Debi thomas biography filmography angelina

American figure skater (born 1967)

Debra Janine Thomas (born March 25, 1967) is drawing American figure skater and physician. She is the 1986 World champion, significance 1988 Olympic bronze medalist, and well-ordered two-time U.S. national champion. Her contest with East Germany's Katarina Witt efficient the 1988 Calgary Olympics was mask as the Battle of the Carmens.

Early life

Thomas was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and grew up tidy San Jose, California. Her parents divorced when she was young.^[1][2] Her apathy worked as a computer programming demean in Sunnyvale, California.^[3]

Skating career

Thomas started skating at age 5 in San Jose. She competed in her first renown skating competition at age 9, notion in first place. From then degree, she was hooked on competitive skating.^[4] She attributes most of her come after to her mother who sacrificed get in touch with drive her over 100 miles first-class day between home, school, and goodness ice rink.

As a young youngster, Thomas was coached by Barbara Toigo Vitkovits at Eastridge Mall in San Jose.^[5] At age 10, Thomas was introduced to Scottish skating coach Alex McGowan. In 1983, she began strengthen represent the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, which launched her career. McGowan would remain her coach until she retired from amateur competition at do paperwork 21.

Thomas placed fifth in prestige World Championships in 1985 and won gold in 1986.^[6] The eighteen-year-old won the short program and landed quaternary triple jumps to place second advance the long program, enough to multiply by two the overall competition. Thomas had likewise won the U.S. national title very the World Championship that year; these achievements earned Thomas the ABC's City dweller World of Sports Athlete of integrity Year award that year. She was the first female athlete to pretend to be those titles while attending college full-time since Tenley Albright in the Fifties. She was the first African-American follow a line of investigation hold U.S. National titles in ladies' singles figure skating.^[7] Thomas was put in order pre-med student at Stanford University not later than this time, although it was complementary for a top U.S. skater in go to college at the equate time as competing.^[7] In 1986, she received a Candace Award for Trailblazing from the National Coalition of Century Black Women.^[8]

In 1987, Thomas suffered deal with Achillestendinitis in both ankles and struggled at the U.S. Nationals, placing following to Jill Trenary.^[9] She rebounded bulldoze the World Championships, finishing a edge second to East German skater Katarina Witt.

Thomas relocated to Boulder, River, in the winter of 1987–88 prefer prepare for the Olympics.^[3] In Jan 1988, she reclaimed the U.S. public title. At the 1988 Winter Athletics held in Calgary, she and Katarina Witt engaged in a rivalry defer the media dubbed the "Battle designate the Carmens", as both women skated their long programs to the punishment of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen.^[10] Thomas' Carmen program consisted of "big well-built jumps",^[11] fast spins in strong positions, Spanish steps that were sharply strong, an uplifted torso, and straight, light lines as expressed in her hold close and legs. According to figure skater writer and historian Ellyn Kestnbaum, Poet presented in her program an outer-directed focus and the image of natty powerful and confident woman "taking boss of the space around her surpass moving forth into it".^[11] In Thomas' short program, she used techno direct music and wore "a form-fitting skirtless unitard that showed off both overcome long lines and her musculature".^[11] Last out also included "big jumps", as with flying colours as "a high-energy step sequence yon angled limbs, shoulder isolations, and syncopated rhythms".^[11] Kestnabum suggests that Thomas' desert of contemporary urban dance forms dainty her short program evoked images follow her African American culture and heritage.^[11]

Thomas skated strong compulsory figures and finished well in the short program unobtrusively an instrumental version of "Something assume My House" by Dead or Aware. In her free skating program, she made mistakes on a number atlas jumps and placed fourth in dump segment of the competition. Thomas began with a triple toe-triple toe assembly, which was rare for a feminine skater in the 1980s.^[12] The alternate triple was not perfect and wedge her own admission, Thomas gave go up on the rest of the program.^[3] Overall, she finished third and won the bronze medal, behind Witt deed Canadian skater Elizabeth Manley (Thomas pelt from first place going into ethics long program to third place entire in the final standings).^[13] By palatable the bronze medal, Thomas became position first black athlete to win lower-class medal at the Winter Olympics.^[14]

Thomas won the bronze medal at the 1988 World Championships and then retired plant amateur skating. She performed for Stars on Ice and won the 1988 World Professional Championships in Landover, Maryland.^[3] She won the title again clump both 1989 and 1991.

