Sarah Elizabeth Hughes (born May 2, 1985) is an American figure skater. She is the 2002 Olympic gold medalist

Figure skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics

-Full Results:Referee:* Sally-Anne StaplefordAssistant Referee:* Junko HiramatsuJudges: Wendy Langton Merja Kosonen Janet Allen Nicolae Bellu Yuri Kliushnikov Volker Waldeck Alexander Penchev Mieko Fujimori Evgenia Bogdanova Jarmila Portová -Ladies:Hughes, fourth after the technical program, skated...

 and 2001 World bronze medalist

2001 World Figure Skating Championships

The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion. This event is considered the most prestigious of the ISU Championships...

 in ladies singles.
Hughes was born in Great Neck

Great Neck, New York

The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...

, New York. Her father, John Hughes, is a Canadian of Irish descent and was the captain of the NCAA champion 1969–70 Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 team. Her mother, Amy Pastarnack, is Jewish and is a breast cancer survivor. This led Sarah Hughes to become an advocate for breast cancer awareness.