Valentine Bialas

Val also won the International Speed Skating title in Detroit in 1926, and established a world record for two miles at Lake Placid, New York, in 1929 with a time of 5:35.5.

Fitted with an artificial leg, he continued to skate for recreation, play successfully in city tennis tournaments, and coach and guide young athletes, including his son John, also a speedskater and tennis player.

Early morning skating sessions sometimes included shoveling snow off the frozen Barge Canal for a makeshift rink.

The Val Bialas Ski Center is in Utica, New York, and is named in his honor.

This biographical article about a speed skater from the United States is a stub.

Bialas, on the far left, standing with fellow Olympic speedskaters Charles Gorman and Lela Brooks in Saint John, New Brunswick , Canada , in 1926