Sarah Hughes

Sarah Elizabeth Hughes (born May 2, 1985) is a former American competitive figure skater. She is the 2002 Olympic Champion and the 2001 World bronze medalist in ladies' singles.
Personal life.
Hughes was born in Great Neck, New York, a suburb on Long Island. Her father, John Hughes, is a Canadian of Irish descent and was one of the captains of the undefeated and untied NCAA champion 1969–70 Cornell University ice hockey team. Her mother, Amy Pastarnack, is Jewish and is a breast cancer survivor. This led Hughes to become an advocate for breast cancer awareness. She appeared in a commercial for General Electric promoting breast cancer awareness and research. Hughes stated: "I always said that if I can get one person to get a mammogram, I've accomplished something." Among the other causes Hughes supports are Figure Skating in Harlem, which provides free ice skating lessons and academic tutoring for girls in the Harlem community in New York City. Hughes has supported this program for over ten years.
Hughes attended Great Neck North High School. In 2003, she began her studies at Yale University where she was in Timothy Dwight College. On May 25, 2009, Hughes graduated from Yale and received a bachelor's degree in American studies with a concentration in U.S. politics and communities. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School on May 15, 2018.
Sarah Hughes is the fourth of six children. One of her younger sisters, Emily, is also a figure skater and competed at the 2006 Winter Olympics. She is the cousin of Gregg "Opie" Hughes, from the Opie and Anthony radio show.
Career.
Hughes began skating at the age of three. Robin Wagner, who also choreographed for her from 1994, became her head coach in January 1998.
Hughes won the junior title at the 1998 U.S. Championships in the 1997–1998 season. The following season, she competed on the ISU Junior Grand Prix and won the silver medal at the 1998–1999 Junior Grand Prix Final. She also took silver at the 1999 World Junior Championships held in November 1998. At the 1999 U.S. Championships, Hughes won the pewter medal in her senior-level debut. As the fourth-place finisher, Hughes would not normally have received one of the three spots for U.S. ladies at the 1999 World Championships, however, Naomi Nari Nam, the silver medalist, was not age-eligible for the event according to ISU rules. Hughes was likewise not age-eligible, but at the time a loophole existed for skaters who had medaled at Junior Worlds. Hughes was sent to senior Worlds and finished 7th in her debut.
In the 1999–2000 season, Hughes made her Grand Prix debut, winning the bronze medal at the 1999 Trophée Lalique. She won the bronze medal at the 2000 U.S. Championships and was credited with a triple-salchow-triple-loop combination. She placed 5th at the 2000 World Championships.
In the 2000–2001 season, Hughes won three medals on the Grand Prix circuit and won the bronze medal at the 2000–2001 Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final. She won the silver medal at the 2001 U.S. Championships. At the 2001 World Championships, she won the bronze medal.
In the 2001–2002 season, Hughes competed again on the Grand Prix, winning the 2001 Skate Canada International and placing second at her other two events. She won her second consecutive bronze medal at the Grand Prix Final and then won the bronze medal at the 2002 U.S. Championships to qualify for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The week before the opening of the 2002 Olympics, Hughes appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine.
At the 2002 Olympics, Hughes placed fourth in the short program after being penalized for underrotating her triple flip and lutz. In her long program, she landed seven triple jumps, including a triple toe loop-triple loop and a triple salchow-triple loop combination. She won the long program, as the three contenders ahead of her after the short program all made mistakes in their respective long programs. Figure Skating rules at the time dictated that if someone placed fourth in the short program, but won the free skate, they could not automatically win the event. Michelle Kwan, who was in first place after the short program would have to lose the free program to Hughes and one other skater as well. Hughes won the free skate, with Irina Slutskaya placing second in that portion, ahead of Kwan. Therefore, the final standings were Hughes in first, Slutskaya in second and Kwan in third. Hughes won the gold medal at age of 16 years and 295 days, became one of the youngest figure skating Olympic champions. She is the only American woman to have won the Olympic title without ever having won either a World or U.S. senior national title.
After her Olympic win, Hughes was honored with a parade in her hometown of Great Neck. Senator Hillary Clinton spoke at the event and declared it Sarah Hughes Day. She received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the U.S.
