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Debi Thomas, M.D. (born March 25, 1967), is a former figure skater. She was the first African American to win a medal at a Winter Olympics, winning the bronze medal in ladies figure skating at the 1988 winter Olympics. She is now an orthopedic surgeon. Thomas won the 1986 U.S. National ladies' figure skating title and the Ladies' title at the 1986 World Figure Skating Championships; those achievements earned Thomas the ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year award that year. She represented the Crystal Springs Figure Skating club and was coached by Alex MacGowan. In 1987, Thomas struggled at the U.S. Nationals, placing second to Jill Trenary, but rebounded at the World Championships, finishing a close second to East German skater Katarina Witt. Thomas was a pre-med student at Stanford University during this time, and she became the first and only African American to hold U.S. National and World titles in ladies' singles figure skating (Tai Babilonia was previously a U.S. and World champion in pair skating.) In January 1988, Thomas reclaimed the U.S. National title. At the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary, she and Katarina Witt engaged in a rivalry that the media dubbed the "Battle of the Carmens", as both women skated their long programs to the music of Bizet's opera Carmen . Thomas skated strong compulsory figures and performed well in the short program to an instrumental version of "Something in My House" by Dead or Alive but performed poorly in the long program, finishing third and winning the bronze medal behind Witt and Canadian skater Elizabeth Manley. Thomas won the bronze medal at the 1988 World Figure Skating Championships and then retired from amateur skating. After her figure skating career, Thomas went back to school to become an orthopedic surgeon. She graduated from Stanford University in 1991 with a degree in engineering and from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine 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. In June 2005, Debi graduated from the Orthopaedic Residency Program at Charles R. Drew University in Los Angeles. She spent the next year preparing for Step I of the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgeons' exam and working at King-Drew Medical Center as a junior attending physician specialist. In July 2006, she began a one-year fellowship at the Dorr Arthritis Institute at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, California, for sub-specialty training in adult reconstructive surgery. In September of 2007, Thomas joined the orthopedic staff at Carle Clinic in Urbana, Illinois. She still remains involved in the figure skating world as a frequent committee member and judge. Thomas was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. In 1988, Thomas married Brian Vanden Hogen, a fellow college student. They later divorced and she married Chris Bequette, a sports attorney, in 1996. She gave birth to a son, Christopher Jules ("Luc"), in 1997.
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