Sjoukje Dijkstra, Olympic gold-winning figure skater who later toured with a circus – obituary
Sjoukje Dijkstra, who has died aged 82, was a figure skater who in 1964 became the first Dutch athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
A powerful athlete, known for her double Axel jumps and flying spins, Sjoukje Dijkstra was fairly tall (1.68m) for a skater. Indeed in her memoir The Long Program, the US figure skater Peggy Fleming rather unkindly described her as “a huge, muscular lady who performed huge jumps,” adding: “All I could think was couldn’t she be a little more feminine?” A magazine profile, however, observed that “she is much more slender in person than she appears on the ice”.
Sjoukje Dijkstra was European champion five times (1960-1964) and World champion three times (1962-1964). She skated at three Winter Olympics, finishing 12th in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956 before winning a silver medal at Squaw Valley in 1960.
But it was her gold medal at Innsbruck that made her a heroine in her native Netherlands. It was the country’s first Olympic gold since “Flying Housewife” Fanny Blankers-Koen’s four-gold-medal triumph in track events at the Games in London in 1948.
Her Olympic gold also meant that Sjoukje Dijkstra was the first figure skater since Norway’s Sonia Henie in 1936 to win the World, Olympic and European titles in the same year.
After her Olympic triumph, Sjoukje Dijkstra left competitive sport to work in the Holiday on Ice shows, and for eight years was the top attraction in the shows in European cities.
In 1975 she married Karl Kossmayer, 25 years her senior, the star of “The Unrideable Mules”, a comedy circus act in which he and his sister Julie, pretending to be members of the audience, would climb into the sawdust ring, Karl trying his hand at riding a bucking mule and losing his trousers, while Julie – as his “wife” – tried to restrain him. For a time in the 1960s he had performed his act on a carpeted “ring” on the ice in the Holiday on Ice shows.
In 1980 Kossmayer had a brief attempt to run his own touring circus, capitalising on his wife’s popularity by calling it Circus Sjoukje Dijkstra, although the star attraction remained the mules. But the venture lasted only a few weeks, due to a clash of temperaments between Kossmayer and the German circus director Carl Althoff, with whom he had gone into partnership.
Sjoukje Rosalinde Dijkstra was born on January 28 1942 at Akkrum in Friesland. Her father, Lou Dijkstra, was a doctor who had competed as a speed skater in the 1936 Winter Olympics.
He gave his daughter her first skates as a sixth birthday present, and she was soon training at the ice rink at the Apollohal in Amsterdam, where her talent for figure skating became obvious.
Aged 11 she travelled to London to train with Arnold Gerschwiler at the ice rink in Richmond. He would remain her coach throughout her competitive career. She first appeared on the international scene in 1954 when she was placed 19th in the European championships.
In the Netherlands Sjoukje Dijkstra’s great competitor was Joan Haanappel who had won four national titles in a row. But Sjoukje Dijkstra won in 1959 and remained on top, winning six national titles in addition to her European and world titles.
Sjoukje Dijkstra and Karl Kossmayer eventually retired to Hilversum in the Netherlands, where from 1985 Sjoukje was the advisor to the figure skating section of the Dutch Skating Federation. In 2005 she received the first Fanny Blankers-Koen trophy and in 2014 she was inducted into the International Figure Skating Hall of Fame.
Her husband died in 2001 and she is survived by their two daughters, Rosalie and Katja, who became noted as trainers of donkeys and horses.
Sjoukje Dijkstra, born January 28 1942, died May 2 2024
