John Nicks

John Allen Wisden Nicks was born on 22 April 1929 in Brighton, England. His father owned a sporting goods business and, wanting to sell skating equipment without knowing anything about the sport, put John and his younger sister Jennifer into lessons. John started at about the age of nine or ten.

The siblings first competed as singles skaters but agreed to form a pair at the request of the British association, which promised to support them. "My sister was much better at it than I was!" he recalled in 2013. They won six British pairs titles in a row from 1948.

At the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz they finished eighth, in conditions so snowy that skating stopped after every three competitors to clear the ice. They won World silver in 1950 and bronze in 1951 and 1952, were fourth at the 1952 Olympics in Oslo, and in 1953 won both the European title in Dortmund and the World title outdoors in Davos, after which they retired. Between 1948 and 1950 he did National Service with the Royal Sussex Regiment and the Middlesex Regiment.

After retiring, Nicks skated in professional ice shows in South Africa. When he broke his foot during a show and spent six months off the ice, he became interested in coaching. He returned to England in 1960 and then coached in Trail, British Columbia.

In February 1961 the Sabena Flight 548 crash near Brussels killed the entire United States world figure skating team and many of its coaches. Nicks received four offers of work in the United States and chose the Iceland rink in Paramount, California, owned by Frank Zamboni, who taught him the American rink business. He later became national skating director of the Ice Capades chalets, a chain of rinks run by the ice show company, and directed some choreography for its shows.

Over more than 50 years, latterly at the Aliso Viejo Ice Palace, he taught more than 1,200 skaters, including Peggy Fleming, Jo Jo Starbuck and Kenneth Shelley, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, Tiffany Chin, Christopher Bowman, Jenni Meno and Todd Sand, Kristi Yamaguchi and Rudy Galindo, Naomi Nari Nam, Sasha Cohen and Ashley Wagner. His skaters won 29 U.S. national titles, and he coached for the United States at 31 World Championships and 10 Winter Olympics. He placed great weight on mental preparation, writing in 1977 that everything in the weeks before a competition must be geared to giving the skater confidence the minute he steps on the ice. He also appeared as a judge on the 2006 FOX series Skating with Celebrities.

Nicks moved to North America with his first wife, Denise, and their children Christopher and Carolyn. He was briefly undocumented on arrival in the United States before receiving his green card a few weeks later, and he became a U.S. citizen around 2008. He later married Yvonne Littlefield, who won the 1962 U.S. ice dance title with Peter Betts.

He was known in the sport for his dry wit and old-fashioned courtesy, and was addressed by almost everyone as Mr. Nicks. Away from the rink he enjoyed boating and fishing and was often found refurbishing his boats. In 2013 he said he had missed only 13 days of teaching through illness in 51 years.

John Nicks died on Tuesday 3 November 2026, aged 97. U.S. Figure Skating announced his death on 4 November; the cause was not made public.

U.S. Figure Skating chief executive Matt Farrell said: "The skating community has lost a tremendous ambassador with the passing of John Nicks. John helped shape generations of American figure skating and his influence extended well beyond the champions he coached." He sent the organisation's thoughts to his wife Yvonne and son Christopher. Ashley Wagner wrote: "Mr Nicks, you were a champion maker. Thank you for making me a champion, I would not be where I am today if it were not for you." Former pupils Jenni Meno and Todd Sand had shared a photograph with him earlier the same day.

Nicks was one of the coaches who rebuilt American figure skating after the 1961 Sabena disaster, and his career spanned the eras of Peggy Fleming and Ashley Wagner. He was named PSA Coach of the Year in 1991 and 2012, and was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1993 and the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000, as well as the PSA and ISIA halls of fame.

The John Nicks Pairs Challenge, an international pair skating competition first held in 2021 and now part of the ISU Challenger Series, is named in his honour.