The Sole Of A Champion:
Gold Medal Skates
The Old Fashioned Way

By Stephen McGuire

Last week a teenager who lives only a few miles from the borough’s border skated her way into the hearts of a nation in a pair of skates made in Queens.

But few may know how a family business in Jamaica played an essential role in women’s figure skater Sarah Hughes’ recent Olympic Gold Medal-winning performance.

Hughes, a native of Great Neck, in Nassau County, won the gold at the women’s figure skating competition at the February 2002 Winter Olympic Games held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

She was wearing Klingbeil skate boots, which have been made the same way at a building on a corner of Jamaica Avenue for the past 50 years.

Klingbeil Shoe Labs started in 1949 when a young Bill Klingbeil began crafting shoes in a cellar near Sutphin Boulevard — a few blocks away from the company’s current location.

A few years later he had enough money to buy a building on Jamaica Avenue. The rest is ice skating history and the basis for a world-renowned business.

Klingbeil considers himself a shoemaker in the old fashioned sense – crafting by hand all of the company’s products.

“I’m a shoemaker . . . I’d make shoes for nothing. I just like to make them,” Bill Klingbeil said.

Most of the shoes he makes today are fitted on top of ice skates — one of the most sought after brands in the world crafted in a process learned over a lifetime.

Today the company owns five nearby buildings where they store skate boots distributed to 200 shops worldwide.

Entering the Klingbeil salesroom, one gets the feeling that they are walking into an old-fashioned European-style ski lodge.

(Top) Don Klingbeil demonstrates the machinery used to make the skates. Sarah Hughes’ new skate shoes at  the Klingbeil’s Queens shop (bottom). PRESS Photos By Ira Cohen

A fireplace in the corner is adorned with skates, artwork, thank you notes, newspaper articles and a poster-sized photo of Hughes during her gold medal winning performance in Salt Lake City. It reads “To the Klingbeil Family and Staff, With Love, Sarah.”

Adding to the room’s coziness is the smell of leather and wood emanating from a back room.

It’s an aroma that makes visitors instantly aware that a fine craft is taking place behind the scenes.

When a skater comes in to the shop they are seated in a large elevated and cushioned seat to get a custom fitting.

Virtually all of the skaters who have received a fitting at the shop in its 50 years of business have signed their name on the seat’s armrests and cushion.

According to an article in Skater’s Landing magazine, the signature tradition is one that Hughes helped establish.

“There were a couple of names, just in one corner, the first time I was getting fitted. I asked if I could just sign my name and he said OK. So I wrote my name and birthday and put a big heart around it. When I came back the next time, it was just filled with names,” Hughes said.

“The last is first,” said Donald Klingbeil, Bill’s 42-year-old son who began working at the shop sweeping the floors when he was seven.

The “last” is the name of the maple wood foot carvings that the Klingbeils use to fashion their custom skate boots.

Donald Klingbeil, now the company’s vice president, explained how the process works.

“The boot is the most important part of the figure skate,” he said.

Once seated, Bill Klingbeil traces the skater’s foot on a piece of paper, paying close attention to dimensions. “I follow the contour of the foot,” he said.

“The measurement has to be precise,” Donald Klingbeil added.

The tracings are then transformed into lasts carved out on a carving machine called a Gilman Lathe.

The unique machine used to carve out the lasts is at least 90-years-old, Donald Klingbeil added.

Then, layers of leather are cut out to construct the boot.

 “There’s a lot of piece work involved,” Donald Klingbeil said, explaining that anywhere from 17 to 27 pieces of leather are involved in constructing a skate boot.

The leather is then fitted around the last, sewn, glued and stapled and then the tongue of the boot is added.

Heels are nailed on and the entire boot is trimmed, sanded, buffed and smoothed to perfection.

Then the skater’s name and logo – an  edelweiss – are added to the inside of the boot.

“The entire process takes about two weeks. It’s a great skill and there is a lot involved,” Donald Klingbeil explained.

All together there are about 121 operations involved in creating a pair of skate boots.

“Then we or someone else puts the blades on,” Donald Klingbeil said.

On average a pair of skates costs about $495 – well worth the price, according to Hughes.

“The boots and blades are really our only equipment,” Hughes told the publication Skaters Landing in a recent article. “It’s what we depend on for our jumps, for our skating, for our feel of the ice.”

Sixteen-year-old Hughes has been wearing Klingbeil skates since she was about 11.

Hughes’ coach Robin Wagner said in published reports, “I trust Don so completely I really haven’t researched the market for other prices. Skaters can run into terrible problems and wind up with injuries to their feet that cause them to be off the ice. That’s how important boot-fit is,” Wagner said.

Klingbeil customers include 1976 Olympic Gold Medallist Dorothy Hamill, 1984 Olympian Elaine Zayak and 2002 Olympian Sasha Cohen.

“I love watching them skate,” Donald said of his clients. “I’m a nervous wreck (when I watch), but I love watching them.”

Donald Klingbeil was watching when Olympian Sasha Cohen took fourth place during the women’s figure skating competition at this year’s Winter Olympiad. 

“Sasha laced up her boots several times” before her performance on Feb. 21, Donald Klingbeil said.

“You could tell they were our boots by these,” Donald Klingbeil said, pointing to the trademark hooks — a visible part on each pair.

“Sasha’s boots were here yesterday,” he told the PRESS a day after shipping off a new pair of skate boots to the skater from California.

Cohen’s boots were not the only pair for a top figure skater constructed in recent days.

During a visit from the PRESS this week, Donald Klingbeil showed off a pair of new skates being specially crafted for Hughes.

“The harder we work, the more people appreciate it,” said Bill Klingbeil of the job he loves. It’s a sentiment passed on to his son – much in the same way he has passed on his craft.

“My favorite part is the satisfaction, when you do it right,” Donald Kingbeil said.

“We get better every year. We’re not perfect, but we try.”

Congressman Calling

Moments after skating her gold medal winning routine on Feb. 21, Hughes was briefly visible on national television talking on a cell phone.

When asked by a NBC correspondent who was on the other line she said, “I think it was my Congressman.”

It was our Congressman too.

The PRESS confirmed that on the other line was none other than Queens Tribune founder and Congressman Gary Ackerman whose district covers Queens and the North Shore of Long Island, including Hughes town of Great Neck.

Ackerman said, “I made arrangements with her father to congratulate Sarah,” regardless of the outcome which was “a lot more exciting” than what many people predicted.

“She was flawless,” Ackerman said.

“I called and I got right through.”

But it was hard to hear, according to the Congressman.

“Everyone was screaming,” Ackerman said of the crowd that gathered at the Great Neck House in Great Neck. “There was screaming on both ends. It was pandemonium,” he said.

However, Ackerman was able to congratulate Hughes on her performance and tell her that a parade was planned in her honor.

“I told her we can’t wait” until she returns home, Ackerman said.

A parade for Hughes was scheduled for Saturday, March 2 on Middle Neck Road in Great Neck.