Laila Schou Nilsen

Laila Schou Nilsen (18 March 1919 – 30 July 1998) was one of the foremost Norwegian sportspeople of the 20th century, best known as a speed skater, alpine skier, and tennis player. She was one of the pioneers in women's speed skating, both in Norway and internationally, along with two other skaters from the ('Oslo Skating Club'), Undis Blikken and Synnøve Lie. Across her sporting career – which also included handball, ski jumping, cross-country skiing, and motorsport – Nilsen won 101 Norwegian Championship titles, of which 86 were in tennis.

Speed skating Nilsen won the last of a series of three unofficial World Championships in speed skating for women that were organised by the at Oslo Frogner stadion in 1935, two weeks before her sixteenth birthday. At the 1937 edition of the World Allround Speed Skating Championships for Women at the Eisstadion Davos in Davos, Switzerland, she set records in all four distances (500 m, 1,000 m, 3,000 m, and 5,000 m). She also won the 1938 World Championships in Oslo. Her 500 m record of 46.6 seconds held until 1955, when Tamara Rylova of the Soviet Union beat it at the Medeo track in Alma Ata. Her record for the 1,500 m was not bested until 1950.

Nilsen was the Norwegian Allround Champion in speed skating in 1935, 1937, 1939, and 1940.

Medals An overview of speed skating medals won by Laila Schou Nilsen at elite championships, listed with the years won.

Championship World Allround 1935* 1937 1938 – – Norwegian Allround 1935 1937 1939 1940 1934 1938 1939 –*The World Allround Championships were unofficial from 1933 to 1935.

Personal records To put these personal records in perspective, the WR column lists the official world records on the dates that Laila Schou Nilsen skated her personal records.

Alpine skiing As speed skating for women was not included in the Olympic program for the 1936 Winter Olympics, 16 year old Nilsen sought out other sports in which she could compete at the Olympics. She settled on alpine skiing, a sport in which she'd earned good results at the national level but not internationally. After just a month of intensive training in the lead-up to the Olympics, she won the downhill race and claimed Olympic bronze in the alpine combined. No medals were awarded in sub-disciplines at the 1936 Olympic Games, so her gold medal-worthy downhill finish did not result in the honour it would have had it come at a later Olympics.

After the World War II, Nilsen competed in alpine skiing at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, where she finished 7th in downhill and 14th in slalom.

Other Nilsen was awarded the Egebergs Ærespris in 1936 for "outstanding achievements in alpine skiing and speed skating and excellent achievements in tennis."

Nilsen was also a member of the Norwegian women's national handball team and participated in the Monte Carlo Rally in 1963.