AN ICON PASSES
Legendary Slovak figure skating coach, Hilda Múdra, who was the guiding force behind the career of Ondrej Nepela, passed away on Nov. 22 at age 95.
Born in Vienna, Austria, on Jan. 1, 1926, Múdra toured with the Vienna Ice Review before marrying Jozef Múdry in 1947. The couple moved to her husband’s hometown of Bratislava, in what was then Czechoslovakia, and raised two children. Múdra returned to the ice as a coach and shortly afterward took Nepela on as her primary student.
Nepela would go on to win five European and three World titles and the 1972 Olympic crown.
Múdra continued coaching throughout her life, and though she was forced to hang up her skates in her 80s after falling and suffering a fractured vertebrae, she…
