Fun facts!
The bicycling speed-skater. The only athlete ever to win medals in the summer and winter Olympics during the same year was Germany’s Christa Luding-Rothenburger. One of the world's best sprinters in speed skating, she was convinced in 1980 by her coach, Ernst Luding (whom she would marry after the 1988 Winter Olympics), to take up cycling during the off-season. As a result, in 1988, she earned the distinction of being the only athlete to win Summer and Winter Olympic medals in the same year. It also made her the first woman, and the third athlete overall, to win a medal in both the Summer and Winter Olympics. At the Winter Games in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, she won the gold medal in the 1,000-meter speed-skating event and silver in the 500-meter event. Seven months later, she won the silver medal in the 1,000-meter sprint in track cycling at the summer games in Seoul, South Korea.
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