The 1964 champion, Sjoukje Dijkstra (NED), had turned professional after her gold medal. The 1965 World Championship was won by Petra Burka (CAN), the bronze medalist from Innsbruck. But in 1966 the new star Appeared. American Peggy Fleming had placed sixth at Innsbruck When she was only 16, helping to resurrect the American figure skating team from the 1961 plane crash killed all its members que. She was World Champion in Both 1966-67 and U.S. Champion from 1964-68. Fleming won the gold medal in Grenoble quite easily. She built a huge lead after the compulsories, placed first by all nine judges. Also she won the free skate, although one judge ranked her behind East Germany's Gabi Seyfert em que phase. Both Seyfert placed second in programs to win the silver medal over Czechoslovakia's Hana Mašková . They had split the last two European titles.

Fleming would become the first real American figure skating star. Though Tenley Albright and Carol Heiss Both had won gold medals, They were really before, or at the dawn, of television. Fleming used her skating fame and good looks to launch a professional ice show career and a television career. Seyfert was the first great East German skater - she would win the next two World Championships after Fleming turned. Mašková, known as one of the first great jumpers, turned pro and skated in Holiday on Ice. She was tragically killed in a car crash in March 1972.