Advanced reading comprehension

1 Sonja Henie was born in Kristiania, current Oslo. Her father had been a one-time World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. Henie initially showed talent at skiing, and then followed her older brother Leif to take up figure skating. As a girl, Henie was also a nationally ranked tennis player and a skilled swimmer and equestrienne. Once Henie began serious training as a figure skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world, including the famous Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina, to transform his daughter into a sporting celebrity.

2 Henie won her first major competition, the senior Norwegian championships, at the age of 10. She then placed eighth in a field of eight at the 1924 Winter Olympics, at the age of eleven. During the 1924 program, she skated over to the side of the rink several times to ask her coach for directions. But by the next Olympiad, she needed no such assistance.

3 Henie won the first of an unprecedented ten consecutive World Figure Skating Championships in 1927 at the age of fourteen. The results of 1927 World Championships, where Henie won in a 3-2 decision (or 7 vs. 8 ordinal points) over the defending Olympic and World Champion Herma Szabo of Austria, were controversial, as all three of five judges that placed Henie first were Norwegian while Szabo received first-place ordinals from an Austrian and a German judge.

4 Henie went on to win the first of her three Olympic gold medals the following year. She defended her Olympic titles in 1932 and in 1936, and her World titles annually until 1936. She also won six consecutive European championships from 1931 to 1936. Henie's unprecedented three Olympic gold medals haven't been matched by any ladies single skater since; neither are her achievements as ten-time consecutive World Champion.

5 Towards the end of her career, she began to be strongly challenged by younger skaters. However, she held off these competitors and went on to win her third Olympic title at the 1936 Winter Olympics, albeit in very controversial circumstances with Cecilia Colledge finishing a very close second. Indeed, after the school figures section at the 1936 Olympic competition, Colledge and Henie were virtually neck and neck with Colledge trailing by just a few points. The closeness of the competition infuriated Henie, who, when the result for that section was posted on a wall in the competitors' lounge, swiped the piece of paper and tore it into little pieces. The draw for the free skating then came under suspicion after Henie landed the plum position of skating last, while Colledge had to perform second of the 26 competitors, which was clearly in Henie’s favor.

6 In addition to traveling to train and compete, she was much in demand as a performer at figure skating exhibitions in both Europe and North America. Henie became so popular with the public that police had to be called out for crowd control on her appearances in various disparate cities such as Prague and New York City. It was an open secret that, in spite of the strict amateurism requirements of the time, her father demanded "expense money" for his daughter's skating appearances. Both of Henie's parents had given up their own pursuits in Norway in order to accompany Sonja on her travels and act as her managers.