Cleaning House for 2005: NO MORE WHINING


OK, so now that Nationals are over and I have made the sprint world cups (isn't that weird???), it is time for me to wrap up my analysis of how speedskaters fund their training. I believe I'm covering some issues that many people simply refuse to talk about, in the hopes that they will just go away. However, I feel like I am whining sometimes, and my own complaining is starting to make me sick to my stomach! So, I'm just going to squish my last 4 points into a single post, so that I will get this over with and not think about it again.

In Part 6, I talked about what it was like to work a real job in the field of science while training on an elite level. In the remaining parts, I intended to discuss issues relating to the search for sponsorship. In Part 7, I wanted to share some of my own funny stories of rejection by various potential sponsors, and an especially funny experience of being repeatedly blown off by an Olympic sports writer when I tried to get her to promote me as one of Detroit's (where my parents live) future Olympians. Ha-ha-ha.

In Part 8, I wanted to tell some stories that illustrate how arbitrary the sponsorship search is for athletes at my level and below, and how much it depends on "connections", and how little it depends on actual competitive credentials.

I've decided instead to just list the main points I have learned from my sponsorship search, in the hopes that someone might find these suggestions helpful and learn from my mistakes.

Here they are:

1. As I have just mentioned, the aspiring Olympian who just barely learned to speedskate but has personal connections to a company is more likely to find a sponsor than the skater who has World Cup experience but no corporate connections. (This is from my own experience. I've seen it happen at least 4-5 times here at the Utah Olympic Oval.)

2. Sending in a sponsorship package is not like sending in a job resume or a college application!!! Even if you've had success in these other areas, you should expect a great deal more rejection in your sponsorship search before you find something.

3. You should consider getting an agent to handle your sponsorship communications. That way, you won't have to deal with the rejection first-hand, which can have a detrimental effect on your self-esteem and skating performance. If you can arrange a deal with your agent where they work only for a percentage of the sponsorships they find for you, then you lose nothing, and only stand to gain.

4. Sponsors who already sponsor your team are actually less likely to sponsor you as an individual because it is not likely to be an additional benefit for them.

5. Your "potential" is not something you can realistically sell to a company, because it is so unpredictable.

6. If you are on a national team, it can be hard to convince people that you are not already getting everything you need to live and train.

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In Part 9 of my analysis of athlete funding, the real fun and controversy begins. It is here that I planned to weigh in on the US Speedskating Sponsor Logo Fight.

First of all, I'd like to say that almost all the athletes I've talked to, especially those on the highest levels of this sport, believe that the Athlete Agreement that we sign is inherently unfair. They feel that they are up against the wall and have to make the following choice: "Either I sign all my rights away, or I can't be a speedskater."

For myself personally, I never felt that I had much of a chance of obtaining sponsorship, so I just went ahead and signed the agreement without much thought. I believed that most of the things our sponsors paid for were things from which I benefited, such as travel to competitions, free ice time, and coaching. However, as time went on, as I had my own experiences in this sport and observed the experiences of other athletes, I realized that there is a lot more to this issue than meets the eye.

I now believe that because athletes come into this sport with vastly different backgrounds and vastly different needs, they DO NOT BENEFIT EQUALLY from all the things that our sponsors pay for, and therefore should not necessarily be FORCED to wear certain logos. For example, a few of US Speedskating's top performers do not train with the National Team because they feel that a different program works better for them, for whatever reason. Therefore, they do not benefit from National Team coaching or sports science, BUT are still forced to wear logos of sponsors whose money pay for these things. Because of this, such an athlete CANNOT wear the logo of a sponsor he finds for himself. Is this right?

I believe that because of the differences in the needs of our athletes, we need to be a lot more flexible in how we handle the issue of sponsor logos.


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In Part 10, I wanted to describe a specific instance in which I felt that an aspect of sports science, on which U.S. Speedskating spends a great deal of money, was used in a way that was harmful to several members of the team.

This involved convincing a group of athletes that there was a team of scientists checking on their training data to make sure that they were adapting properly to a training program. Then, once the season was over and half the team had gotten severely overtrained and performed very poorly, the team was informed that the coaching staff were aware that they were getting overtrained, but the decision was made to keep pushing them "in the interest of collecting data for the benefit of future generations of speedskaters."

I don't know about you, but in Eva's Protocol of Ethics in Sports Science, such an experiment would be considered a "Big No-No."

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So, this marks the end of my analysis of speedskater funding. I hope to move on from here, to overcome the disadvantages I have faced in the past, and to focus on skating faster.

"Skater-Cloner:" Doing Two All-Consuming Things Halfway


(Continuing on, here is Part 6 of 10, of my ananlysis of how speedskaters fund their training.)

I have lost track of the number of times I've heard, "Isn't it great to be able to work in your field and train for the Olympics at the same time?" Well, here is what it was REALLY like to try to be a cancer researcher and an elite speedskater at the same time. This is the life I lived for two and a half years.