Hughes did not compete at the 2002 World Championships. In the 2002–2003 season, she won the silver medal at the 2003 U.S. Championships and placed sixth at the 2003 World Championships.
Hughes took the 2004–2005 year off from college to skate professionally with the Smuckers Stars on Ice tour company. She was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2005.
Richard Krawiec wrote a biography, "Sudden Champion: The Sarah Hughes Story" (2002).
Skating technique.

2009 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans () was the 77th Grand Prix of Endurance, an endurance auto race run over 24 hours. It took place at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans, France, and was organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) over 13–14 June 2009 and was started by Fiat and Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo at 15:00 local time (13:00 UTC). A test day was initially scheduled for 31 May that year, but was canceled by the ACO due to economic concerns. The race was attended by 234,800 spectators.
Peugeot succeeded in winning the race in the third year of the 908 HDi FAP program with drivers David Brabham, Marc Gené, and Alexander Wurz driving the No. 9 car for 382 laps; an all-French driving squad secured second place for Peugeot as well. Audi, who had won eight of the last ten Le Mans, finished third in their new R15 TDI. Team Essex gave Porsche their second LMP2 victory in a row, while the American Corvette Racing team earned their first GT1 win since . Risi Competizione Ferrari led the GT2 category for their second straight victory in the class.
Schedule.
Events for the 24 Hours of Le Mans began on 8 June with technical inspections, before initial practice began on 10 June. Due to the cancellation of the May test session, the Wednesday track session has been altered to free practice only, with no qualification times being recorded in the mostly wet session. Qualifying therefore only took place on Thursday, which remained dry.
Entries.
Automatic invitations.
Automatic entry to the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans was granted to teams that had performed well in the previous year's 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as the 2008 seasons of the American Le Mans Series, Le Mans Series, FIA GT Championship, and the Petit Le Mans. New for 2009 was an automatic invitation awarded to the team which accumulated the most points in the Michelin Energy Endurance Challenge, as part of the Le Mans Series. The award was based on fuel economy of competitors during each event.
On 20 January 2009, the ACO announced that 15 of the 29 automatic invitations had been accepted by their recipients. Entries with a blue background were granted entries, but did not accept their invitations.
Applications.
Prior to the deadline for applications, 82 separate entries by teams representing 17 countries were received by the ACO. This amount is only six less than the total of applications received for the previous running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The ACO Selection Committee decided on which teams were invited to fill the remaining 40 positions alongside those teams who had already received automatic invitations, along with ten reserve entries.
Entry list.
On 26 February, the ACO announced their list of 55 entries which will be invited to take part in the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans. 21 cars within the LMP1 category include Audi, Peugeot, and Aston Martin with three cars each, as well as private entries for the Kolles Audis, Pescarolo Peugeot, and Speedy-Sebah Aston Martin. This also made a total of nine cars which would be using diesel fuel. LMP2 featured previous race winners Team Goh in a previous winning car, the Porsche RS Spyder, joined by last year's runner-up Team Essex. Mazda supplied engines for four entries, split amongst the Lola and Pescarolo chassis.
The GT1 category was fought amongst three manufacturers, as Corvette Racing and Luc Alphand Aventures attempted to overcome the two private Aston Martin and Lamborghini entries. GT2 was once again dominated by the Ferrari and Porsche battle, although Ferrari had the power of numbers with its ten entries compared to Porsche's five. Sole entries from Spyker and the Drayson Aston Martin completed the GT2 field.
Reserve entries.
Ten entries are granted a reserve entry, in case an entry from the list of 55 withdraws prior to the event. These ten entries will be allowed to join the race entry list in the order they are listed here, regardless of their class.
On 31 March, Gigawave Motorsport withdrew their Aston Martin from the GT1 category of the entry list in order to concentrate on their development of the Nissan GT-R program. This promoted Advanced Engineering/Team Seattle from the reserve list to the entry list. Three days later Epsilon Euskadi withdrew their LMP1 entry which was replaced by the Endurance China Team. Epsilon Euskadi also withdrew their second entry from the reserve list. On 29 April, it was announced that Vitaphone Racing withdrew their LMP2 entry and was replaced by a second IMSA Performance Matmut GT2 entry. Racing Box also announced that they withdrew their LMP2 reserve entry. IPB Spartak Racing announced their withdrawal from the event on 15 May because one of their drivers, Peter Kox, was unable to participate in the race. It was replaced by the Barazi-Epsilon LMP2 entry.