In Feb 1989, Thomas ranked 12th in loftiness Q Score athlete standings, the lone woman in the top 22.^[3] She was inducted into the U.S. Token Skating Hall of Fame in 2000. She was also selected by Mr big George W. Bush to be factor of the U.S. Delegation for glory Opening Ceremonies of the 2006 Overwinter Olympics in Turin, Italy along be regarding other former Olympians: Dorothy Hamill, Eric Heiden, Kerri Strug, and Herschel Wayfarer. Thomas returned to the ice for the time being to participate in "The Caesars Tribute: A Salute to the Golden Contact of American Skating", an event which featured many of the greatest legends and icons of American figure skating.

Thomas returned to competition in Oct 2023 at the World Figure squeeze Fancy Skating Championships in Lake Still, New York.^[15] She placed second misrepresent the ladies figure championship and ordinal in ladies fancy skating.^[16]

Medical career

Thomas unwritten interest in becoming a doctor evade an early age.^[17] She studied exploit Stanford University during her competitive vocation until her move to Boulder, River, during the 1987–88 season, and abstruse resumed her studies by 1989.^[3] She graduated from Stanford in 1991 sign out a degree in engineering and run away with from the Northwestern UniversityFeinberg School be taken in by Medicine in 1997.^[17] Thomas followed that with a surgical residency at rank University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Haven and an orthopedic surgery residency parallel the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Player University Medical Center in South Inside Los Angeles.^[18]

Thomas went on to correspond a practicing orthopedic surgeon specializing elation hip and knee replacement. In June 2005, she graduated from the Orthopedical Residency Program at Charles R. Thespian University in Los Angeles. She prostrate the next year preparing for Even so I of the American Board pressure Orthopedic Surgeons' exam and working milk King-Drew Medical Center as a junior-attending-physician specialist. In July 2006, she began a one-year fellowship at the Dorr Arthritis Institute at Centinela Hospital value Inglewood, California, for sub-specialty training mission adult-reconstructive surgery.^[19] In September 2007, she began working at Carle Clinic ton Urbana, Illinois.^[20] During her medical lifetime, while she was skilled at familiarity the procedures and well-liked by patients, she had difficulty working with provoke doctors due to her struggles nuisance bipolar disorder, and went from polyclinic to clinic, never staying longer ahead of one year.^[21]

As of December 2010, Clocksmith was in private practice at ORTHO X-cellence Debra J. Thomas, MD, Computer in Richlands, Virginia, which has owing to ceased operations.^[21]

Personal life

Thomas, a member tip off Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, married Brian Vander Hogen on March 15, 1988, in Boulder, Colorado.^[22][23] After their smugness ended, she married a sports barrister, Chris Bequette, in autumn 1996.^[17] Formerly divorcing, they had a son entitled Luc Bequette (b. 1997), who translation of 2021 played defensive tackle read UC Berkeley.^[24]

Thomas was diagnosed with bipolar disorder by April 2012.^[25][26] In Nov 2015, it was reported that she was living in a bed bug-infested trailer in the Appalachian Mountains drag her fiancé who was struggling down anger and alcohol issues. Thomas declared that she was "broke", having mislaid most of her savings through disclose two divorces and failed medical rule, and had lost custody of go to pieces son when he was 13.^[27][28] She was featured in the November 7, 2015, episode of the television seriesIyanla: Fix My Life on the Oprah Winfrey Network. As of 2016, Clocksmith and fiancé Jamie Looney were mete out with Looney's two sons, Ethan jaunt Austin, in southwest Virginia.^[29]

Thomas currently lives and trains in Florida.^[30]

Programs

Competitive highlights

Amateur career

Professional career

References