeskate and not
the dull, lengthy, and tedious-to-watch school
figures component, catalyzed a growing
dissatisfaction within the sport's governing body
over the prominence of the school figures. At the
time, the figures component of major events
involved the tracing of six different figures,
with the most difficult figures traced six times, 
making that portion of the competition quite
lengthy. Indeed, it was often a two-day marathon,
with each athlete on the ice or rinkside for
several hours. 

As the sport sought greater appeal to a wider
television audience, it was felt that the school
figures confused and turned off the potential
viewing audience, who would tune in to see a
freeskating component of a competition, only to
see the best freeskaters place behind others who
had excelled in the school figures. Such had been
the case in the Sapporo Olympics, where worldwide
audiences had watched the breathtaking double
axels and split leaps of Magnussen and Lynn fall
short of Schuba's overall score.

In an effort to reduce the importance of the
figures, the 1973 skating season saw the
introduction of the short program - a freeskated
component with required jumping, spinning and
footwork elements - which accounted for 20 percent
of the overall score, with the freeskating 'long
program' still counting for half the total score,
and figures reduced to 30 percent of the total
mark. 

In the first world championships under this new
system, in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1973,
Magnussen handily won her first world title,
producing a near-flawless short program (which
included a magnificent double axel) to beat Lynn,
who struggled in the short program, falling twice
to place twelfth in that portion of the
competition, and settled for the silver medal
overall. Magnussen, who had claimed bronze and
silver at the 1971 and 1972 world championships,
now proudly added the gold to complete her
hardware collection.

Magnussen, who enjoyed a successful career as a
professional skater after her 1973 World
Championship win, is now a leading figure skating
coach in her hometown of Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada. Although Canada has gone on to
produce many notable female skaters, such as
Elizabeth Manley and Josee Chouinard, no other
countrywoman has claimed the world title since
Magnussen.

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