 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | December 8, 1982 Provo, Utah, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home town | Eagle Mountain, Utah, U.S. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 5 ft 10 in (178 cm) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 160 lb (73 kg) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country |  United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Skeleton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Noelle Pikus-Pace (born December 8, 1982) is an American retired skeleton racer who began her career in 2001. She won five medals at the FIBT World Championships, competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and won the silver medal in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Pikus-Pace won the women's Skeleton World Cup overall title in 2004–05.
After winning the silver medal in the women's skeleton event at the 2005 FIBT World Championships in Calgary, Pikus-Pace emerged as one of the favorites to medal at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Turin. Her medal ambitions would be dashed on October 19, 2005 at the Canada Olympic Park bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton track in Calgary when her right leg was broken by a four-man bobsleigh that failed to brake at the finish line. The bobsleigh ejected out of the end of the track and hit Pikus-Pace and teammate Lea Ann Parsley, narrowly missing three other team members. Pikus-Pace underwent surgery to repair her broken leg, which included an insertion of a titanium rod into her leg. She would return to competition seven weeks later at Igls, Austria, finishing 20th. She would chronicle her comeback from the 2005 freak accident which prevented her participation in Turin. This story was told in the critically acclaimed documentary 114 Days: The Race to Save a Dream. The US Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation petitioned to both the FIBT and the IOC to include Pikus-Pace in the women's skeleton competition, but to no avail. The only American representative in women's skeleton was Katie Uhlaender who finished sixth.
Pikus-Pace, who at the time was six weeks pregnant, announced on October 3, 2007 that she would take the 2007–08 Skeleton World Cup off to give birth to her baby.
She finished fifth in the 2008-09 Skeleton World Cup season opener in Winterberg, Germany on November 28, 2008.
It was announced on January 17, 2010 that Pikus-Pace had qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics. She competed in the 2010 Games, finishing in fourth place, with a sled designed by her husband after two of her other sleds had been damaged. The first sled had been damaged by the runaway bobsled in Calgary and her second sled was damaged during transport to the FIBT World Championships 2009 in Lake Placid, New York. [1] Pikus-Pace's husband, a project manager of a metal fabrication company in South Salt Lake, Utah, designed a skeleton sled in accordance to FIBT regulations to allow her to race. [1]
Pikus-Pace retired after the conclusion of the 2010 Winter Olympics. She announced her intention to come out of retirement in the summer of 2012 with the intent of qualifying for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
On January 11, 2013, Pikus-Pace placed first in her event at the Königssee, Germany track. [2] This win was her first on the World Cup level since 2004.
She would build upon this breakthrough by helping Team USA-1 win gold in the team event at the FIBT World Championships 2013 in St. Moritz, Switzerland. [3] Her 1:08:92 time vaulted the team into the lead and was 0.84 seconds quicker than the other competitors who sleighed her leg of the event. [3] Pikus-Pace would then go on to win silver in the women's event. [4]
She closed the 2012/13 FIBT World Cup season with a win in Sochi. On January 18, 2014, Pikus-Pace was named to the 2014 Olympic team. [5] On February 14, 2014, Pikus-Pace won her first Olympic medal, a silver, coming full circle and completing her comeback before retiring for good. [6]
Pikus-Pace is the youngest of the eight children in her family. She married her husband, Janson Pace, in 2002. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Lacee Lynne Pace, on January 19, 2008. They also have a son named Traycen. In an interview on NBC on February 14, 2014 after winning the silver medal in the Olympics in Sochi, she revealed that she had a miscarriage at 18 weeks while carrying her third child. Pikus-Pace said the pain of this loss and her difficulties coping with it caused her husband to encourage her to get back into the sport and compete in skeleton again. In July 2015 she gave birth to twins Payton and Makai.
She is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [7] Throughout the Olympics in Sochi, she wore a medallion she earned from the young woman program of the church. [8]
Kristan Bromley is a retired British skeleton racer who has competed since 1996. He won the gold medal in the men's event at the 2008 FIBT World Championships in Altenberg, Germany. This was Great Britain's first gold medal at the FIBT World Championships since 1965.
Martins Dukurs is a former Latvian skeleton racer, currently a coach, who has competed since 1998. He is a six-time world champion in men's skeleton, a double Olympic silver winner, and the athlete with the most World Cup titles with a total of 11, having won eight consecutive titles between 2010 and 2017, plus another three consecutive titles between 2020 and 2022.
Maya Pedersen-Bieri is a Swiss-Norwegian skeleton racer who has competed since 1995. She won the gold medal in the women's skeleton event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. She retired from the sport in 2010 before returning to compete for Norway in 2016, becoming at the oldest woman to start a World Cup race when she returned to the top level of skeleton in 2017. She is listed in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation athlete registration system as Maya Pedersen.
Mellisa Hollingsworth is a retired Canadian athlete who competed from 1995 to 2014. She won the bronze medal in the women's skeleton event at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.
Gerda Weissensteiner OMRI is an Italian luger and bobsleigh pilot who competed from the late 1980s to 2006. Competing in six Winter Olympics, she won the gold medal in the women's singles luge event at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, and together with Jennifer Isacco she won the bronze in Turin in the two-woman bobsleigh at the 2006 Winter Olympics. She was the first Italian sportsperson to win Olympic medals in two disciplines.
