Debi Thomas, an Olympic figure skating bronze medalist, is broke and living in a bed bug-ridden trailer, according to an Oprah Winfrey Network show that aired Saturday night.
“I did the best I could,” Thomas said, crying, in a sitdown interview (clips here). “I don’t have a plan.
“When things aren’t right, and you’re doing the best you can, it can be really hard. I’m a kind of person who made goals from the time I was 5 years old, and then you get to that point in life, and you’re like, this isn’t what I was expecting, and I’ve got to go in a different direction.”
Thomas, now 48, won the 1986 World Championship at age 18 and, in the “Battle of the Carmens,” rivaled Katarina Witt going into the Calgary 1988 Winter Games.
Witt repeated as Olympic champion, while Thomas took bronze.
Thomas then graduated from Stanford with an engineering degree in 1991 and from Northwestern Medical School in 1997 and became an orthopedic surgeon.
Thomas said she was fired twice from doctor jobs and, according to the TV show, divorced twice.
Thomas, who lost custody of her son, moved to Virginia and into a trailer with her fiance and his two boys. She said that they’ve had domestic disputes that required police intervention.
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