Clara Hughes

Clara Hughes, OC, OM (born September 27, 1972 in Winnipeg) is a former Canadian cyclist and speed skater. With cycling bronze in 1996 and speed skating gold in 2006, among others, she is one of only six athletes to medal at both the Winter and Summer Olympics, the others being Jacob Tullin Thams, Gillis Grafström, Edward Eagan, Christa Luding-Rothenburger and Lauryn Williams.

As a cyclist, Clara Hughes competed in the Pan American Games in 1991, 1995 and 1999, and the Commonwealth Games in 1990, 1994 and 2002. She was runner-up in the individual time trial at the 1995 UCI Road World Championships. She won bronze twice at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, in the road race (104 km) and the individual time trial (26.1 km). She was also a participant in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

As a speed skater, she won the bronze medal in the 5000 meters at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. At the XX Olympic Winter Games 2006 in Turin she won the gold medal over the same discipline. With her teammates Kristina Groves, Christine Nesbitt, Cindy Klassen and Shannon Rempel she won the silver medal in the team pursuit days before. At the opening ceremony of the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver in 2010, Clara Hughes was the flag bearer for the Canadian Olympic team. During those Olympics, she once again won the bronze medal in the 5,000 metres in her final Olympic race. This means she has won a total of six Olympic medals in her career and is now, together with her teammate Cindy Klassen, the most successful Canadian athlete.

On 19 November 2010, she declared her intention to continue her career on the bike in order to take part in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Here she finished fifth in the 500-meter time trial and 32nd in the road race. In the 2012 season, she became a member of Team Specialized-lululemon for this purpose. That same year, she once again became the Canadian road time trial champion. In early 2013, she announced her retirement from competitive cycling.

Hughes has been an athlete ambassador for the development charity Right to Play since 2012.

In 2015, she admitted that she had tested positive for ephedrine during a doping control at the 1994 UCI Road World Championships. She received a three-month ban that winter, which was not made public by the federations.

World Cup placings in speed skating

(as of December 3, 2009)