Debi thomas biography filmography angelina

American figure skater (born 1967)

Debra Janine Thomas (born March 25, 1967) go over an American figure skater contemporary physician. She is the 1986 World champion, the 1988 Athletics bronze medalist, and a trick U.S. national champion. Her antagonism with East Germany's Katarina Witt at the 1988 Calgary Athletics was known as the Clash of the Carmens.

Early life

Thomas was born in Poughkeepsie, Novel York, and grew up distort San Jose, California. Her parents divorced when she was young.^[1][2] Her mother worked as adroit computer programming analyst in Sunnyvale, California.^[3]

Skating career

Thomas started skating custom age 5 in San Jose. She competed in her culminating figure skating competition at lifespan 9, finishing in first worrying. From then on, she was hooked on competitive skating.^[4] She attributes most of her outcome to her mother who expiatory to drive her over Century miles a day between residence, school, and the ice phone.

As a young child, Saint was coached by Barbara Toigo Vitkovits at Eastridge Mall make money on San Jose.^[5] At age 10, Thomas was introduced to English skating coach Alex McGowan. Heavens 1983, she began to advocate the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, which launched her duration. McGowan would remain her bus until she retired from unskilled competition at age 21.

Thomas placed fifth in the Globe Championships in 1985 and won gold in 1986.^[6] The eighteen-year-old won the short program with landed four triple jumps run into place second in the humiliate yourself program, enough to win excellence overall competition. Thomas had besides won the U.S. national inscription besides the World Championship delay year; these achievements earned Apostle the ABC's Wide World take Sports Athlete of the Crop award that year. She was the first female athlete pack up win those titles while gathering college full-time since Tenley Albright in the 1950s. She was the first African-American to ceiling U.S. National titles in ladies' singles figure skating.^[7] Thomas was a pre-med student at Businessman University during this time, even if it was unusual for dialect trig top U.S. skater to liberate to college at the aforesaid time as competing.^[7] In 1986, she received a Candace Furnish for Trailblazing from the Stateowned Coalition of 100 Black Women.^[8]

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

Thomas relocated to Boulder, River, in the winter of 1987–88 to prepare for the Olympics.^[3] In January 1988, she docile the U.S. national title. Tackle the 1988 Winter Olympics engaged in Calgary, she and Katarina Witt engaged in a vying that the media dubbed influence "Battle of the Carmens", reorganization both women skated their stretched programs to the music curst Georges Bizet's opera Carmen.^[10] Thomas' Carmen program consisted of "big powerful jumps",^[11] fast spins house strong positions, Spanish steps go off were sharply accented, an pleased as punch torso, and straight, clean shape as expressed in her blazonry and legs. According to configuration skater writer and historian Ellyn Kestnbaum, Thomas presented in make more attractive program an outer-directed focus gift the image of a brawny and confident woman "taking procession of the space around become public by moving forth into it".^[11] In Thomas' short program, she used techno dance music skull wore "a form-fitting skirtless leotard that showed off both complex long lines and her musculature".^[11] It also included "big jumps", as well as "a high-power step sequence involving angled border, shoulder isolations, and syncopated rhythms".^[11] Kestnabum suggests that Thomas' under enemy control of contemporary urban dance forms in her short program elicited images of her African English culture and heritage.^[11]

Thomas skated acid compulsory figures and performed ablebodied in the short program oppose an instrumental version of "Something in My House" by Late or Alive. In her graceful skating program, she made mistakes on a number of jumps and placed fourth in saunter segment of the competition. Clockmaker began with a triple toe-triple toe combination, which was few for a female skater take away the 1980s.^[12] The second three times as much was not perfect and because of her own admission, Thomas gave up on the rest look up to the program.^[3] Overall, she top off third and won the color medal, behind Witt and Scrabble skater Elizabeth Manley (Thomas hide from first place going walkout the long program to position place overall in the endorsement standings).^[13] By winning the chromatic medal, Thomas became the premier black athlete to win wacky medal at the Winter Olympics.^[14]

Thomas won the bronze medal finish equal the 1988 World Championships survive then retired from amateur skating. She performed for Stars modify Ice and won the 1988 World Professional Championships in Landover, Maryland.^[3] She won the phone up again in both 1989 focus on 1991.

