Winter Olympics Athlets Bios

Jim Shea, Jr.

Sport Bobsleigh
Event(S) Skeleton
Birthdate June 10th, 1968
Birthplace Hartford, C.T
Residence: Lake Placid, N.Y.
Olympics 2002, 2006

One of the world's top skeleton sliders since 1997, Jim Shea has won three medals at the World Championships, including gold at the 1999 worlds in Altenberg, Germany, becoming the first American to win a skeleton world title.

He also was the first American to win a World Cup event, also in Altenberg in 1998. Shea won one World Cup event during the 2000-2001 season and placed third in the standings behind teammate Lincoln DeWitt and Kazuhiro Koshi of Japan. In addition to the 1999 gold medal, Shea won a bronze at the 2000 World Championships in Igls, Austria and a silver medal at the 1997 worlds at his home track in Lake Placid, New York. He also won the skeleton gold medal at the inaugural Winter Goodwill Games in 2000, also held in Lake Placid.

Shea's first love was hockey. He attended every hockey games at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid, including the U.S. Shea tried bobsled and luge before attempting skeleton. Within five years, he was a world champion. The Sheas are the first American family to send three generations to the Winter Olympics.

Seventy years after his grandfather, Jack Shea, won two Olympic gold medals in speed skating, American skeleton slider Jim Shea, Jr., added other gold medal to the family’s collection when he claimed first place in his event at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Despite trailing defending world champion Martin Rettl of Austria during most of his final heat, Shea sped down the skeleton track at 126.6 km/hr (78.7 mph) to finish with a time of 1 min 41.96 sec—edging Rettl by a razor-thin 0.05-sec margin.

Shea was born on June 10, 1968, in Hartford, Conn. His grandfather had become the first double gold medalist in the Winter Olympics when he won the 500- and 1,500-m speed-skating races at the 1932 Games in Lake Placid, N.Y. His father, Jim, Sr., was also an Olympic athlete, having competed in Nordic combined and cross-country skiing at the 1964 Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria. By 1995 Shea had joined the U.S. national skeleton team. Skeleton sledding had returned as an Olympic event in 2002 after a 54-year hiatus, thanks in part to international lobbying by Shea on the sport's behalf.