Janet Lynn

Janet Lynn
Janet Lynn in 1972
Personal information
Country represented	United States
Born	(1953-04-06) April 6, 1953 (age 63) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Height	1.58 m (5 ft 2 in)
Skating club	Wagon Wheel Figure Skating Club
Medal record Ladies' figure skating Representing the  United States Olympic Games 1972 Sapporo Ladies' singles World Championships 1973 Bratislava Ladies' singles 1972 Calgary Ladies' singles North American Championships 1971 Peterborough Ladies' singles 1969 Oakland Ladies' singles

Janet Lynn Nowicki (born April 6, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American figure skater. She is the 1972 Olympic bronze medalist, a two-time world championships medalist, and a five-time U.S. national champion.

Lynn began to skate almost as soon as she could walk, and took part in her first exhibition performance at the age of four at Chicago Stadium. By age seven, she was living away from home part of the year, staying with the slightly older skater Kathleen Kranich to be close to her coach Slavka Kohout, who worked out of Rockton, Illinois, but her close-knit family was never far away. Eventually her family moved from the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park to Rockford, Illinois, some fifteen miles from Rockton and the rink. Janet would attend Junior High in Rockford. She used her middle name Lynn instead of Nowicki, which was constantly being misspelled and mispronounced. Janet was always forthright about the name change; in her own mind her name was still Nowicki.

In 1964, at 11, she became the youngest skater to pass the rigorous eighth and final test administered by the United States Figure Skating Association, and two years later she won the U.S. Junior Ladies Championship at Berkeley, California. At that competition she landed a triple salchow jump, which at the time was rarely performed by female skaters. In later years she was also one of the first female skaters to include a triple toe loop in her programs.

Moving up to the senior level, Lynn won bronze at the 1968 U.S. Championships, which qualified her to compete at the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, where she placed 9th. At the time she was 14 years old and it was her first major international competition. She also placed 9th at her first World Championships in 1968.