Sarah Hughes ’09
At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the 16-year-old was not favored as a figure skater, but in the end she beat the then-winning favourites Kwan Ying Shan and Irina Slutskaya to win the gold medal with an impeccable performance and a long show of great technical difficulty. Since then, no American female athlete has won the women's figure skating Winter Olympic gold medal.
So, how should life be spent after winning the gold medal? Sarah Hughes gave her the choice to enroll at Yale and become an alumnus of yale Undergraduate School '09.
A year and a half after winning the gold medal, Sarah Hughes chose to attend Yale University and became a member of Timothy Dwight College. But at the same time, she is still a star in the figure skating world, and she took advantage of two undergraduate sabbaticals to perform professionally with the world's top ice performance group "Ice Stars". A semester after returning to school, she covered the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, for NBC and MsNBC, where her sister Emily also competed for team USA.
Hughes later studied law at the University of Pennsylvania and now works as a lawyer at the law firm of Proskauer Rose in New York City. She is also an ambassador and honorary director of the non-profit Women's Sports Foundation (who served on the Board of Directors for 6 years), which works to improve the living standards of women and girls through sports, education and sport activities. She is also an ambassador for the Children's Fun Association, an international organization that aims to provide an educational platform for children and adolescents living in poverty and distress through the power of sport and play, encouraging them to fight poverty, struggle and disease.
At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, as an NBC writer and a fan, she once again immersed herself in the world of figure skating, and she followed the Yale people on the sports field, including Chen Wei, the '24th undergraduate of Yale Undergraduate College and the men's singles champion of figure skating at the Winter Olympics.
Yale athletes at the Beijing Winter Olympics include Team USA men's hockey player kenny Agostino and Yale Undergraduate School '14 alumnus and Yale Undergraduate School '12 alumnus Brian O'Neill, Swiss women's hockey player and Yale Undergraduate School '17 alumnus Phoebe Staenz, and American figure skater and Yale Undergraduate School '24 student Nathan Chen.
Before the Winter Olympics began, Sarah Hughes spoke to Yale News about her experiences winning the gold medal, her days at New Haven, and her evaluation of Chen Wei.
The content of the interview has been edited and refined:
Q&A
What is it like to compete in the Olympics at such a young age and win a gold medal in such a disruptive way?
Sarah Hughes: My development in the figure skating world has been a thousand miles. I started skating at the age of three and spent most of my time on ice, but I didn't play at the National Championships until 1998, when I was at junior level. It's exciting for me to participate in national championships and see figure skaters compete for Olympic qualification. In the '90s, there were a lot of skating competitions on TV, and I was constantly watching these athletes from a young age, and whenever there was figure skating on TV, I would watch and record them and then replay the tapes over and over again.
Four years later, I won one of three women's spots at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. To be able to represent the country and be a part of the Olympics is a huge honour for me.
At the time, I thought that Salt Lake City might be my only Olympics, because training was the focus of my life at that time, and the ultimate goal was to enter the Olympic team. I went to Salt Lake City to immerse myself in it — to learn from this experience, to have the best time, to try to slide out of my best form.
And there was another factor at the time. I'm from New York, the Winter Olympics are held five months after 9/11, and it's uncertain whether the Olympics will be held in the United States. So for me, after going through all this in New York, I'm going to host the Winter Olympics in the United States, performing on the biggest stage of the sport for a lifetime performance, all of which makes me even more nervous.
At that point, did you already think about retiring from competitive skating and going to college?
Sarah Hughes: I'm very clear that I want to go to college, and I think that's largely because, first, I want to make friends with other peers who aren't athletes; and second, I've seen firsthand the positive impact of a college education on a person's life. My parents met in college. My dad was the first person in his family to graduate from college, and my mom was the first woman in her family to graduate from college. Many of my opportunities in sports come from the skills and connections my parents developed in college, so I feel that getting into college can help me similarly in my future development.
But the more immediate reason is that because I've been traveling, I've been competing, I want to go back to high school and have a more fixed high school schedule. But I became famous overnight after winning and was invited to do a lot of interesting things like speaking at the Grammy Awards. I'm a big fan of Backstreet Boys, Super Boys, and Sweetie, so when I get the chance to meet someone I admire, I naturally don't refuse.
