13 Winter Olympians who made Michigan history (+ who to watch in 2026!)
It’s Winter Olympics season again, and Michiganders have a proud legacy at the Games. Read on to meet Michigan Olympians past and present.
Every four years, the world gathers in the cold, and a well-traveled torch is lit. For over a century, the Winter Olympics have brought athletes and spectators from around the world together in the spirit of friendly competition, and Michigan has played a role from the very beginning.
From the excitement of ice hockey to the elegance of ice dancing, Michiganders have excelled at winter sports at the Olympic Games around the world. While the Wolverine State natives who have competed in the Winter Games are numerous, let’s have a look at some of the particularly exceptional Winter Olympians who have called Michigan home:
Taffy Abel
The very first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924, and the Mitten was represented at them. Specifically, Clarence John “Taffy” Abel, a member of the Ojibwe Nation hailing from Sault Ste. Marie, was one of the athletes on the United States men’s ice hockey team. Not only did he and his fellow Americans compete at Chamonix, but they also triumphed, taking home the silver medal.
Abel would go on to have an eight-year career with the NHL, before returning home to Sault Ste. Marie to teach hockey and run his own resort. Today, the hockey arena at Lake Superior State University is named the Clarence “Taffy” Abel Arena in his honor.
Rodney Paavola and Weldon Olsen
Anyone who’s ever been to a Red Wings game knows how much Michiganders love ice hockey, and that’s been the case for a long time. But in 1960, at the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California, Mitten natives Rodney Paavola and Weldon Olsen showed that passion to the world. As members of the US men’s hockey team, they became the first Michiganders to win a Winter Olympic gold.
For Olsen, who had been a hockey star at MSU, this wasn’t entirely new territory, as he had been on the silver-winning US men’s team in 1956 in Cortina. Meanwhile, Paavola, a Finnish American from the Upper Peninsula, was a new Olympian. Both men would return to the American Midwest and remain there for the rest of their lives after winning gold and making Michigan history.
Betsy Snite
Olympic glory isn’t restricted to one gender of Wolverines: At the 1960 Squaw Valley Games, the same Olympics where Olsen and Paavola brought gold to the Mitten, Betsy Snite became the first Michigan woman to bring home a Winter medal, taking silver in women’s slalom in Alpine skiing.
Snite hailed from Grand Rapids, although she was raised in Vermont, and like Weldon Olsen, Squaw Valley was her second Olympic Games. She had competed in the giant slalom at Cortina in 1956, when she was just 17, but didn’t finish the course. In 1960, when she took the silver, “Sports Illustrated” put her portrait on the cover, with a caption that declared her “on top of the world.”
Terry McDermott
What’s better than winning a medal at the Olympics on behalf of the State of Michigan and the broader USA? How about doing it all over again a second time? Speed skater Terry McDermott, known as the “Essexville Rocket” for his Michigan hometown, shocked the world at the 1964 Innsbruck Games when he unexpectedly took gold. Four years later, at the 1968 Games in Grenoble, he proved that his previous win had been no fluke, taking silver despite skating in unfavorable conditions on partially-melted ice.
After the 1964 Games, McDermott shot to national fame, even appearing on “The Ed Sullivan Show” alongside The Beatles. He and his wife eventually settled in Bloomfield Hills, where they raised five children and eleven grandchildren.
Sheila Young
In 1976, the Winter Games headed to Innsbruck, Austria, where speed skater Sheila Young made history by becoming the first American to win three medals at a single Winter Olympics. Young, who was born in Birmingham before moving to Detroit with her family, won gold, silver, and bronze medals in different speed skating events at the 1976 Games. Today, Young, who is also a cyclist in addition to her skating accomplishments, lives in California with her husband and fellow Olympian, Jim Ochowicz.
Ken Morrow and Mark Wells
The final men’s ice hockey game of the 1980 Winter Olympics was a nail-biter of epic proportions. The game, which would come to be known as the “Miracle on Ice,” saw the United States men’s team against the heavily favored Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. The match resulted in an upset victory for the Americans, including two Michiganders: Ken Morrow and Mark Wells.
Both Morrow and Wells would go on to professional hockey careers following their gold medal triumph. Today, both athletes are recognized as historically important figures in American hockey, with Morrow, whose professional career was longer than Wells’, inducted into the American Hockey Hall of Fame.
Lisa Brown-Miller and Shelley Looney
Two Michigan women made history when they competed for the US women’s hockey team and won their first gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Games. Shelley Looney, who grew up in Trenton and would go on to win silver at the 2002 Olympics, scored the game-winning goal. Lisa Brown-Miller, who came from Union Lake, would go on to have a professional career as a hockey coach until her passing in 2025, while Looney is currently a hockey coach for Lindenwood University’s women’s team.
Meryl Davis and Charlie White
While everyone knows how ice hockey teams work together, with only two athletes on a team, pairs ice dancing teams are on a whole different level. That was the case for Michiganders Meryl Davis and Charlie White, a duo from Royal Oak who have been skating together since 1997—the longest-lasting ice dancing team in US history. This impressive pair particularly shone at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where they took gold in ice dancing and bronze in team ice dancing. Davis and White are also the first Americans ever to take a World Championship title in ice dancing.
Nick Baumgartner
When the Winter Olympics started in the 1920s, snowboarding wasn’t on anyone’s mind. In fact, the particular snowboarding event that Nick Baumgartner and his partner, Lindsey Jacobelis, won gold in during the 2022 Beijing Winter Games was new that year! Baumgartner, a Yooper from Iron Mountain, and Jacobelis won at the brand-new mixed snowboarding races, drawing attention to one of the Olympics’ newest sports.
Michiganders to watch in 2026
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Lombardy are set to be Michigan mania! Dozens of athletes with ties to the Wolverine State will be traveling to Italy to compete. The whole Mitten will be rooting for each and every one of them, but hockey fans should keep an eye out for Dylan Larkin, a center on the Detroit Red Wings who’ll be playing for Team USA. Meanwhile, Kaila Kuhn, a World Champion skier who got her start on Boyne Mountain before her second birthday, will be competing in the freestyle skiing aerials, while Evan Bates, Madison Chock, Christina Carreira, and Emilea Zingas will represent the USA in ice dancing.
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