I thought Debbie Thomas was the better skater. It’s a tragedy how low she has fallen in life.
I remember Witt vs. Thomas in “the battle of the Carmens,” as each skated to the same music from the opera ‘Carmen.’
Back then, many of us viewed the Olympics as a competition between the USA vs. the communists. We heard that, in East Germany, the government chose skaters like Katarina Witt at a young age and trained them to compete. OTOH, our American athletes paid their own way, and Thomas didn’t just skate. She also was a college student.
The media really played up the difference between these two athletes who grew up under two systems of government. I still remember watching the competition with relatives. We hated the East German (Witt) and really wanted the American (Thomas) to win.