After that, I also did a lot of meaningful work in education and health care. For example, at Campbell Soup, we set up a scholarship that awarded $300,000, and I also worked with their "Education Label" project. Education has always been something I strive for, both in the classroom and in life, and it has made my life more meaningful and purposeful. I also worked with GE to become the second of two of their ever spokespersons. We established GE's "Heroes in Health" program, which focuses on a wide range of health issues, including cancer care, women's health issues, and healthy living for children.
But I knew that college would improve my professional skills and make my job more impactful, and I really wanted to study with my peers. And I think Yale is exactly that kind of place.
What makes Yale your ideal college choice?
SARAH HUGHES: I think Yale makes me feel comfortable. I like the collegial system. I didn't have the normal high school experience of sitting in a classroom every day because I needed to train and constantly fly everywhere. So I wanted a school where I could ask for help if I was facing a problem, or if I had trouble adapting. I want to be a qualified college student, make more friends, and be able to stick with it in difficult times. For me, the best way to achieve personal growth and academic development is to find the help I need in a place where I feel comfortable.
Of course, when I get to Yale, you'll find that the students are amazing, which is a huge advantage for Yale.
After entering Yale, how did you balance your identity as a student with a well-known athlete?
Sarah Hughes meets with then-U.S. President George W. Bush
Sarah Hughes: It was a challenging transition from my familiar life to being a college student. I think this is probably a true portrayal of a lot of new students. They don't necessarily have to be athletes like me who travel from different countries to compete, but withdrawing from a life and environment that you're familiar with requires a phase of adaptation.
Now I'm not as easily recognizable as then, but then I'll always be recognized. I won gold in my junior year of high school, and then I worked in sports and entertainment before I went to Yale. I enjoyed student life, but it was a challenging transition.
As a yale student, how does skating and your life intersect?
Sarah Hughes: I would go skating, but my focus at the time was student life and Yale life. I focused on life on campus during my freshman year, but I left campus after my freshman year.
I've always wanted to perform on a show called "Ice Star." Because I was not very old at the time, and I got that opportunity after winning the gold medal, after my freshman year, I took the lead role in the "Stars on Ice" tour. We started in Japan and then had 60 shows in the United States. In the summer after my freshman year, I went to Athens, Greece, to work as a journalist covering the Summer Olympics in Greece.
But my plan has always been to go back to Yale. After I covered the Olympics and performed on the "Ice Star," I went back to Yale for a semester. Then my sister went to the Olympics, so I took another semester off. But I was determined to finish my studies and take classes with other students at Yale.
Another Yale undergraduate student, Chen Wei, participated in the competition of this Winter Olympics, how do you evaluate him?
Chen Wei was on the podium at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics
Sarah Hughes: When Chen Wei chose Yale, I was very excited because there were not many figure skaters who chose to study and train at Yale. Actually, I hesitated between Yale and Harvard. Harvard has had some prominent figure skaters, including the 1992 Winter Olympics men's figure skating silver medalist Paul Wylie. Paul and I joked that the two schools had a competitive relationship in this regard, so I was glad that Chen Wei chose Yale to add glory to Yale.
Chen Wei should like Yale very much, he has a good experience here. I'm happy for Yale because Chen Wei is a great guy, not only one of the best figure skaters in history, but also a humble, eager to learn, and respectful person, so I think he will be a good classmate too. As an alumnus of his, I am pleased to see that my alma mater and Yale students still uphold these values.
Chen Wei is an extraordinary figure skater who is able to balance training and learning everywhere. Although his training base and coach are in California, he decided to study at Yale University, in which case he can still juggle the game and always be at the top, which seems to have superhuman ability.
I've watched figure skating all my life and I really appreciate the people who are able to do difficult moves, who raise the technical standards of the sport and stay calm no matter what they face. Even spectators who only watch the game once every four years told me they were blown away by Chen Wei's performance on the ice.
What are your expectations for the Winter Olympics?
Sarah Hughes: Seeing these athletes realize their dreams is definitely the most exciting part.
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