Sheila Young

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Olympic medal record
Women’s Speed Skating
Gold 1976 Innsbruck 500 m
Bronze 1976 Innsbruck 1,000 m
Silver 1976 Innsbruck 1,500 m

Sheila Young-Ochowicz (born 14 October 1950 in Birmingham, Michigan) is a former speed skater and track cyclist from the United States.

Contents

[edit] Short biography

Born in Birmingham, Michigan, Sheila Grace Young and her family moved to Detroit, Michigan where she graduated from Denby High School in 1968. Sheila was a member of Wolverine Sports Club in the metro Detroit area, which has had three olympic medalists come from its ranks since 1972 in Cycling, Speed Skating, and Short Track Speed Skating. Both her parents had competed in both cycling and speed skating and they encouraged Sheila and her three siblings to do the same. Sheila's brother Roger also gained fame as a cyclist, winning seven National Championships titles, winning gold at the 1975 Pan American Games in the Team Pursuit, and competing at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics.

On the eve of the 1976 Winter Olympics, Sheila Young announced her engagement to Jim Ochowicz, a fellow cyclist. Interestingly, Jim Ochowicz competed at the same two Summer Olympics (1972 and 1976) as Sheila's brother Roger, but they competed in different cycling events – Jim Ochowicz competed in the 4 km Team Pursuit, while Roger Young competed in the Sprint.

Sheila Young had her best year in 1976, when she won three Olympic speed skating medals (one of each colour), won bronze at the World Allround Speed Skating Championships, became World Sprint Speed Skating Champion, skated three world records, became United States Sprint Track Cycling Champion, and became World Sprint Track Cycling Champion. After all that, Young retired from cycling and speed skating, and she and Jim worked for the Lake Placid Olympic Committee. They started a family and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1981, at age 31, she came out of retirement, won two more cycling championships, and then retired again in 1982.

Her three Olympic medals in 1972 made her the first United States athlete to win three medals at one Winter Olympics. Her World Sprint Speed Skating Championships title in 1973 made her the first United States female athlete to accomplish that feat. Her World Sprint Speed Skating Championships title of 1973 and her World Sprint Track Cycling Championships title of that same year made her the first athlete to win World Championships in two sports in the same year. The United States Olympic Committee named her Sportswoman of the Year twice (in 1976 and 1981) for her accomplishments in both cycling and speed skating. She was inducted in the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame, the National Speedskating Hall of Fame (on 18 May 1991), and (also in 1991) the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.

Jim and Sheila Ochowicz now live in Menlo Park, California and they have three children; Alex, Elli, and Kate. Their daughter Elli Ochowicz is also a speed skater. Elli competed at the Winter Olympics in 2002 and 2006. Sheila is now a teacher in Physical Education at McKinley Institute of Technology in Redwood City, California.

[edit] Medals

An overview of medals won by Young at important championships she participated in, listing the years in which she won each:

Championships Gold medal Silver medal Bronze medal
Speed skating
Winter Olympics 1976 (500 m) 1976 (1,500 m) 1972 (1,000 m)
World Allround 1975
1976
World Sprint 1973
1975
1976
Track cycling
World Sprint 1973
1976
1981		 1982 1972
United States Sprint 1971
1973
1976
1981		  ?  ?

[edit] Speed skating

Young competed at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo and saw her roommates Anne Henning and Dianne Holum win Olympic gold (Henning on the 500 m, as well as bronze on the 1,000 m, and Holum on the 1,500 m, as well as silver on the 3,000 m) – she herself finished 4th on the 500 m and 17th on the 1,000 m. In 1973, she became World Sprint Champion (a feat she would repeat in 1975 and 1976) and she skated two world records that year, becoming the first woman to skate the 500 m in less than 42 seconds. In 1975, she won bronze at the World Allround Championships (a feat she would repeat in 1976).

In 1976, just before the Winter Olympics, she became the first woman to skate the 500 m in less than 41 seconds. At the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Young won 3 medals – gold on the 500 m (setting a new Olympic record), silver on the 1,500 m, and bronze on the 1,000 m. That same year, after the Winter Olympics, she would skate two more world records before retiring from speed skating. She briefly came out of retirement, participating in the World Sprint Championships in 1981 (finishing 7th) and 1982 (finishing 13th).

[edit] World records

Over the course of her career, Young skated 5 world records:

Distance Result Date Location
500 m 41.8  19 January 1973 Davos
Sprint combination 173.450 20 January 1973 Davos
500 m 40.91 31 January 1976 Davos
500 m 40.68 13 March 1976 Inzell
Sprint combination 166.210 13 March 1976 Inzell

[edit] Personal records

To put these personal records in perspective, the last column (WR) lists the official world records on the dates that Young skated her personal records.

Distance Result Date Location WR
500 m 40.68 13 March 1976 Inzell 40.91
1,000 m 1:24.38 13 March 1976 Inzell 1:23.46
1,500 m 2:14.68 31 January 1976 Davos 2:09.90
3,000 m 5:02.88 26 January 1976 Madonna di Campiglio 4:44.69

[edit] Track cycling

Young was United States Sprint Champion four times (1971, 1973, 1976, and 1981). At the World Sprint Championships, she won bronze in 1972, silver in 1982, and she became World Sprint Champion three times – in 1973, 1976, and 1981. She had originally retired in 1976, but came out of retirement in 1981 to win one more United States Sprint Championship and one more World Sprint Championship. After winning silver at the 1982 World Championships she retired again, preferring motherhood over prolonging her sports careers.

Note that women's cycling was not an Olympic event at the Summer Olympics of 1976. If it had been, Young may have won medals at both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics in the same year, something that Christa Rothenburger (another World Sprint Champion in both speed skating and track cycling – although not, unlike Young, World Champion in both sports in the same year) would achieve in 1988.

[edit] References

Olympic champions in women's 500 m speed skating
1960: Helga Haase  | 1964: Lidia Skoblikova | 1968: Lyudmila Titova | 1972: Anne Henning | 1976: Sheila Young | 1980: Karin Enke | 1984: Christa Luding | 1988: Bonnie Blair | 1992: Bonnie Blair | 1994: Bonnie Blair | 1998: Catriona Le May Doan | 2002: Catriona Le May Doan | 2006: Svetlana Zhurova 
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