It is currently Black History Month, and the 2018 Winter Olympics are fast-approaching! To celebrate and educate our followers on both, we’re going to discuss some of the greatest black athletes that did (and will!) participate in winter Olympic sports.
Hockey
Ice hockey has been an Olympic sport since 1920. That’s almost 100 years of slapshots and fisticuffs!
The above photos show (left to right): Jarome Iginla (Canadian), PK Subban (Canadian), Johnny Oduya (Swedish), and Grant Fuhr (Canadian).
Jarome Iginla was the first black man to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. He continues to play in the NHL today. Even though Jarome Iginla, PK Subban, and Johnny Oduya are all former Olympic athletes, you will not see them in the 2018 games. This is because they are also all NHL players, and for the first time since 1998 the NHL will not suspend its operations to allow players to compete for their countries at the Olympics.
Fuhr was the first black hockey player to win the Stanley Cup (and he won it five times!) and the first to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Jordan Greenway (above) will represent America in the 2018 Olympic Ice Hockey trials! This makes him the first black man to compete on the US Olympic Ice Hockey team.
Speed Skating
Maame Biney (above) is an American short-track speedskater who will participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics. She began her career in figure skating before her coach suggested she give speedskating a shot…Biney was just too fast for Salchows and loop jumps!
Over on the long-track, we have Erin Jackson (above). Jackson will also represent American speedskating in South Korea this year. In addition to being a prolific athlete, she is an accomplished academic: she graduated from the University of Florida with honors from their Materials Science and Engineering program.
Figure Skating
Debi Thomas (above) was an American figure skater who won the 1988 Olympic bronze medal. She later went on to become a practicing orthopedic surgeon, specializing in hip and knee replacement.
Surya Bonaly was a French figure skater who won Olympic silver three times, and is most famous for being the only Olympic figure skater to ever land a backflip on one blade. She performed this risky (and illegal) move in the 1998 Winter Olympics once it was clear she was not going to win any medals. Part of the reason Bonaly chose to land on one skate was because she was injured at the time.
Bobsleigh/Bobsled
(Left to right): Seun Adigun (driver), Ngozi Onwumere (brakewoman), Akuoma Omeoga (brakewoman), and Simidele Adeagbo (women’s skeleton) make up Africa’s first-ever bobsled team. They will be competing in South Korea, so get ready to watch them compete for Nigeria and the entire continent of Africa!
Here we have (left to right) Elana Meyers Taylor, Laren Gibbs, Aja Evens, and Briuana Jones. These American ladies will all be present in South Korea, and we wish them the best of luck!
If you want to get in the mindset for this year’s bobsled races, check out The Library’s copy of Cool Runnings. It’s a fun family film based on the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team.
The Library would like to wish good luck and safe competition to all the talented and hardworking athletes participating in South Korea—make your countries proud and have a happy Black History Month!