No American woman has brought home the gold in women’s figure skating since Sarah Hughes won in dramatic fashion at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics when she was just 17 years old.

“At the time, I thought Salt Lake probably would be my only Olympics, because so much of my life at that point was training, with the ultimate goal of making the Olympic team. I went to Salt Lake with the idea of soaking it in – to get the most out of the experience, have the best time, try to skate my best,” she said in an interview with Yale News in February 2022.

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And skate her best Hughes did. In the free skate competition, she glided across the ice to Ludwig Minkus’ “La Bayadere,” performing what was at the time the most technically difficult program to ever win an Olympic gold medal. She also made Olympic history as the first woman to land two triple jump-triple jump combinations in a 4-minute event. With Hughes snatching the win from favorites Michelle Kwan and Russia's Irina Slutskaya, the upset was considered one of the biggest in figure skating history. And Hughes was the youngest skater in the competition.

Sarah Hughes was born in 1985 in Great Neck, New York. Her father, John Hughes, was one of the captains of the undefeated and untied NCAA champion 1969–70 Cornell University ice hockey team. As a result, Hughes hit the ice early and began skating when she was only three years old.

She began gathering wins early on, starting with the junior title at the 1998 U.S. Championships in the 1997–1998 season. She won bronze medals at the 1999 Trophée Lalique and 2000 U.S. Championships and came in fifth overall in the World Championships. Prior to her gold win in 2002, she won the silver medal at the 2001 U.S. Championships and a bronze at the 2001 World Championships.

Hughes did not, however, allow her elite athleticism to detract from her education. She graduated from Yale with a degree in American studies with a concentration in U.S. politics and communities and then attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She currently practices law in New York City and is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.