Youngest to compete in Winter Olympics

Cecilia Colledge, 87, an innovative figure skater who was the youngest athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics, died April 12 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass.

Colledge was 11 years 73 days old when she competed for her native Britain in the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

She won a silver medal at the 1936 Olympics in Germany, second to Norwegian star Sonja Henie, and had been a favorite for the 1940 Winter Games, which were canceled because of World War II.

Colledge was world champion in 1937, British champion five times and European champion on three occasions.

She was widely acknowledged as the first woman to execute a double jump, or salchow, and is credited with inventing the camel and layback spins and the one-foot axel jump.

She moved to the United States after the war to coach and was a full-time teacher at the Skating Club of Boston from 1952 until 1977, and continued coaching part-time until 1990.

Born in London on Nov. 28, 1920, Magdalena Cecilia Colledge was inducted into World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1980.