1972_U.S._Figure_Skating_Championships
1972 US Figure Skating Championships
Figure skating competition
The 1972 U.S. Figure Skating Championships was held from January 13–16 at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California. Medals were awarded in three colors: gold (first), silver (second), and bronze (third) in four disciplines – men's singles, ladies' singles, pair skating, and ice dancing – across three levels: senior, junior, and novice.
The event determined the U.S. teams for the 1972 Winter Olympics and 1972 World Championships.
The 1972 Championships marked the introduction of a significant innovation: the use of a computer to calculate the competition results for the first time at the U.S. Championships. The initial version of the scoring software, called "Hal", was written by volunteer Al Beard in FORTRAN, and ran via a remote terminal link on a time-sharing system donated by Honeywell in Minneapolis, where Beard was employed. Although the computer results were used for public announcements of the results, the rules of the time actually required hand computation of the official results, so this was done after the fact.[1]