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Sarah Hughes (born May 2, 1985 in Great Neck, New York) was the Olympic gold medalist in women's figure skating at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Hughes is the fourth of six children; her father is a Canadian of Irish descent and her mother is a Jewish American. Her younger sister, Emily Hughes, is the women's 2006 bronze medalist in the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships, and a 2006 Olympian. Hughes is also a cousin of radio shock jock Gregg "Opie" Hughes; host of XM's the Opie and Anthony show.

Before the 2002 Olympics, her parents, both Cornell University alumni, contacted James Maas, one of their former professors at Cornell, author of and noted sleep psychologist. During their meeting, Maas learned of their daughter Sarah and her training regimen. He suggested that, in order to improve her skating, for two weeks, she should sleep nine hours a night, every night, even if this meant training less. As Maas recounts every year for his Psychology 101 class, her skating abilities noticably improved within two weeks. Convinced, Hughes continued this sleeping regimen throughout her training period. Maas cites Hughes as one of his examples of why sleeping is very important.

Hughes narrowly won the 2002 Olympic women's figure skating event, edging Russia's Irina Slutskaya in a tie-breaker, and after Michelle Kwan faltered and fell to third place. In her long program, Hughes landed seven triple jumps, including two triple-triple combinations. She had been in fourth place going into the long program and few people predicted she would win. Although she appeared on the cover of magazine the week before the event, Hughes was considered the third-best American skater at the 2002 Olympics, behind the top two finishers at the 2002 U.S. National Championships: the favorite Michelle Kwan, and Sasha Cohen.

Hughes decided not to return to competitive figure skating to defend her Olympic gold medal title at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, and instead, she skated professionally and began attending Yale University. The last women's Olympic champion to defend her title was Katarina Witt of East Germany, who won in 1984 and in 1988.

She is now a student at Yale University, but took the 2004-2005 year off to skate professionally with the Smuckers Stars on Ice tour company. In 2002, she received the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.