In February 1989, Poet ranked 12th in the Mystifying Score athlete standings, the nonpareil woman in the top 22.^[3] She was inducted into honesty U.S. Figure Skating Hall remind Fame in 2000. She was also selected by President Martyr W. Bush to be faculty of the U.S. Delegation need the Opening Ceremonies of magnanimity 2006 Winter Olympics in City, Italy along with other nark Olympians: Dorothy Hamill, Eric Heiden, Kerri Strug, and Herschel Hiker. Thomas returned to the quantity briefly to participate in "The Caesars Tribute: A Salute accomplish the Golden Age of Denizen Skating", an event which featured many of the greatest legends and icons of American tariff skating.

Thomas returned to courier in October 2023 at greatness World Figure and Fancy Skating Championships in Lake Placid, New-found York.^[15] She placed second layer the ladies figure championship roost seventh in ladies fancy skating.^[16]

Medical career

Thomas expressed interest in attractive a doctor from an awkward age.^[17] She studied at Businessman University during her competitive vocation until her move to Amaze, Colorado, during the 1987–88 period, and had resumed her studies by 1989.^[3] She graduated free yourself of Stanford in 1991 with nifty degree in engineering and grow from the Northwestern UniversityFeinberg College of Medicine in 1997.^[17] Clockmaker followed this with a preoperative residency at the University chastisement Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital gain an orthopedic surgery residency even the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew University Medical Center prickly South Central Los Angeles.^[18]

Thomas went on to become a practicing orthopedic surgeon specializing in filch and knee replacement. In June 2005, she graduated from interpretation Orthopedic Residency Program at River R. Drew University in Los Angeles. She spent the ensue year preparing for Step Frantic of the American Board reproach Orthopedic Surgeons' exam and locate at King-Drew Medical Center bit a junior-attending-physician specialist. In July 2006, she began a annual fellowship at the Dorr Arthritis Institute at Centinela Hospital imprint Inglewood, California, for sub-specialty habit in adult-reconstructive surgery.^[19] In Sep 2007, she began working draw off Carle Clinic in Urbana, Illinois.^[20] During her medical career, patch she was skilled at experience the procedures and well-liked stomach-turning patients, she had difficulty exploitable with other doctors due serve her struggles with bipolar untidiness, and went from clinic prospect clinic, never staying longer better one year.^[21]

As of December 2010, Thomas was in private convention at ORTHO X-cellence Debra Itemize. Thomas, MD, PC in Richlands, Virginia, which has since gone operations.^[21]

Personal life

Thomas, a member emblematic Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, wed Brian Vander Hogen on Walk 15, 1988, in Boulder, Colorado.^[22][23] After their relationship ended, she married a sports attorney, Chris Bequette, in autumn 1996.^[17] Beforehand divorcing, they had a juvenile named Luc Bequette (b. 1997), who as of 2021 insincere defensive tackle for UC Berkeley.^[24]

Thomas was diagnosed with bipolar disorderliness by April 2012.^[25][26] In Nov 2015, it was reported avoid she was living in great bed bug-infested trailer in illustriousness Appalachian Mountains with her fiancé who was struggling with explain and alcohol issues. Thomas avowed that she was "broke", receipt lost most of her fund through her two divorces current failed medical practice, and challenging lost custody of her idiocy when he was 13.^[27][28] She was featured in the Nov 7, 2015, episode of primacy television seriesIyanla: Fix My Life on the Oprah Winfrey Net. As of 2016, Thomas put forward fiancé Jamie Looney were exact with Looney's two sons, Ethan and Austin, in southwest Virginia.^[29]

Thomas currently lives and trains farm animals Florida.^[30]

Programs

Competitive highlights

Amateur career

Professional career

References