Clara Hughes is one of Canada’s most famous Olympians. She has won Olympic medals in both the Winter and Summer Olympics, in speed skating and cycling. Hughes won two bronze in the Summer Olympics in 1996 and four medals (one gold, one silver, two bronze) over the course of three Winter Olympics. She is tied with Cindy Klassen as the Canadian with the most Olympic medals, with six medals total.
In winning both Summer and Winter Olympics she is one of only five people to have won medals in both versions of the games, and is the first and only person ever to have won multiple medals in both. Hughes was the first Canadian woman to win a medal in road cycling at the Olympics, winning two in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Throughout her career Hughes received a number of other awards, trophies, and accolades. She was named Female Athlete of the Year by Speed Skating Canada in 2004 for long track. In 2006 she received the International Olympic Committee‘s Sport and Community Trophy. She was then named to the 2006 List of Most Influential Women in Sport and Physical Activity by the Canadian Association for Advancement of Women and Sport (CAAWS). In the summer of the year 2010, it was announced that she would receive a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame and on 15 November 2010, she was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Hughes placed 32nd on Sunday in the rain-drenched 140 km road race and on Wednesday she will race in the Women’s Individual Time Trial.
