Donna Weinbrecht

Last updated
Donna Weinbrecht
Personal information
BornApril 23, 1965 (1965-04-23) (age 58)
Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.
Medal record
Women's freestyle skiing
Representing the Flag of the United States.svg  United States
Olympic Games
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1992 Albertville Moguls
World Championships
Gold medal icon (G initial).svg 1991 Lake Placid Moguls
Silver medal icon (S initial).svg 1989 Oberjoch Moguls
Silver medal icon (S initial).svg 1997 Iizuna Kogen Moguls

Donna L. Weinbrecht (born April 23, 1965) [1] won the first gold medal awarded in the first Olympic mogul competitions in freestyle skiing, which were held at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. Weinbrecht grew up in West Milford, New Jersey. [2] She was also World Champion in 1991 and a five-time World Cup moguls season champion (1990–92, 1994, and 1996).

She was born in Hoboken, New Jersey [1] and attended West Milford High School, where she formed the school's first ski team. [3]

Weinbrecht's first sport was figure skating. While she was a competent skater, her family couldn't afford the cost of coaching. She learned to ski at Hidden Valley in Vernon Township, New Jersey and Vernon Valley / Great Gorge and spent most weekends skiing at Hidden Valley with her family. [3] The family now invested in skiing bought a house in Killington Vermont and Donna trained on the Mogul trails of Killington, especially The Great mogul trail Outer Limits . Donna can still be seen at Killington regularly hosting mogul training camps and recreational skiing .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skiing</span> Recreational activity and sport using snow skis

Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Ski Federation (FIS).

Freestyle skiing is a skiing discipline comprising aerials, moguls, cross, half-pipe, slopestyle and big air as part of the Winter Olympics. It can consist of a skier performing aerial flips and spins and can include skiers sliding rails and boxes on their skis. Known as "hot-dogging" in the early 1970s, it is also commonly referred to as freeskiing, jibbing, as well as many other names, around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1992 Winter Olympics</span> Multi-sport event in Albertville, France

The 1992 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVI Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Albertville '92, was a winter multi-sport event held from 8 to 23 February 1992 in and around Albertville, France. Albertville won the bid to host the Winter Olympics in 1986, beating Sofia, Falun, Lillehammer, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Anchorage, and Berchtesgaden. The 1992 Winter Olympics were the last winter games held in the same year as the Summer Olympics. The Games were the fifth Olympic Games held in France and the country's third Winter Olympics, after the 1924 Winter Games in Chamonix and the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble. This games was the first of two consecutive Olympic games to be held in Western Europe, preceding the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

Freestyle skiing was an official sport discipline for the first time at the 1992 Winter Olympics, with medals awarded in the moguls event. The venue was Tignes about 85 km from host city Albertville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics</span>

Freestyle skiing has been contested at the Winter Olympic Games since the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France.

Hidden Valley was a ski resort in Vernon Township, New Jersey, United States, located off of County Route 515, near the intersection with Route 94, approximately an hour's drive from the George Washington Bridge. Since January 2016, the area has been repurposed as the National Winter Activity Center, which provides education and ski/snowboard instruction to groups that might not have access to winter sports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Joyce</span> American sportscaster

Andrea Joyce Kuslits, better known as Andrea Joyce, is an American sportscaster who works for NBC Sports after working 10 years with CBS Sports.

Heather McPhie is an American freestyle moguls skier. She competed for the US Olympic Team at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. McPhie earned the Olympic team spot with a 2nd-place finish at the FIS World Cup event at Deer Valley in January 2010. At the 2007 FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships McPhie finished in 8th place in moguls, and 9th in duals.