On 22 May, reserve entries were no longer able to be accepted into the race, regardless of further withdrawals. The entries of Gerard Welter's WR-Zytek LMP2, Team Felbermayr-Proton's Porsche GT2, Snoras Spyker Squadron's Spyker GT2, and Larbre Compétition's Saleen GT1 were the only remaining reserves at the time of the entry list closure.
Free practice.
After the cancellation of the test session, Wednesday's schedule was changed from a qualifying session to a six-hour free practice. Track conditions varied as rain arrived several times during the practice, limiting the amount of time available with a dry circuit. Audi led the session with Allan McNish setting a fastest lap of 3:30.708 in the No. 1 car, followed immediately by the No. 2 Audi. The best Peugeot was the No. 9 car, followed immediately by the privately entered Pescarolo Sport Peugeot. The fastest LMP1 not running a diesel engine was the second Pescarolo entry with a time of 3:35.868, followed by the No. 008 and No. 007 Aston Martins.
The LMP2 category was led by the Porsche RS Spyders, with Team Essex's 3:46.426 ahead of the Navi Team Goh entry. Quifel ASM Team's Ginetta-Zytek was a distant third, ten seconds behind Team Essex. Corvette Racing were at the front of GT1, with the No. 63's 3:57.876 lap time ahead of the No. 64 car. Jetalliance Racing were third while the two Luc Alphand Corvettes did few laps after fixing an incorrectly installed rollcage and the JLOC Lamborghini did not complete a lap after breaking a driveshaft. Porsche were ahead of Ferrari in the GT2 category, with Felbermayr-Proton ahead of the Risi Competizione. Spyker Squadron were able to reach third in the class.
The only major incident of the practice session was an accident by KSM's driver Jean de Pourtales. The driver spun approaching the Dunlop Chicane, impacting a concrete barrier before sliding into a tire barrier. The second impact ripped much of the rear of the car off.
Qualifying.
Stéphane Sarrazin claimed his third consecutive pole position at Le Mans, planting the No. 8 Peugeot at the front of the field with a lap time of 3:22.888. He set the lap on the third of his flying laps during a run near the end of the four-hour qualifying session, bettering Allan McNish's lap time by 0.8 seconds. McNish's lap was set on the final lap of the first two-hour qualifying session, beating the Peugeot of Franck Montagny who led much of the first session. McNish's lap remained at the top of the charts for much of the second session until Sarrazin's performance. Peugeot planned to practice race setups during the entire qualifying session, and were not seeking to obtain the pole position.
At the end of qualifying Peugeots filled the next three places on the grid behind the front row with the car of Pescarolo Sport settling in at fourth fastest. Aston Martin were able to secure the fastest lap for a petrol-powered car, with the No. 007 entry on a few thousandths of a second behind the No. 3 Audi and followed by the No. 008 Aston Martin and No. 13 Speedy Racing Team Sebah Aston Martin.
The Porsche RS Spyders continued their dominance in the LMP2 category, with Casper Elgaard of Team Essex ahead of Team Goh with a lap time of 3:37.720. Third in the category was the No. 33 Speedy Racing Team Sebah Lola-Judd which was over three seconds behind the Porsches. Corvette Racing secured the front row in the GT1 category, with Jan Magnussen's No. 63 entry half a second ahead of the No. 64 sister car. Jetalliance Racing's privately entered Aston Martin was under two seconds behind, and followed immediately by the two Luc Alphand Corvettes. The JLOC Lamborghini struggled with mechanical issues and was never able to lift itself from last place on grid.
The GT2 category was led by Porsche who bested their rivals Ferrari with two cars. Pole winner Flying Lizard Motorsports' 4:03.202 was less than a tenth of a second ahead of the No. 77 Felbermayr-Proton car. Risi Competizione led the Ferrari fight with a third place qualifying time, joined by JMB Racing and BMS Scuderia Italia. The Aston Martin of Drayson Racing was ninth in the category, while the Spyker was eleventh.
