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Debi Thomas, (born March 25, 1967) was a figure skater and the first African American to win a medal at the Winter Olympics. She won the bronze medal at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary in the year that Katarina Witt won the gold; both skated to the music of Bizet's Carmen. While a pre-med student at Stanford University, Thomas won both the 1986 U.S. National and World Figure Skating titles, defeating Tiffany Chin and Witt respectively, becoming the first and only African American to hold those titles. She was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000.

After her figure skating career, Thomas went back to school to become an orthopedic surgeon. She graduated from Stanford in 1991 with a degree in engineering and from Northwestern University Medical School in 1997. Thomas followed this with a surgical residency at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital and an orthopedic surgery residency at the Martin Luther King Jr./Charles Drew University Medical Center in South Central Los Angeles.

She still remains involved in the figure skating world as a frequent committee member and judge.

 

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