Sheila Grace Young-Ochowicz (born October 14, 1950) is a retired American

speed skater Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. ...

and

track cyclist Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles. History Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its infancy, it wa ...

. She won three world titles in each of these sports, twice in the same year (in 1973 and 1976). In 1976, she also became the first American athlete to win three medals at one Winter Olympics.

Early life and education

Young and her family moved to

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

where she graduated from

Denby High School The Edwin C. Denby High School is a public secondary education school located at 12800 Kelly Road in northeastern Detroit, Michigan. Denby High opened in 1930, and the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. It i ...

in 1968. Young was a member of Wolverine Sports Club in the Detroit metropolitan area, which has produced three Olympic medalists since 1972. Their sports:

cycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from two ...

long-track speed skating 　 Long-track speed skating, usually simply referred to as speed skating, is the Olympic discipline of speed skating where competitors are timed while crossing a set distance. It is also a sport for leisure. Sports such as ice skating marathon, ...

, and

short-track speed skating Short-track speed skating is a form of competitive ice speed skating. In competitions, multiple skaters (typically between four and six) skate on an oval ice track with a length of . The rink itself is long by wide, which is the same size as a ...

. Both her parents had competed in cycling and speed skating and they encouraged Young and her three siblings to do the same. Young's brother

Roger Roger is a given name, usually masculine, and a surname. The given name is derived from the Old French personal names ' and '. These names are of Germanic origin, derived from the elements ', ''χrōþi'' ("fame", "renown", "honour") and ', ' ( ...

also gained fame as a cyclist, winning seven national championships, gold at the 1975

Pan American Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is held ...

in the team pursuit, and competing at the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Personal life

On the eve of the

1976 Winter Olympics The 1976 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XII Olympic Winter Games (german: XII. Olympische Winterspiele, french: XIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Innsbruck 1976 ( bar, Innschbruck 1976, label=Austro-Bavarian), was a ...

, Young announced her engagement to

Jim Ochowicz Jim Ochowicz (born December 23, 1951) is a former Olympic bicyclist and manager of UCI WorldTeam . He served as president of the USA Cycling Board of Directors from 2002 to 2006.http://www.usacycling.org/news/user/story.php?id=3512 Mark Abramson ...

, a fellow cyclist. Ochowicz competed at the same two Summer Olympics (

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

and

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

) as Young's brother Roger, but in different cycling events – Ochowicz in the 4 km team pursuit, Roger Young in the sprint. Jim and Sheila Ochowicz live in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

and have three children; Alex, Elli, and Kate. Their daughter Elli Ochowicz is also a speed skater; she competed at the Winter Olympics in 2002, 2006 and 2010. Sheila used to be a teacher in

physical education Physical education, often abbreviated to Phys Ed. or P.E., is a subject taught in schools around the world. It is usually taught during primary and secondary education, and encourages psychomotor learning by using a play and movement explorati ...

La Entrada Middle School The Las Lomitas Elementary School District is a public school district in the San Francisco Bay Area, primarily serving parts of the communities of Menlo Park, Atherton and Ladera, with its headquarters in Menlo Park. Under the current arrangem ...

Career

Young had her best year in 1976, when she won three Olympic speed skating medals (one of each colour), bronze at the

world allround speed skating championships The World Allround Speed Skating Championships are a series of speed skating events held annually to determine the best allround speed skater of the world. The event is held over two days, with all skaters entering the first three distances (500 m, ...

, became world sprint speed skating champion, skated three world records, became United States sprint track cycling champion, and became the world track cycling sprint champion. 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 Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

. 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 1976 made her the first United States athlete to win three medals at one Winter Olympics. Her world sprint speed skating championships in 1973 made her the first United States female athlete to accomplish that feat. Her world sprint speed skating championship of 1973 and her world sprint track cycling championship 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'' in 1976 and 1981 for her accomplishments in both cycling and speed skating. She was inducted in the ''International Women's Sports Hall of Fame'' in 1981, the ''

United States Bicycling Hall of Fame The United States Bicycling Hall of Fame, located in Davis, California, is a private 501c3 non-profit organization formed to preserve and promote the sport of cycling. The organization was founded in 1986 in Somerville, New Jersey and has inducte ...

'' in 1988, and the ''National Speedskating Hall of Fame'' in 1991.

Medals

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

Speed skating

Young competed at the

1972 Winter Olympics The 1972 Winter Olympics, officially the and commonly known as Sapporo 1972 ( ja, 札幌1972), was a winter multi-sport event held from February 3 to 13, 1972, in Sapporo, Japan. It was the first Winter Olympic Games to take place outside Europe ...

Sapporo ( ain, サッ・ポロ・ペッ, Satporopet, lit=Dry, Great River) is a city in Japan. It is the largest city north of Tokyo and the largest city on Hokkaido, the northernmost main island of the country. It ranks as the fifth most populous city ...

and saw her roommates

Anne Henning Anne Elizabeth Henning (born September 6, 1955) is a retired American Speed skating, speed skater. She grew up in Northbrook, Illinois, and started in short track speed skating, but then, like many short track speed skaters before and after her, ...

and

Dianne Holum Dianne Mary Holum (born May 19, 1951) is a retired American speed skater. In 1966, Holum became the youngest person to compete in the world speed skating championships. Next year she won bronze at the World Allround Championships. At the age of ...

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 fourth on the 500 m and seventeenth 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

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...

, Young won three 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 seventh) and 1982 (finishing thirteenth).

World records

Over the course of her career, Young skated five

world records A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

Personal records

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

Track cycling

Young was United States sprint champion four times (1971, 1973, 1976, and 1981). At the

UCI Track Cycling World Championships The UCI Track Cycling World Championships are the set of world championship events for the various disciplines and distances in track cycling. They are regulated by the Union Cycliste Internationale. Before 1900, they were administered by the UCI ...

, she won bronze in 1972, silver in 1982, and became world sprint champion three times – in 1973 (breaking the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

's 15-year winning streak), 1976, and 1981. She retired in 1976, but resumed competing in 1981 to win one more United States sprint championship and beat her future sister-in-law,

Connie Paraskevin Constance Anne Paraskevin, known as Connie (married name Paraskevin-Young; born July 4, 1961) is a retired American professional track cyclist and speed skater. She is a four times sprint world champion, ten times national sprint champion and ...

, taking the gold in the sprint at the world championships in 1981. After winning silver at the 1982 world championship she retired for good, preferring motherhood over prolonging her sports careers. If women's cycling was part of the summer Olympics of 1976 then Young would have a chance to win medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics in the same year, something that Christa Rothenburger (also world sprint champion in both speed skating and track cycling) achieved in 1988.

References

External links

Sheila's U.S. Olympic Team bioSheila Young at SkateResults.comPersonal records from Jakub Majerski's Speedskating DatabaseHistorical World Records
– ''International Skating Union''

– ''McKinley Institute of Technology''
1988 Inductees
– ''U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame''

– ''Women's Sports Foundation''

– ''The National Speedskating Museum and Hall of Fame'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Sheila 1950 births Living people American female cyclists Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in speed skating Olympic gold medalists for the United States in speed skating Olympic silver medalists for the United States in speed skating Sportspeople from Detroit Speed skaters from Milwaukee People from Birmingham, Michigan People from the San Francisco Bay Area Speed skaters at the 1972 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 1976 Winter Olympics World record setters in speed skating American female speed skaters UCI Track Cycling World Champions (women) Medalists at the 1976 Winter Olympics American track cyclists World Allround Speed Skating Championships medalists Denby High School alumni 21st-century American women Cyclists from Michigan