April Sargent made one of the most dramatic Olympic entrances in the history of the dramatic sport of figure skating.

Sargent, a native of Ogdensburg, was a world class skater in the discipline of ice dancing in 1991 when she was hospitalized two months before the Olympic Games with a life-threatening ruptured ovarian cyst. After undergoing an operation, Sargent was told by doctors to forget about competing in nationals, meaning her shot at participating in the Olympics was over.

Sargent would have none of that. She dismissed the six-week recovery period and was on the ice in the nationals just three weeks after being hospitalized. With partner, Russ Witherby, Sargent finished a stunning first in the U.S. championships in Orlando, Fla., to advance to the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France.

Sargent and Witherby would go on to place 11th in the Olympics as Sargent became the first north country female athlete to reach the Olympic Games.

A ninth-place showing in the world championships in March ended Sargent's reign on the world stage. From 1988 to 1992, she finished no worse than third in the U.S. Championships and made five successive appearances in worlds.

Sargent skated competitively beginning in 1983, leaving home at age 14 and changing the path of her life forever.

"(Without skating) I think I would be a much different person. Skating taught me to be more disciplined, more persistent," Sargent said in an interview four years ago.

Now April Silverstein, she remains in figure skating as a coach at the respected Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society in Philadelphia. She is also a technical specialist for ice dancing. Tech specialists help judges evaluate skaters' performances, and Silverstein is the only American Dance Specialist qualified to serve on the International, World and Olympic events. She has traveled to Europe and Japan in her new position.

Silverstein and her husband live just west of Philadelphia and have five children.

To read about previous selections to the Times' list of The North Country's Greatest 100 Athletes of All Time, log on to www.watertowndailytimes.com