She Was The First Black Athlete To Win A Medal At The Winter Olympics, And Then She Became A Surgeon

Debi Thomas was a woman who not only made history as an Olympic figure skater but was able to pursue an entirely different career when she wasn’t on the ice.
Debi Thomas was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1967. She started skating at the age of five and won her first competition by the time she was nine.
From that point on, she knew she wanted to figure sake competitively, and her mother would drive her far distances so she could compete.
She began training with coach Alex McGowan, who coached her all the way into retirement and joined the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club in 1983. She competed in several esteemed competitions, like the World Championships in 1985 and 1986.
Debi faced a lot of discrimination for her skin color as she competed, but the negativity didn’t stop her.
What makes Debi’s career even more impressive is that instead of taking a gap year after high school or not attending college, like many young competitive athletes choose to do, she started her freshman year at Stanford University in the middle of her training in 1986, the year she won the U.S. national title.
This made her the first black skater to hold the national title in the ladies’ singles figure skating. I can’t imagine accomplishing something like that during my freshman year!
Throughout her time in college, Debi continued to compete. She only took one small break from her studies between 1987-1989 for competitions.
In 1987, she suffered from Achilles tendinitis in both of her ankles but still managed to place second at the U.S. Nationals.

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In 1988, at 21, Debi competed in the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Canada. She won a bronze medal and became the first black athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
Debi picked her studies at Stanford back up in 1989 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1991.
She then decided to retire from skating to pursue further education and attended Northwestern University Medical School until she graduated in 1997. She then completed orthopedic and surgical residencies at two different hospitals.
Because of her achievements in skating, Debi was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000.
While practicing medicine, she began having some personal issues. She was diagnosed as bipolar and struggled to keep up her own practice, and had issues with money.
Debi appeared on an episode of Iyanla: Fix My Life, where motivational coach Iyanla Vanzant works with people who have fallen on hard times.
On the show, Debi revealed that she had to sell her gold medal to stay afloat while living in a trailer with her fiancé Jamie Looney and his two sons.
Although Debi has seen some dark days, her impact on the professional skating world will never be diminished. She was a pinnacle example of how important representation is in competitive sports.
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