Background
Her father was the ice hockey player Harvey Stapleford. Her mother was the daughter of the comedian Charlie Naughton.
Her father was the ice hockey player Harvey Stapleford. Her mother was the daughter of the comedian Charlie Naughton.
She is the 1965 European silver medalist. She represented Great Britain at the 1964 Winter Olympics and at the 1968 Winter Olympics, placed 11th both times. Personal life
Competitive career
Post-competitive career
After her figure skating career, in 1972 she was appointed a referee at International Skating Union (International Skating Union) events for single and pair skating.
Since 1995, she has also been the president of the National Ice Skating Association of the United Kingdom (NISA), the British figure skating federation.
Stapleford was the whistleblower of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games figure skating scandal, the person to whom Marie-Reine Le Gougne ("the French judge") confessed following the event to having been involved in a political deal in the pairs competition. Stapleford lost her International Skating Union technical committee position in the political fallout later that year.
Subsequently, Stapleford became one of the founders of the World Skating Federation (WSF), and spoke at their press conference on 23 March 2003. The WSF ultimately failed to supplant the International Skating Union, and as a result of her involvement with the attempt, Stapleford lost her International Skating Union eligibility on 1 February 2005.
Stapleford has continued to be a vocal critic of the International Skating Union Judging System and the International Skating Union"s post-2002 policy of not identifying marks by judge, which she has alleged could simply hide further instances of judging corruption or incompetence.
Between 1988 and 2002 she was a member of the International Skating Union figure skating technical committee, including serving as chair of this committee from 1992 to 2002.
