History with Present Olympians

I started thinking about some of the speed skaters that will be taking part in the games over the next two weeks. And since opening ceremonies is tomorrow I figured it might be kind of cool to recap some of my memories I have with them. There are quite a few.

First, I guess I will start with Jess and Brittany. I pair them together because my first real significant memory with either of them happened when they were together. My first world team was in 2007. After making the team and everything we had a couple of months before residency. I just remember having never really talked to either of them they were super nice, helpful, and encouraging to me that entire stretch of time. I was 16, they were both on the Senior Ladies team. Then of course there is the fact that I've trained with Jess for almost two seasons now. She's always tried to help me out, having made the same jump from inline to ice 4 years before me and having dealt with some of the same technique issues that I've had with the switch. And then lastly of course, when I think of Jess right now I also think of Mike, her fiancé. Mike was one of my first ice coaches when I moved to SLC for about 6 weeks before he left to coach Germany. The last couple of months he has been back and he helped me with my equipment, strategy, and coaching the entire way through Olympic trials.

Next, I'll jump into Chris Creveling. I probably have the deepest roots with Chris. I grew watching Chris skate inlines as he is about five years older then me. My earliest memory would probably have to be when I was 12 at our inline regional championships I broke Chris' 300m record for the age group I was in from when he was in it in 1998. I went up to him and told him I broke it and he bet me I couldn't break his 500m record as well. I was 12 and when I broke the 500m record it was cool for me to go tell him that too. After that there are various memories throughout the years but I still remember the time we spent skating for MPC and testing wheels and everything.

Next we will go to Kyle Carr. I skated with Kyle when I was just a little kid and he still wore glasses when he raced. I don't have a ton of memories back then but I do remember skating inlines with him again in 2005 in Reading.

From there it's Eddy. My first memory of Eddy isn't even a memory of Eddy. I was at practice one time at the beginning of our training before the 2003-2004 season. Some of our older skaters and I were stretching after our warm-up. They were talking about my chances as I moved up into the next division. They decided I had fair chances, not great but not too bad. Then one said, wait, you have to race Eddy Alvarez.. you are screwed. I didn't even know who he was! Anyway, that year at nationals going into the last final I was in like fourth overall with a shot to get a medal. Eddy had gotten disqualified in both the previous distances so I was ahead of him overall. He ended up winning the last final which but my outside of the medals that year.

Coming up on my last two athletes: Jonathan. I don't have a ton of memories with Jonathan. My biggest memory is probably all the times he and Sebastian would argue and fight during residency training or pretty much any time they were together.

Lastly would be Joey. I don't have too many personal memories with Joey. Lot's of races, lot's of time at different worlds hanging out with everyone. There was also the year we I lived with him here in Utah. I guess two things that stand out both happened in the same year: 2009. The relay on track when he made a really good skater look like they were standing still, and the marathon when he told us he wanted to start his field sprint somewhere around 20th so know one would follow him.

Then there is Shani.. which I will save for a separate post later.