The 2026 Winter Olympic Games are underway. The best athletes from around the world have gathered in Italy to compete in ice hockey, figure skating, snowboarding and more. But while Black athletes aren’t always front and center at the winter games, figure skater Debi Thomas broke barriers, becoming the first African American athlete to medal at the games in 1988.
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Thomas wasn’t just an amazing skater, she was also an outstanding student, earning degrees at Stanford University and Northwestern University. But after working as an orthopedic surgeon, she had a terrible fall from grace – ending up broke and living in a trailer in Virginia.
This is the story of Debi Thomas.
Born in Poughkeepsie
Debra Janine Thomas was born on March 25, 1967, in Poughkeepsie, New York. She moved with her family to California when she was 2 years old.
Education was a priority in Thomas’ family. Her grandfather earned a doctorate in veterinary medicine from Cornell University in 1939, Debi’smother, who separated from her father at age 9, was a computer engineer.
Learning to Skate
Like most world-class athletes, Thomas started skating at a young age, begging her mother to let her start taking lessons when she was just 5 years old. But the self-described “tomboy” says she wasn’t interested in doing jumps and spins – she wanted to learn so she could play hockey.
“I didn’t know anything about the Olympics when I started skating, she said in an interview. “My mom would reward me for working on my figure skating by renting me hockey skates.”
Her Personal Best
Although there were very few Black figure skaters in the 1980s, Thomas said she never felt that race was an issue when she was competing. She said her mom took the focus away from the color of her skin and put it on her performance on the ice.
I don’t want people to get the perception that I had to overcome all of these racial barriers,” she said in an interview. “If I didn’t win a competition, my mom wouldn”t say, ‘You didn’t win because you were Black.’…She’d just say, ‘You’ve got to be better next time,’ and I got better and better and better.”
An American Champion
Thomas first made her mark on the national skating scene in 1986 when she won the women’s competition at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She was the first African American woman to take the title. Thomas kept her winning streak going, earning a gold at the World Figure Skating Championships that same year.
Academic Excellence
Competing at the highest level of figure skating is hard enough, but Thomas was juggling her training with an intense academic course load, earning degrees at two of the country’s most prestigious institutions.
In 1991, Thomas earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Stanford University. She went on to earn a degree in medicine at Northwestern University in 1997, specializing in orthopedic surgery.
“I think my success was that I was too stupid to know what was impossible,” she said. “So I really would just set my mind and just say ‘I’m going to go to college and win a world championship at the same time.”
“The Battle of the Carmens”
In 1988, Debi Thomas represented the United States at the Olympic Games in Calgary. There, she faced her toughest competition, Katarina Witt, who was skating for East Germany and trying to defend the gold she won in 1984. The matchup was billed as “The Battle of the Carmens,” because both women were skating to music from the musical. But while the music was the same, the skaters’ style and interpretation of the music was very different, something Thomas wanted to make sure everyone understood.
“It’s almost like [the media] played it up like we showed up at the Olympics in the same dress,” she said.
A Dream Deferred
Going into the 1988 games, Debi Thomas was the only skater who had beaten Katarina Witt in five years when she took the gold at the 1986 World Championships. But while she started off strong, things began to unravel when she took the ice for her long program. Thomas said things fell apart when she executed a planned triple jump as a double. She said she knew in that moment that her dreams for gold were gone.
“I didn’t watch the performance for years, because I lived it,” she said in an interview. “I don’t want to relieve that. That stunk.”
Olympic History
Katarina Witt went on to win the gold medal in 1988, while Thomas took the bronze. Thomas’s win was another one for the history books, making her the first African American to medal at the Winter Olympic Games.
Making it in Medicine
After she stepped away from skating, Thomas became an orthopedic surgeon, opening a private practice in 2010, which provided knee and hip replacements in Virginia.
A Tragic Downfall
But things took a turn for the worse for Thomas, who said she lost several jobs and got divorced twice. With little money left, she hit rock bottom, losing custody of her son and eventually declaring bankruptcy in 2014.
She moved to Virginia where she lived in a trailer with her then-fiance Jamie Looney and his young sons. In an interview with ‘Inside Edition,’ the pair admitted that they abused one another during their relationship.
“She abused me. I abused her,” he said. “I’ve punched him in the face,” she added.
That Time Iyanla Tried to Fix Her Life
In 2015, Debi Thomas made an appearance on ‘Iyanla, Fix My Life,” where Iyanla Vanzant attempted to help her understand how she fell from grace and how she could get back on the right track. In one emotional exchange, Vanzant asked Thomas why she described herself as “frustrated” when her life was at a low point.
“Frustrated? Not sad, not angry, not ashamed, not guilty that you’ve got a man, two kids and a bed bug-infestation in a trailer, and frustration is what you feel?” she asked.
Getting Back on the Ice
Thirty years after her retirement, Thomas laced up her skates again in 2024 at the World Figure and Fancy Skating Championships in Lake Placid, NY, something she said would hopefully inspire younger skaters to get back to basics.
“I’d really like to help the younger generations learn about figures. The black ice is really just an amazing way to see how someone can use their whole body and all their muscles to put out these beautiful patterns,” she told NBC affiliate WPTZ.
A Role Model
Despite her challenges, Thomas says she’s been overwhelmed by the feedback she’s received from parents and skaters who look up to her and want to follow in her figure skating footsteps.
“I realized that there’s some level of responsibility as a role model, “ she said.
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