Steven Paul Holcomb was an American bobsledder who competed from 1998 until his death in 2017. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, he won the four-man bobsled event for the United States, its first gold medal in that event since 1948. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he finished second in both the four-man and two-man event.
Nicola Minichiello is a retired British bobsledder who competed between 2001 and 2011. She won two medals in the two-woman event at the FIBT World Championships, winning a silver in 2005 and making history with a gold in 2009 partnering Gillian Cooke, to become the first British female bobsleigh driver to win a World Championships. Competing in three Winter Olympics, Minichiello earned her best finish of ninth in the two-woman event at Turin in 2006. This was also the best ever Olympic result by a GB women’s bobsleigh team.
Kathryn "Katie" Uhlaender is an American skeleton racer who has competed since 2003. She has won six medals at the FIBT World Championships with two gold, one silver, and three bronze.
Lea Ann Parsley is a retired American skeleton racer from Granville, Ohio. She was the first female skeleton athlete to win a world cup medal for the United States and earned a silver medal in the women's skeleton event, a first in Olympic history, during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Winter Games. She was also one of eight athletes chosen to carry the World Trade Center flag into the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Kaillie Humphries is a Canadian-American bobsledder. Representing Canada, she was the 2010 and 2014 Olympic champion in the two-woman bobsled and the 2018 Olympic bronze medalist with brakewoman Phylicia George. With her victory in 2014, she became the first female bobsledder to defend her Olympic title and was named flagbearer for the Olympic closing ceremony with brakewoman Heather Moyse.
Tuffield A. Latour was an American Olympic bobsledder whose career spanned from 1936–1959. He finished ninth in the two-man event at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz.
Elana Meyers Taylor is an American Olympic bobsledder and World Champion who has competed since 2007. Born in Oceanside, California, Meyers Taylor was raised in Douglasville, Georgia and is a graduate of George Washington University, where she was a member of the softball team.
The women's skeleton event at the 2010 Winter Olympics took place at the Whistler Sliding Centre on 18–19 February. The competition was won by British athlete Amy Williams, who set new course records for the track on her first and third runs. Williams, who had never before won a World Cup or World Championship event, became the first British athlete to win a solo Winter Olympic gold medal in 30 years. German sliders Kerstin Szymkowiak and Anja Huber won the silver and bronze medals respectively. Williams' teammate Shelley Rudman, who had won the silver medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics, and Canadian Mellisa Hollingsworth, both of whom had been expected to be in medal contention, were disappointed.
Steven Daniel Langton is an American bobsledder. He won silver medals in both the two-man and four-man events at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and gold in both the two-man and four-man events at the 2012 FIBT World Championships.
Paula Jackson is a British retired bobsledder who competed from 2007 to 2014. She originally started as a brakewoman for Jackie Gunn before taking up piloting.
Elizabeth Anne Yarnold, OBE is a British former skeleton racer who joined the Great Britain national squad in 2010. With consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2014 and 2018, she is the most successful British Winter Olympian and the most successful Olympic skeleton athlete of all time from any nation. She won the 2013–14 Skeleton World Cup, followed by a gold in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Yarnold was selected to be one of the two women skeleton drivers representing Team GB at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, and went on to become the first person to defend an Olympic gold in skeleton and the first British athlete to defend a Winter Olympic title. Yarnold set the track record for women's skeleton at the Olympic venue in the final heat of the race with a time of 51.46 seconds, beating Jacqueline Lölling's pre-Olympic record by nearly 1.3 seconds and her own first-heat record by 0.2 second. Yarnold was also the flag bearer for Great Britain at the Pyeongchang opening ceremony.
Elena Valeryevna Nikitina is a Russian skeleton racer who joined the national squad in 2009. She rides a Schneider sled, and her coach is Denis Alimov. Before starting skeleton, she was an association football player.
The women's skeleton event at the 2014 Winter Olympics took place at the Sliding Center Sanki on 13–14 February. In the first run, Lizzy Yarnold established a track record of 58.43 seconds and the start record of 4.95 seconds. The start record was improved to 4.89 seconds in the same run by Elena Nikitina. In the third run, Yarnold improved her track record to 57.91. Winning all four runs, Yarnold became the Olympic champion; Noelle Pikus-Pace of the United States won silver, and Nikitina became the bronze medalist. Each of them won their first Olympic medal. Yarnold's medal was the first gold medal for Great Britain at the 2014 Olympics.
Sophia Griebel is a German skeleton racer who has raced at the Winter Olympics and the Skeleton World Cup. She started racing skeleton in 2005 and was selected to the German national team in 2008; she was a luger before switching to skeleton. Her personal coach is Christian Baude and she uses an FES sled. Away from sport, she works for the German Federal Police. Griebel was injured in 2016 and spent 18 months recovering before returning to the World Cup circuit in November 2017, but after poor showings in the season's first two races, she was replaced on the German World Cup squad by Anna Fernstädt.
Thorsten Margis is a German bobsledder.
