Top Women In Winter Sports

Often the focus of winter sports winners are men, but there are plenty of woman that have excelled in the various sporting events as well. The top speed skater is Bonnie Blair who has amazed crowds for years with her unbelievable speed and agility. When she was only 18 years old she competed in the World Cup event. However, this was just the tip of the iceberg for what was to come.At the age of 19, Blair competed in the Winter Olympic Games and finished in 8th place. For the next twelve years which covered three more Winter Olympic Games Blair walked away with a total of five gold medals and one bronze. She holds the record for the woman with the most gold medals from the Winter Olympic Games. Sonja Henie became the youngest woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympic Games in 1928. She earned the gold medal in the figure skating competition This was a title she held until 1998 when Tara Lipinski won a gold medal. She was two months younger than Henie at that time. Henie also holds the record for being the only female figure skater to win three gold medals in three consecutive Winter Olympic Games. It is believed she could have continued winning them but after her gold medal win in 1936 she announced she was leaving the Olympics to become a professional skater. She enjoyed performing in various movies and touring shows that involved ice skating until she died in the late 1960's due to Leukemia. In 1960 skier Penny Pitou became the first USA winner of a gold medal in the downhill ski event. This was quite a success in 1960 because very few women were competing in the ski events at the Olympic Games at that time. The fact that she was able to walk away with a gold medal in an event that no male had earned one was an even greater accomplishment for women in the USA. She quickly became a role model for girls that wanted to one day win an Olympic gold medal. Dorothy Hamill is well known for her performances at the Winter Olympics in the area of figure skating. She went on to be a professional figure skater and paved the way for others. She created amazing moves that quickly became very popular in the various figure skating events. One of them is called the Hamill Camel which is a very daring combination of spins that she incorporated into her early routines. She won four professional figure skating titles before retiring from the ice. After that she went on to purchase various ice skating facilities so she could offer lessons to others interested in the area of figure skating. These facilities offer lessons for a very affordable cost as she realized all too well that excellent figure skaters were having to leave their dreams behind as they didn't have the thousands of dollars it took each year to pay for a good quality coach. Laurie Baker became quite popular in 2002 when she helped the USA woman's ice hockey team beat China with a score of 12 to 1. She scored two of those 12 points and was credited with assisting other players on her team with others. Since ice hockey has mainly be viewed as a game for men to play, this was a great success for the USA team. It really helped spectators to take notice of women in this particular winter sport.There are plenty more outstanding women that have contributed to winter sports. The lines are starting to be crossed more and more so particular sports aren't deem for men only anymore. Having female role models is very important for young women so they can believe it is possible to achieve their dreams. As a result you can expect to see plenty more women excel in the areas of different winter sports.
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