Sport: Figures in Chicago

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By becoming U. S. women's figure skating champion for the ninth time last week, Maribel Vinson by no means received rating as the finest woman figure skater in the world. That title still belongs to blonde Sonja Henie of Norway who, on leave from Twentieth Century-Fox studios in Hollywood before beginning her second cinema of the year, last week packed New York's Madison Square Garden for a professional exhibition. Finest male skater in the world is swart Karl Schafer of Vienna, Olympic champion in 1932 and 1936, who arrived in the U. S. last fortnight not to compete in the National Championships, but to appear in New York's Charity Ice Carnivals next month.

Last week, Skater Schafer, whose side lines are swimming (Austrian Olympic team in 1928) and leading his own dance orchestra, astounded the small world of figure skaters by announcing that he too would become a professional. Married last month to Viennese Christa Engelmann. he said his decision to capitalize his talent was occasioned, like that of Tennist Fred Perry's last autumn, principally by the necessity of supporting his wife, hastened when a controversy between the International Skating Union and the Austrian Skating Association as to how to divide receipts from his performances delayed sanctioning him to give them. Said he : "I work and work with my legs for the associations to make money. . . . Now I must make some money too. . . ." Admirers of Skater Schafer wondered whether he would follow Skater Henie to Hollywood.