Karen Diane Magnussen, OC (born April 4, 1952) is a Canadian former competitive figure skater. She is the 1972 Olympic silver medallist and 1973 World champion. She was Canada's Female Athlete of the Year in 1971 and 1972, and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1973. Personal life Magnussen was born into a middle-class family with a Swedish mother and Norwegian father in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has two sisters, Lori, three years younger, and Judy, six years younger. Magnussen studied kinesiology at Simon Fraser University. In 1978, she married Tony Cella, the lead singer of a band. They lived in his hometown, Boston, for eleven years and then moved to Vancouver. They have two sons and a daughter. Competitive career After being introduced to the ice at age six and a half when her mother, a recreational skater, brought her to a general skating session, Karen Magnussen then kept asking for more opportunities to skate. Recalling lessons on pebbly curling ice at the Kerrisdale Arena, she commented, "The ice was anything but perfect, but I think that made you tough." Her first coach was Hellmut May. Linda Brauckmann became her coach in 1965. Magnussen's career at the elite level of skating began when she won the Canadian national junior title in 1965. Moving up to the senior level the next year, she became known for her strong free skating ability, and was even compared to then-reigning world champion Petra Burka. Her march upwards in the rankings continued as she qualified to compete at the World Championships for the first time in 1967 and won her first Canadian title in 1968. She was sent to the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France, and placed seventh. In 1969, Magnussen lost her Canadian title to Linda Carbonetto. She was diagnosed with stress fractures in both legs in February 1969, spent three months in a wheelchair, and returned to the ice in mid-May. Though she watched the 1969 World Championships from a wheelchair, she said, "I was planning for next year's competition. I never considered giving up; I always knew that I'd be back." She won the Canadian Championships four more times, from 1970 to 1973. At the World Championships, she won a bronze medal in 1971 and then silver in 1972. Magnussen was granted free early morning ice time at Vancouver's Pacific Coliseum before the hockey players arrived.