Dorothy Franey Langkop first learned to ice skate on a rink that her farther had created in the backyard of their St. Paul home.
She quickly developed into a skilled speed skater and dominated women's speed skating in the U.S. during the 1930s.
At 17, she set a world record for 100 yards. As a 18-year old, she competed in the 1932 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y. She finished third in the 1,000-meter and fifth in the 1,500-meter races.
She was named to the 1936 U.S. Olympic women's speed skating team, but the team did not compete at the 1936 Olympics because of a lack of funding. Undeterred, she went on to set eight more world records, giving her a total of 12 out of 14 world records, all in varying distances.
At one time she held every U.S. Amateur Skating Union record from 220 yards to one mile.
Upon retiring in 1936, she was a three-time national champion and North American champion. She had set 25 American and Canadian indoor and outdoor records and won Silver Skate championships in St. Louis, Chicago and New York.
After retiring from competitive speed skating, she took up figure skating. She eventually headlined her own figure-skating revue, which started on Broadway and toured the country. The show eventually did a 14-year run at a hotel in Dallas.
She also was active in the U.S. Olympic Alumni Association. She was inducted into the National Speedskating Hall of Fame in 1966.
