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THE 130 MOST INSPIRING ASIAN AMERICANS
OF ALL TIME

Kristi Yamaguchi

igure skater Kristi Yamaguchi persevered despite a clubfoot condition to become an icon of supple grace and the first Asian American woman to win Olympic gold. That 1992 triumph kicked off one of figure skating's longest-lived and most celebrated amateur and professional careers, sending a generation of Asian girls to the ice.

     Kristine Tsuya Yamaguchi was born in Hawaii on July 12, 1971. Yamaguchi also won two World Figure Skating Championships in 1991 and 1992 and a U.S. Figure Skating Championships in 1992. As a junior skater she won two national titles in 1989 and 1990 and a world pairs title in 1988 with Rudy Galindo. In December 2005 Yamaguchi was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

     Yamaguchi's success as an athlete has also won her TV gigs as a figure skating commentator and, in 2008, as a highly successful contestant on ABC's hit reality series Dancing with the Stars.

     Yamaguchi married NHL star Bret Hedican on the Big Island of Hawaii in July 2000. The couple divide their time among Raleigh, San Francisco and Minnesota with their two daughters.

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