Debbi Wilkes

Who is Debbi Wilkes?

Debbi Wilkes is a Canadian former pair skater. Competing with Guy Revell, she captured two Canadian titles, the 1963 North American Championship, and won the bronze medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics.

Wilkes was 6 years younger than her partner and had not yet started to grow when they were paired. By 1963, when she was 17 years old, Wilkes was 5'5" and an inch taller than Revell.

Wilkes and Revell had to withdraw from the 1963 World Figure Skating Championships when Wilkes fell from a lift while posing for press photographs prior to the event. She hit the ice head-first and fractured her skull.

They split after the 1964 World Figure Skating Championships when Revell turned professional, joining Ice Capades. Wilkes wanted to pursue an education rather than go on tour.

In 1966, Wilkes and Revell were advised that the second-place pair in Innsbruck, Marika Kilius and Hans-Jürgen Bäumler, had been disqualified after an International Olympic Committee investigation found they had signed pro contracts before the Winter Games. IOC executive James Worrall presented Wilkes and Revell with the silver medals during the Canadian championships in Peterborough, Ont. Later, Kilius and Baumler were reinstated in the record books, but the medals were never redistributed. In December 2013 after an investigation by the New York Times the International Olympic Committee confirmed that the Soviet Union remains the gold medal winner, Canada and West Germany share the silver, and the Americans won the bronze. Despite the information on its website over the years, the IOC said in an email to the New York Times that since 1987 this was always intended to be the official result.