Frank Thomas

Notable Sports Figures
Chronology
1952 Born July 8, in East Germany
1961 Becomes a member of SC Traktor Oberwiesenthal
1972 Participates in Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan, wins Nordic
Combined gold medal
1974 Wins Nordic Combined world championship
1976 Participates in Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, wins
Nordic Combined gold medal
1980 Participates in Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, wins
Nordic Combined gold medal
Awards and Accomplishments
1972 Nordic Combined gold medal, Winter Olympics, Sapporo,
Japan
1974 Nordic Combined world championship
1976 Nordic Combined gold medal, Winter Olympics, Innsbruck,
Austria
1980 Nordic Combined gold medal, Winter Olympics, Lake Placid,
New York
“nobody. I just was the last one who luckily qualified for
the Olympic team, and nobody was expecting anything
from me.” He admitted, “I wasn’t very good in training,
but I always was a fighter. You can lose despite fighting.
And you can lose because you resign. For me, success in
sport always was a question of attitude.”
Wehling noted that today, media interest and attendance
for Nordic Combined events are growing, and
world cup events have been popular. He plans to continue
extending his permit to live in Switzerland, and does
not plan to return home to Berlin, where he had a successful
career as an operative of the skiing association in
the German Democratic Republic.
Although his career was short, Ulrich Wehling earned
his place in the history books as the first Winter
Olympian to win three successive gold medals in the
Nordic Combined skiing event.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Books
Chronicle of the Olympics. New York: DK Publishing,
1998.
Other
Fact Monster. http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/
A0758118.html (November 15, 2002).
Nordic Combined Web Site. http://www.nordiccombined.net/information/Meldungen/wehling.shtml
(November 15, 2002).
Sketch by Lorraine Savage
Erik Weihenmayer
1969-
American mountain climber
Weihenmayer
Ninety percent of climbers who attempt Mount Everest—at
29,035 feet, the world’s highest mountain—
do not make it to the summit. In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer
managed to accomplish the grueling and dangerous trek
to the “top of the world,” making history in the process.
Weihenmayer, who suffers from a retina disease, is completely
blind. An accomplished mountaineer, Weihenmayer
has reached the top of each of the Seven
Summits—the highest mountains on each of the seven
continents. “I like doing things that are new and thrilling.
Blindness,” Weihenmayer told People, “is just a nuisance.”
In climbing, “you just have to find a different way
of doing it.”
Weihenmayer was born in 1969 and grew up in Hong
Kong and then Weston, Connecticut with his parents, Ed
and Ellen Suzanne Baker Weihenmayer, and two brothers.
A slight irregularity in his eyes when he was an infant
alerted his parents to seek medical attention. He was diagnosed
with a rare retina disease and, by the time he was
three, it was clear that he would be blind before he was a
teenager. He wore thick glasses and learned to read, but
was legally blind. His parents made sure their son grew
up as normal as possible and taught him to be self-sufficient.
He played football, one-on-one basketball, and
loved to ride bikes, under the careful watch of his father.
He was completely blind by the time he was 13.
At first, Weihenmayer refused to use a cane or learn
Braille, insisting he could live as he had. Incapable of
playing ball anymore, he learned to wrestle, and as a senior
in high school went all the way to the National Junior
Freestyle Wrestling Championship in Iowa. He soon
found that his guide dog was a good lure for women, and
began dating at age seventeen. He graduated Boston College
as an English major, and became a middle-school
teacher and wrestling coach. He married his wife, Ellie
Reeve, on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in 1997. The
two have a daughter, Emma, and live in Golden, Colorado.
Weihenmayer now works as a motivational speaker.
Weihenmayer first hiked with his father, and fell in
love with rock climbing at age sixteen at a camp for the
blind, where they called him Monkey Boy. After his
mother was killed in a car crash, his father took him and
his brothers trekking in Peru, Spain, Pakistan, and Papua
New Guinea to bond. He began mountaineering in his
early 20s. For the blind, environmental patterns are the
key to making one’s way through the world; city blocks
are roughly the same length, curbs are the same height,
and household furniture remains in the same place. In
climbing, there are no patterns. The natural landscape of
mountain, ice, and rock is entirely patternless.
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