Vivian Joseph

Vivian Joseph was born on March 7, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois, and is the younger sister of Ronald Joseph.[1] She is Jewish.[2]

The Josephs began competing together by the late 1950s and became the U.S. national junior champions in 1961. They won the senior bronze medal in 1962 and silver the following year. They were assigned to the 1963 North American Championships, where they took the bronze medal, and to the 1963 World Championships, where they placed eighth.

The Josephs were selected to represent the United States at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck and initially finished fourth. A few years later, the silver medalists, Marika Kilius / Hans-Jürgen Bäumler of Germany, were disqualified after they were accused of signing a pro contract before the Olympics. The original bronze medalists, Debbi Wilkes / Guy Revell of Canada, were elevated to silver and the Joseph siblings to bronze. When the German pair was reinstated in 1987, the IOC decided the Germans and Canadians were both silver medalists and the Americans remained bronze medalists.[3] The IOC officially updated the results in November 2014.[4][5]

The Josephs won the national senior title in 1965. They then took gold at the 1965 North American Championships and silver at the 1965 World Championships before retiring from competition. They were coached by Peter Dunfield.[3]

(Pairs with Ronald Joseph)

• List of select Jewish figure skaters