Noelle Pikus-Pace
Track & Field
Inducted in 2012

Noelle Pikus-Pace has a resume equally as impressive as all of the current members of the Utah Valley University Athletics Hall of Fame, yet the Mountain View High graduate is in awe of their accomplishments.

"I have looked through the bios of those that have been inducted before me and read about their accomplishments and success and have felt very inspired and honored to be among them," she said. "What an amazing group of athletes."

Pikus-Pace was inducted on Jan. 28, 2012 at the UCCU Center.

In future years, new inductees will be saying the same thing about her impressive track and field career at UVU and Olympic career in skeleton.

In high school she competed in soccer, basketball, softball, track and field, bobsled and also skeleton.

She then went on to run track and field at Utah Valley University and graduated in 2005. In 2003, she won the national championship in the discus and was a first-team All-American. Pikus-Pace also set the school high jump record in 2004 and in 2005 was named to the NCAA Division I All-Independent Team. She graduated from UVU with a degree in community health.

Also in 2005, she became the first woman to ever win the overall World Cup Title in skeleton that same year. She was favored to win the Gold Medal going into the 2006 Winter Olympics, but at the U.S. Olympic trials in October of 2005 an unfortunate accident kept her from competing at the Olympic Games.

A bobsled unexpectedly came out of the track and hit her and she sustained a compound fracture to her lower right leg.

The following year she came back to win the World Championships by the largest margin the history of the sport. She continued on with her education and received her MBA in 2007.

In 2008, she took a year off from competition and she and her husband, Janson, had a little girl, Lacee Lynne Pace.

During this time, she started her own hat business, SnowFire Hats, and continued to compete the following year.

She competed in the 2010 Winter Olympics and was the top U.S finisher finishing fourth, just one-tenth of a second out of the medals.

"I truly believe that I would not have been able to compete in the Olympics if it weren't for UVU," she said. "The professors and coaches at UVU were amazing. They worked with my schedule and understood my goals and dreams. I wanted to do it all and the only way that could work is if all the pieces could come together. UVU brought the puzzle together."

She now has a baby boy named Traycen and resides with her family in Eagle Mountain, Utah.