Grace under pressure - on and off the ice

On the 10th anniversary of her breast cancer diagnosis, the skating icon encourages women everywhere to become active participants in their own health care.

When Olympic skating champion Dorothy Hamill announced that she had breast cancer earlier this year, she got an encouraging call from a peer who understood what she faced: Peggy Fleming. “I reminded her of the strength and focus she used to win Olympic gold in 1976,” says Fleming. “It was a great life lesson, and I told her that it will help her draw on the strength she’ll need to deal with cancer.”

Fleming speaks from experience: She won a gold medal at the 1968 Winter Olympics, and was diagnosed with breast cancer 10 years ago, at age 49.

Since then, Fleming has used her hard-won knowledge to help other women who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. Still trim and athletic, Fleming, 59, is a sought-after motivational speaker at community groups, hospitals, and clinics. She is also an active member on several boards, including that of the V Foundation for Cancer Research, an organization that’s dedicated to finding a cure for cancer.

In 2003, Fleming and her husband, dermatologist Greg Jenkins, started Fleming Jenkins Vineyards and Winery near their home in Los Gatos, California. One of their wines, Victories Rosé, was created to target breast cancer: They donate $2 from the sale of each bottle to research dedicated to fighting the disease. (For more information, visit www.victoriesrose.com.) The Flemings have two sons, Andy, now 31, and Todd, 19, and are the proud grandparents of three grandsons. “They’re healthy and wonderful, and it feels fabulous to be part of their lives,” says Fleming. “We are all so grateful that I survived breast cancer. It’s like winning life’s gold medal.”

Finding breast cancer
Fleming found her cancer herself, noticing a lump one night while looking in the bathroom mirror. “I wasn’t really concerned because I’d just had a checkup and a mammogram a few months earlier,” she says. “I thought maybe it was a muscle pull.” But when it was still there after a few weeks, she went to her doctor, who recommended a biopsy. Five days later, while Fleming was performing in Boston, her husband got the bad news. “When Greg told me it was malignant, I could tell he was nervous, and that was a little scary for me,” she says. “I’d never faced anything quite like that before.”

Fleming was no stranger to challenge, though. In 1961, when she was 11 and had been figure skating for only two years, her world changed suddenly when the plane carrying the entire U.S. figure-skating team crashed on the way to the World Championships in Prague. Everyone on board died, including her coach, William Kipp, dealing a devastating blow to the U.S. figure-skating program.

But Fleming rose to the occasion. From 1964 to 1968 she won five consecutive U.S. championships and three consecutive World Championships.

Fleming went on to perform in many television specials, and toured for several years as a special guest with the Ice Follies. In 1976, she was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, and in 1999, Sports Illustrated honored Fleming as one of seven “Athletes Who Changed the Game,” alongside other elite competitors such as tennis great Billie Jean King.

Fleming’s competitive spirit helped her again when she was undergoing her cancer treatment, a lumpectomy followed by six weeks of radiation therapy. “As an athlete, when you go out to compete, you never take your position and think, I hope I don’t fall,” says Fleming. “You go out there with an attitude of, I’m going to skate the best performance I can, I’m going to focus and make everything work. That’s how I approached cancer and it’s how I approach life.”

Fleming continued to run and lift weights during her treatment, though fatigue from radiation therapy sometimes sidelined her. “I took a nap in the middle of the day, so when Todd (then 11) got home from school, I was myself,” she says.

She also found strength in her family’s love. Despite reassurances that she was fine, her older son Andy came home from college to be with her. In her autobiography, The Long Program: Skating Toward Life’s Victories, Fleming says of her husband, Greg, “Between helping me through radiation with his medical knowledge and just being there for me as a husband, he was my rock.” She also talks with gratitude about her “radiation friends”—fellow patients at the center where she got treatment: “We were all going through the same thing,” she recalls, “and we gave one another a lot of support.”

An advocate is born
Soon after surgery, Fleming was watching the news at home when her cancer diagnosis was revealed. To her dismay, the announcer made it sound like a death sentence. “I thought, Hey, I caught it early, I’m going to be fine,” she recalls. “I wanted people to know the real story.” So she decided to talk about it herself, appearing on shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show and 20/20. “I thought that if I spoke out, it would help other women get in and get their checkups,” she says.

Now, a decade after her diagnosis, Fleming is cancer-free. In her talks about the importance of early detection, she urges women to have annual checkups, get mammograms, and do regular breast self-exams. “Because I’m married to a doctor, I never missed my checkups,” she says. “But if I hadn’t noticed a change in my breast, I would have gone another year until my next appointment.”

Today, Fleming is still an athlete. While she no longer skates—“Staying in shape for skating is very time-consuming, and there are too many other things I want to do,” she says—fitness remains important to her. She runs and does circuit training regularly. She’s also a figure skating commentator for ABC Sports and ESPN.

Fleming hopes that telling her story will help other women. “Early detection saved my life,” she says. “You see your body every day, so if you feel something isn’t right, take charge and get the treatment you need.”