"When Everyone said I couldn't"
THE OFFICIAL BOOK OF FIGURE SKATING

Debi Thomas is most proud of her free-skate program at the 1986 U.S. Championships. Unlike most skaters, who take a break from college or work to train full-time, Thomas was determined to skate competitively and to complete her education without interruption. Most people told her that she couldn't possibly handle a full college course load at Stanford University and train for the U.S. Championships at the same time.

At the U.S. Championships, Thomas skated well in both figures and the short program. Although she was in first place going into the free skate, Thomas knew she still had to win there in order to take the title. But in practices that week, she had been having trouble landing all five of her planned triple jumps.

"I spent the entire day of the long program pacing back and forth in my hotel room trying to convince myself that I could do it," Thomas recalls. I told myself, 'You can do these jumps. You've done them before not all in one program, but you can do them.'

That evening in the warm-up Thomas fell each time she tried her triple loop. Her coach advised her to take the jump out of her program, but she felt she needed it to win. And when she took the ice for her performance, Thomas knew she had made the right decision.

"When they announced my name, the crowd roared," she says. "It was an amazing feeling, the first time I had a sense of what it might be like to do something outstanding." That confidence helped Thomas focus on her jumps one at a time.

"I could practically hear the crowd talking to me…" she says. "I knew they were pulling for me."

The audience had seen her miss the triple loop during the warm-up, and when she set up for that jump, it was as if the whole arena held its breath for her. "Then I landed it," Thomas recounts proudly. It wasn't the best one in the world, but everyone went wild."

Debi Thomas won the title, but she also learned an important lesson before she ever got to the podium to receive her gold medal.

"I learned that your attitude is the most important component to performing well….What made the 1986 Nationals so important was not that I won, but that I got my act together and skated so well. And doing it when everyone said I couldn't - that was special."