Several incidents occurred during the qualifying session. The Pescarolo Peugeot drive by Jean-Christophe Boullion spun at the Tetre Rouge corner and ripped the left front fender off the car after impacting the wall. The Peugeot was able to return to the pits and be repaired. The No. 007 Aston Martin also hit a wall after losing control during braking for the second chicane on the Mulsanne Straight. Jan Charouz was traveling at at the time of the incident. The incident occurred in the closing minutes of qualifying, but the car was repaired.
Qualifying results.
Class leaders are in bold.
Race.
New rules have caused the diesels to become considerably slower than the previous year. Peugeot qualified 4 seconds slower than 2008 but still maintained the speed advantage over the new Audi R15. Audi's lack of testing meant that the cars struggled to get any sort of a good setup. All works drivers complained about understeer in the Le Mans aero package on the R15. Tom Kristensen commented that the high-downforce package like the one used at Sebring were much better. The R15 also struggled to get beyond a double-stint.
The race began at 15:00 local time (UTC+2) 13 June 2009, with Franck Montagny in the pole position Peugeot 908 HDi FAP leading the field. The race was started by the waving of the French tricolour by Fiat and Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, honoring the 60th anniversary of Ferrari's first victory at Le Mans.
In the LMP1 class, the Peugeots showed they could maintain a pace that the Audis struggled to maintain over the full run. The #7 Peugeot was released too early and hit from the side by the Pescarolo Peugeot. The initial damage was a small puncture but the resulting damage destroyed the whole left rear end of the car. Two of the three Audis had off-track excursions in the first 12 hours; one resulting in the #2 car being out of the race on lap 104. During the early evening, the #1 Audi lost a lap to the leading Peugeot. Further technical issues would see it lose another seven laps in total to the winner. In LMP2, the Navi Team Goh Porsche RS Spyder qualified 2nd overall and maintained a solid pace until crashing heavily with one hour to go, allowing the pole-sitting #31 Team Essex Porsche to carry on to the win.
In GT1, the final outing of the Chevrolet Corvette C6.R as a factory team at Le Mans ended well, with the #63 car driven by O'Connell, Magnussen and García sitting on the pole and finishing first in class. Magnussen was sick early on, which left O'Connell and Garcia to finish the race as a two-driver team. Several other teams were stricken with the loss of a driver, most notable being the LMP1 #009 Lola-Aston, whose driver Stuart Hall was excluded when he collided with the LMP2 #26 Radical, and the stewards determined his fault to be substantial. Another team with a driver that was excluded was Kolles' Narain Karthikeyan as he dislocated his shoulder going over the pitwall before the race, leaving Charles Zwolsman, Jr. and André Lotterer to do the whole 24 hours, yet they finished a respectable 7th in P1 and 7th overall.
In GT2, Ferrari celebrated their 60th Anniversary win with Ferraris taking the first 4 spots, the Risi Competizione #82 Ferrari F430 heading the class.
New rules requiring only one man with one airgun in the pits were aimed to lower the overall costs of the event by causing teams to double or triple stint tires due to the time needed to replace them.
Race results.
Class winners are marked in bold. Cars running at the finish but failing to complete 70% of the winner's distance are marked as Not Classified.
Peugeot protest.
On Monday, 8 June, following scrutineering and approval of the Audi R15 TDI by the ACO, Peugeot Sport director Olivier Quesnel stated that the team may file a protest over the legality of certain elements of the R15 TDI's design. This protest was officially filed two days later, immediately before the start of practice. Peugeot believes that the R15 features aerodynamic elements on the front of the car which violate the ACO's regulations about devices which may increase the amount of front downforce. Peugeot, as well as fellow competitors Aston Martin Racing and Oreca, initially questioned these aerodynamic elements at the 2009 12 Hours of Sebring in March, but were assured that the ACO would evaluate them prior to Le Mans.
Later that night, Peugeot received a response from the ACO stating that it would not uphold the protest. The ACO stated that they have the ability through their own regulations to determine if an aerodynamic element's sole purpose is to create downforce. Peugeot responded within an hour by appealing this decision. A decision on this appeal however would not be made until after the race had taken place, thus allowing Audi to continue to compete. Audi stated that they believed the matter was between Peugeot and the ACO, and that their car was legal.
Following the race, Peugeot announced that they were withdrawing their appeal of the scrutineer's decision. Peugeot cited a planned increase in communication between manufacturers and the ACO as their reasoning for the withdrawal.