Rebecca Twigg
 Twigg at the 1999 Women's Challenge | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Rebecca Twigg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | March 26, 1963 Seattle, Washington, United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Discipline | Road and track | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Rebecca Twigg (born March 26, 1963) is an American former racing cyclist.
Cycling career[edit]
An academic prodigy, she enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle at the age of 14 and rode for the school's team. US national team coach Eddie Borysewicz saw her and invited her to join his team when she was 17.[1] She earned degrees in biology and computer science from UW.
Twigg won six world track cycling championships in the individual pursuit. She also won 16 US championships (the first – the individual time trial – when she was 18) and two Olympic medals, the silver medal in the 1984 road race in Los Angeles, and a bronze medal in the pursuit in Barcelona in 1992.[2]
She won the first three editions of the Women's Challenge on the road.
Twigg was a three-time Olympian (1984, 1992, and 1996). However, her final Olympic appearance, in Atlanta in 1996, ended in controversy when she quit the team in a disagreement with the coach Chris Carmichael and the U.S. Cycling Federation. The federation had invested in the development of the so-called SuperBike. Twigg, after using the bike earlier in the Games, refused to ride it, citing poor individual fit and claiming that pressure from the staff on her to use the SuperBike and their refusal to grant accreditation to her personal coach, Eddie Borysewicz, left her defocused.[3]
Twigg married Mark Whitehead – a fellow member of the 1984 US Olympic cycling team – in 1985, but the marriage only lasted a couple of years.[4]
Post-cycling life[edit]
After retiring from competitive cycling, Twigg earned an associate degree in computer science and worked at various jobs in the information technology industry.[5] She remarried and had a daughter with her second husband. She later quit her jobs and became homeless while staying in Seattle, and as of 2019 has been homeless for the past five years. Her first personal encounter with homelessness occurred when she was 15 years old and was kicked out of her house by her mother.[1]
Palmarès[edit]
- 1982
- 1st UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1st U.S. National Time Trial Championships
- 3rd United States National Road Race Championships
- 1983
- 3rd Coors Classic
- 1984
- 1st UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1st United States National Road Race Championships
- 1st Women's Challenge
- 1985
- 1st UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1st Women's Challenge
- 1986
- 2nd UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1st Women's Challenge
- 1987
- 1st UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1993
- 1st UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1st U.S. National Time Trial Championships
- 1994
- 1st U.S. National Time Trial Championships
- 1995
- 1st UCI Track Cycling World Championships (individual pursuit)
- 1997
- 3rd U.S. National Time Trial Championships
References[edit]
- ^ a b Greenstone, Scott (April 15, 2019). "What an Olympic medalist, homeless in Seattle, wants you to know". The Seattle Times. Retrieved April 15, 2019.
- ^ "Rebecca Twigg Olympic Results". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on April 18, 2020. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
- ^ Stapleton, Arnie (July 31, 1996). "Best U.S. Cyclist Quits Team". The Washington Post.
- ^ "Olympian Mark Whitehead dead at 50". VeloNews.com. July 7, 2011. Retrieved July 25, 2021.
- ^ "Free Wheeling Rebecca Twigg Has Never Pedaled With the Pack, And She Doesn't Plan To Start Now". Sports Illustrated. July 22, 1996. Archived from the original on November 23, 2019. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
External links[edit]
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- 1963 births
- Living people
- American female cyclists
- Cyclists at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Cyclists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- Cyclists at the 1996 Summer Olympics
- Homelessness in the United States
- Sportspeople from Seattle
- UCI Track Cycling World Champions (women)
- Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in cycling
- Olympic silver medalists for the United States in cycling
- Medalists at the 1984 Summer Olympics
- Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics
- American track cyclists
- Cyclists at the 1987 Pan American Games
- Medalists at the 1987 Pan American Games
- Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States in cycling
- 21st-century American women
- Cyclists from Washington (state)
- University of Washington alumni