Debi Thomas

Debi Thomas is an American figure skater and physician. Born in 1967 in Poughkeepsie, New York, and raised in San Jose, California, she won the 1986 World Championships and two U.S. national titles, and she was the first African American to hold a U.S. national ladies' singles title. She studied pre-med at Stanford University while competing. At the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary her free skate to Bizet's Carmen against Katarina Witt, who skated to the same opera, was called the Battle of the Carmens, and she took the bronze medal. After retiring from amateur competition she went on to a career in medicine.