Bethany Calcaterra-McMahon

Bethany Calcaterra-McMahon slid for the US twice at the Winter Olympics, in 1994 and 1998. She was twice a medalist at the World Junior Championships, winning a bronze in 1992 and a silver in 1994. Calcaterra-McMahon was a four-time US junior champion, winning in 1989 and 1991-93, and won the US Senior Championship in 1995. Her career was cut short after the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics by recurrent dislocations of her shoulder.

Unfortunately, Calcaterra-McMahon is often best remembered for an incident that occurred on a training run in Winterberg, Germany in 1994. Sepp Lenz, one of the German coaches, had stepped onto the track to clean up a section, and because he was deaf in one ear, had not heard the warning “Rodel an der Bahn (sled on the track).” Calcaterra-McMahon was on that sled, and she collided with Lenz while traveling about 75 mph (120 km/hr), with the injuries he sustained causing him to lose his leg.