For the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, a total of thirteen sports venues were used. Val-d'Isère has been part of the Alpine Skiing World Cup since the late 1960s while Tignes served as host of the first Freestyle World Ski Championships in 1986. Most of the venues used were constructed between 1987 and mid 1990 with the test events taking place in late 1990 and early 1991. It was the last Winter Olympics with an outdoor speed skating rink which led to weather issues for three of the ten events. Three cross-country skiing events were run in snowstorms while the men's 20 km biathlon was found to be 0.563 km (0.350 mi) too short. The downhill events in alpine skiing were criticized for being too steep. Freestyle skiing made its official debut at these games with the men's winner being stormed after his win while the women's winner won her event in a snow storm. La Plagne hosted the skeleton World Championships in 1993 while Val-d'Isère hosted the Alpine World Ski Championships in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mikaël Kingsbury</span> Canadian freestyle skier

Mikaël Kingsbury is a freestyle skier from Quebec. He is the most accomplished mogul skier of all time. He achieved eminence early in his career after earning the 2009–10 FIS World Cup Rookie of the Year award. He is a ten-time FIS Freestyle World Cup title-holder for overall moguls and nine-time title-holder for overall freestyle, owning the records for most men's Moguls World Cup titles and Overall Freestyle World Cup titles. He also owns the records for career World Cup moguls victories with 78, and consecutive Freestyle World Cup event wins with 13. He is the first man to have won both the moguls and dual moguls World Championship events, and has won the most medals at the Freestyle World Championships of any male competitor in history, having won a medal in 13 of the 14 events he has competed in. Kingsbury won the Olympic silver medal in 2014 and 2022, and, at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, he won the gold medal in men's moguls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Justine Dufour-Lapointe</span> Canadian freestyle skier

Justine Dufour-Lapointe is a Canadian freestyle skier. She was the Olympic champion in the moguls event at the 2014 Winter Olympics and won a silver medal in moguls at the 2018 Winter Olympics. The gold and silver she and her sister Chloe Dufour-Lapointe won in 2014 was the first time that Canadian sisters stood together on the podium, and the fourth time ever by all nations. In winning the Olympics, she became the youngest freestyle skiing Olympic champion ever at nineteen years of age. Dufour-Lapointe was the FIS World Cup rookie of the year for the 2010–11 season. Dufour-Lapointe was the world champion in moguls at the 2015 World Championships has also won a silver and two other bronze medals in the moguls event at the Freestyle World Ski Championships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Britteny Cox</span> Australian freestyle skier

Britteny Cox is an Australian mogul skier. Growing up in the Victorian alpine resort of Falls Creek, Cox was born into a mogul skiing environment, with her family passionate mogul skiers.

Ann Battelle is a world champion and World Cup champion on the U.S. Ski Team; she competed in the freestyle skiing events of moguls and dual moguls.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuliya Galysheva</span> Kazakhstani freestyle skier

Yulia Evgenievna Galysheva is a Kazakhstani mogul skier who won three medals at FIS Freestyle Ski World Championships, bronze medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games and two gold medals at the Asian Winter Games in 2011.

Ski ballet is a form of ballet performed on skis. It is very similar to figure skating, combining spins, jumps, and flips in a two-minute routine choreographed to music. It was part of the professional freestyle skiing tours of the 1970s and 1980s and then an official FIS and Olympic discipline until the year 2000. Ski ballet became known as Acroski in the 1990s in an effort to legitimize its place among the competitive ski community, especially to the FIS. It is no longer a part of competitive freestyle skiing.

Nicole Parks is an Australian freestyle skier. She competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where she qualified for the moguls finals, retired from competition skiing in 2017, and is now a coach.

Conny Kissling is a Swiss freestyle skier, world champion and Olympic participant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Superstar (ski course)</span> World Cup ski course in Killington, Vermont

Superstar is a World Cup ski piste in the northeast United States at Killington, Vermont. Located on Skye Peak mountain of the Killington Ski Resort, the course is open to the public as a black diamond trail. It has hosted eleven women's World Cup events, the sixth most in the U.S. The race course debuted in November 2016, succeeding Aspen, Colorado, as the early season U.S. host for women's technical events.

References

  1. 1 2 Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Donna Weinbrecht". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 2020-04-17.
  2. Anderson, Dave. "Sports of The Times; The Olympics Don't Need Us vs. Them", The New York Times , February 16, 1992. Accessed October 17, 2007. "That's what Donna Weinbrecht of West Milford, N.J., did in winning the first women's gold medal in a new Olympic sport, freestyle mogul skiing."
  3. 1 2 Bondy, Filip. "Skiing: Albertville Profile; Spin Control at a Very High Speed", The New York Times , December 11, 1991. Accessed July 7, 2023. "Eventually, she formed her own ski team at West Milford High School."