29 year-old Michelle Kwan has won 9 US figure skating championships, 5 world championships, and has two Olympic medals, one bronze, and one silver. She recently faced the possibility of going to her 5th Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but instead decided to pursue a master’s degree in law and diplomacy at Tuft’s Fletcher School.
When she turned 25, Kwan finally decided her education could not wait any longer. She enrolled at the University of Denver to finish up school work she had begun at UCLA. Studying diplomacy seems like a natural extension for a girl whose skating took her all over the world in her teenage years. In 2006, Kwan was invited to a state luncheon at the White House, where she sat next to Chinese president Hu Jintao and chatted with him in Mandarin. That autumn, Condoleeza Rice named her a public diplomatic envoy for the State Department. The position sends her around the world again, this time talking to young people. She recently visited Korea and captivated children at an elementary school with stories of her ice skating days.
What other female sports figures triumph in their field and then go on to amazing new ventures? Tonya Harding didn’t do so well after the knee incident. So who else is out there being a great role model in their post-athletics lives? Sound off in the comments.
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