Debbi WILKES

With partner Guy Revell, figure skater Deborah “Debbi” Wilkes won the Canadian junior figure skating championships in the pairs event in 1959, when Wilkes was only twelve years old. In 1960 the duo attended their first World Championships, but placed 11th. They rebounded in 1962, however, capturing the Canadian senior title and improving their placing to 4th at the World Championships. They were Canadian champions again in 1963, and added a North American title to their resumes as well. In 1964 they took another Canadian title and won bronze medals at the World Championships and the Winter Olympic Games. Before the year was at its end, Wilkes had retired at the age of only 17. Her figure skating saga, however, had only just begun as a few weeks later it was discovered that the silver medal winners from Germany, Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler, had signed professional contracts before the Olympics and had therefore not been eligible to participate. Wilkes and Revell were then awarded silver, but Kilius and Bäumler were never officially removed as silver medalists by the ISU and, in 1987, had their medals returned by the German National Olympic Committee. In total, therefore, four silver medals were awarded for the event.

Outside of the controversy, Wilkes has spent her working life involved with figure skating as a broadcaster for CTV, an author and a coach. She obtained an undergraduate degree in psychology from York University, followed by a graduate one in communications from the University of Michigan in the 1970s. She led the CTV team that uncovered rigged judging at the 1999 World Championships. Since 2006, she has served as the director of sponsorship and marketing for Skate Canada. She was inducted into the Canadian Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2001.