Lucille Wheeler , married to Won ( born Lucile Wheeler-Vaughan ; born January 14, 1935 , Saint-Jovit ) is a Canadian skier who performed in slalom , giant slalom and downhill . She represented the Canadian alpine skiing team throughout the 1950s, the bronze medalist of the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo , two-time world champion, three-time champion of the Canadian national championship.
 Lucille Wheeler | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Citizenship |  Canada | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of Birth | January 14, 1935 (84 years old) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of Birth | Saint-Jovit , Canada | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Career | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Slalom , giant slalom , downhill , combination | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Montreal AAA | ||||||||||||||||||||
| In the national team | 1950-1959 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Medals | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Last updated: March 17, 2018 | |||||||||||||||||||||
Biography
Lucille Wheeler was born on January 14, 1935 in Saint-Jovit , Quebec , Canada . She first went skiing at the age of two years, practiced on the nearby slopes of the Laurentian Mountains .
At ten years old, she competed on equal terms with adult athletes, in particular, she took seventh place in downhill skiing at the Mont-Tremblant ski resort, where skiers of all ages were allowed. In 1947, she won the Canadian Junior Championships. In 1950, at the age of fourteen, she became a member of the adult Canadian national team, assembled to participate in the World Championships in Aspen , but her parents did not allow her to go, believing that skipping classes at school would adversely affect her studies [1] .
In 1952, Wheeler nevertheless sent a full-fledged member of the Canada ski team and, thanks to a series of successful performances, was awarded the right to defend the country's honor at the Oslo Winter Olympics . She showed not very good results at this Olympics: 26th place in slalom, 27th place in giant slalom and downhill.
Noticing her daughter's talent for skiing, her parents allowed her to conduct several training camps in the Austrian Katzbuhel, where she got the opportunity to practice with the strongest representatives of this sport - this led to a noticeable improvement in her skills. At the 1954 World Championships in Auray, Wheeler showed the seventh result in downhill and the eighteenth in giant slalom.
Being among the leaders of the Canadian national team, I successfully passed the selection for the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo - this time she was disqualified in the slalom during the second attempt, finished sixth in the giant slalom, while she won the bronze in the downhill program Olympic medal, letting forward only the Swiss skiers Madeleine Berto and Frida Denzer .
Having become a bronze Olympic medalist, Lucille Wheeler remained in the Canadian ski team and continued to take part in major international competitions. So, in 1958, she visited the World Championships in Bad Gastein , from where she brought two awards of gold dignity and one silver. For these outstanding achievements, she received the Lu Marsh Prize , which is awarded annually to the best athlete in the country, and was also introduced to the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame [2] [3] .
Having completed her sports career in 1959, she worked as an alpine skiing instructor. In 1960, she married an American football player Kai Vaughn and took his last name, subsequently gave birth to two children [4] .
In 1976, she was awarded the Order of Canada and entered the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. He is also a member of the American National Ski Hall of Fame.
Notes
- ↑ Christie, James . Lucile Wheeler (April 20, 2009). The appeal date is March 7, 2014.
- ↑ Chisholm, Lauchie . Lucile welcomed as champ, takes celebrity role in stride (March 13, 1958), p. 3.
- ↑ Home town residents honor Lucile Wheeler (April 14, 1958), p. 28.
- ↑ Kaye Vaughan weds skier Lucile Wheeler (June 27, 1960), p. 7.
Links
- Lucille Wheeler - Olympic statistics at Sports-Reference.com
- Lucille Wheeler - Statistics on FIS Website
- Lucille Wheeler (English) - page on the website of the International Olympic Committee