Facts about Sarah Hughes
Sarah Hughes Biography
Sarah Hughes surprised the world by winning the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
She was 16 years old and previously had never won a U.S or world senior championship.
In fourth place after the short program, Hughes came back with a near-flawless long program to pass reigning world champion Michelle Kwan, Russian Irina Slutskaya and fellow teen Sasha Cohen. Hughes left competitive skating and entered Yale University in 2003.
A 2018 graduate of Penn Law, Hughes was part of the presidential delegation that attended the Olympics opening ceremony in South Korea in 2018.
Extra credit
Hughes’s win was reminiscent of the 1998 Nagano Olympics, when the heavy favorite Kwan was beaten by newcomer Tara Lipinski… Hughes’s younger sister, Emily, skated for the U.S. in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.