LFP Archives: The tragic death of a Southwestern Ontario Olympic star

Chatham figure skater Sandra Tewkesbury was just 18 when she competed in the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California. She finished 10th in women’s singles at the Games. With a bronze from Canada’s national championships to her name, she then retired from competitive skating – and took on a part-time coaching job with the Guelph Figure Skating Club. She was pregnant and living with her husband, Gary Ritchie, in the community then known as Galt when tragedy struck. This story on the deaths of Tewkesbury and her unborn child ran in the print editions of The London Free Press one day later, on June 6, 1962: Read More