SEATTLE -- Karol Kennedy Kucher, who with her brother won the silver medal in skating pairs in the 1952 Winter Olympics and was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame, has died. She was 72.
Kucher died Friday of pneumonia at Swedish Hospital, her daughter, Kathryn Etherington, said Tuesday.
Born in Shelton, Wash., she moved with her family to Olympia and then to Seattle, later attending Colorado College and the University of Washington.
Their father, the late Dr. Michael Kennedy, once said in an interview that she and her brother Peter "didn't have to learn to skate. They could skate the minute they got out onto the ice."
Known as the "Kennedy kids," they won six national pairs titles and the world pairs championship in 1950, finished sixth in the 1948 Olympics and second four years later.
Peter switched sports after 1952 but failed to make the 1956 Olympic team as a skier. Karol married, raised a family and in 1994 opened a children's clothing store that is now operated by a daughter and granddaughter.
The two were inducted into the Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1991.
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