Two Northeast Ohio Brothers Dominated the Figure Skating World in the 1950s

In the 1950s, two brothers from Akron, who trained at the Cleveland Skating Club, ruled world figure skating.

Hayes Alan and David Jenkins followed their sister Nancy into ice skating as children. (The family was athletically inclined; patriarch Hayes Robert Jenkins, a General Tire executive, won 12 letters in four sports at the University of Akron.) Nancy gave up the sport when she went away to college, but the Jenkins brothers kept at it, moving to Colorado to continue training.

At 19, Hayes won the first of four world championships, and in the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy, brought home gold as part of an American sweep of the podium. Ronald Robertson took the silver medal for the United States, and David Jenkins won the bronze.

After the 1956 Olympics, with no more worlds to conquer, Hayes announced his retirement from figure skating, devoting his full attention to law school. It was now David’s time to shine.

“I think that if David keeps improving he will be the world champion next year,” Hayes said.

Not only did that prediction come true, but David won three world titles, and in 1960 — at the first Olympics televised live, in Squaw Valley, California — he was nearly flawless. His gold medal win was made more impressive by the fact that he was in medical school at the time, an achievement he credited to his time on the ice.

“I don’t believe I ever could have developed the concentration necessary for studying medicine if I hadn’t had the discipline of skating,” he said.

Both brothers went on to successful post-Olympic careers. David practiced medicine in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hayes graduated from law school and married fellow Olympian Carol Heiss. They live in the Cleveland area and remain Northeast Ohio’s first family of figure skating. 

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