Practice Session

Leading U. S. male & female figure skaters last week sliced up many an ice rink by etching queer patterns over & over again. Next week, their practice done, they will troop into Manhattan's Madison Square Garden, cut fine figures before critical judges who will pick an Olympic team to represent the U. S. in Germany in February.

Among the most faithful practitioners was comely, long-legged, 24-year-old Maribel Yerxa Vinson. Fastened to double-runners when a tot of 3, she soon mastered the school figures, won her first national women's championship at 16. Since then, she has won the U. S. title every year except 1934, when she journeyed abroad, finished third in the European championship. At Radcliffe, in addition to skating, she participated in collegiate theatricals, became a topnotch ballroom dancer, sculled vigorously on the Charles, played a fast game of tennis, rode horseback. Vivacious, chic, unmarried, she has more recently won the admiration of the staff of the New York Times, for which she writes a competent by-line account of women's sports. Only one peculiarity mars her makeup: when disconcerted, she always emits a strident screech, flabbergasts her escorts.

Fortnight ago, a chill spell made firm the flooded tennis courts of the Park Avenue Skating Club. Grateful for the chance to exhibit her wares outdoors, Skater Vinson spun gracefully through the air, displayed startling designs to admirers. Finishing an elementary figure-eight, she suddenly teetered, screeched, bumped her bottom. Undamaged, Maribel Vinson rose, caressed her billowing skirts into place, twirled proudly off the ice.

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