Both speedskating and cancer research are all-consuming activities which alone require tremendous personal sacrifice. It's true that biomedical researchers commonly put in 12 + hour days in pursuit of cures for society's illnesses, and though a career in a biotech company such as the one I worked for is more of a 9 to 5 job, the words "part-time" and "cancer researcher" don't usually fit together.

The elite speedskater, meanwhile, basically eats, sleeps, and trains for a sport that is both physically demanding and technically challenging.

With my job as a part-time, hourly Research Scientist at Genta Inc, I found a niche that allowed me to combine these two activities, but it was definitely a struggle. Studies have shown that having a great deal of stress outside one's sport contributes significantly to overtraining, and this is a problem that has haunted me throughout my comeback.

My schedule consisted of the unrelenting mental strain of "train-work-train." I'd arrive at the Oval at 8 AM, do my morning ice session, and run out of the Oval by 11:30 without doing any sort of warm-down. Then I'd eat lunch in the car while driving the 22 miles to Research Park. Then I'd chug 2 cups of coffee to stay awake and mentally sharp, while going over the protocol for the day's experiment. I'd try to be done by 4:30 PM, so I could drive back across the valley to the Oval for the afternoon training session before rush hour started.

The main difference between science and "any old job you could have while training" is that you can't just leave when it's time to train. Fortunately, most of the experiments I did could be done within the 4-5 hours I had between training sessions, but sometimes things got delayed so I'd have to stay. I'm proud to say that during the time I worked in science while training, I never once dumped out an experiment in order to get to a training session on time. I just stayed until I finished up and did my training later.

There was a constant pressure in my life to prove that I was dedicated enough to each activity, and to be taken seriously as both an athlete and a scientist.

My worst work-related situation happened during my first year of combining skating and science. I had gotten a tonsillectomy and decided to show up to work the very next day, because I knew the manager we had at the time disapproved of "excessive absences." Though I had to take a bunch of pain killers, I wanted to show him that I was dedicated to my job. I finished the day's work without incident, plating some bacteria on antibiotic media to select out the non-resistant strains after overnight growth.

The next day, the manager called me into his office and, shutting the door behind us, proceeded to rip me apart for plating the bacteria on the wrong antibiotic (Ampicillin instead of Kanamycin). "This cost the company a day of work. A day costs money. I ought to fire you for your incompetence since it has become obvious that you are unable to handle work in science along with your speedskating training."

In a twist of poetic justice, this manager, who was disliked by all in the company, was fired a year later for ordering an incorrect DNA sequence that cost the company 6 months of wasted work.

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In my 2nd year of working in science and training, I had committed to the U.S. National Team, and so I had less time to work than ever. There were days when the team would literally spend 8 hours per day at the Oval. Also, we had to be up in Park City for workouts at least 3 times a week. Overall, I was no longer able to have my own project in the lab and ended up having to wait for one of the other scientists to call on me when he or she needed some help. The main problem was that often I'd be needed on a day when I had to train 8 hours, and then the next day, when I had a light day of training, nobody would need me at work.

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At the start of this season with Boris, where I was doing most of my workouts on my own, I knew that this would be the best way for me to combine work and training. Unfortunately, just as things started to come together relatively well, the lab shut down. I was unable to find another job in science that fit my training schedule, and thus ended my life as the Skater-Cloner.

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So, was it great to work in my field and train for the Olympics at the same time? There were some things that were great about it. I must say that this was my ultimate dream, and I was pretty proud of myself for being able to handle it for a while. However, it didn't help my skating. I've been overtrained for at least two seasons, and the worst part of it was that when I really got tired, I'd have terrible races, to the point where I'd be embarrassed to be out there skating.

I still love science as a career choice, and having been away from the lab since July, I must say that there are some things I miss about it, especially my friends in science. I'm looking forward to working in that field some day, but to combine it with my speedskating training at this time is just way too much.

How I have paid for my speedskating training:


When I came back to speedskating in 2001, I was determined to pay for my skating on my own because I was almost 24 years old and didn't want to be a burden on my parents. Fortunately, I had already earned my Master's degree in biology, so I would always have something to fall back on if anything happened. Also, there was always the chance that I could find a job that would be flexible enough that I could work in my field and train at the same time.

In my first season back, I decided not to attempt to pursue science along with speedskating because I really wanted to take a chance at making the Olympic team in 2002, and I had less than a year to prepare myself for the trials. I had some money saved up in a college fund that I never needed to use because I worked part-time and lived at home during school, so I used some of that. Also, I did various jobs at the Utah Olympic Oval - I coached Learn to Speedskate, watched the weight room, and sharpened skates.

My first season was a success, and even though I did not make the Olympic team, I established myself as a World Cup skater and decided to remain in Salt Lake City and continue skating. In the spring of 2002, Dr. John Rossi, the Dean of my graduate program at City of Hope-Beckman Research Institute, helped me to find a job as a part-time research scientist with Salus Therapeutics, a small biotech company that was later sold to Genta Inc. I worked there until about 5 months ago, when our entire Research and Development department here in Salt Lake City was shut down after Genta's anti-melanoma drug was denied FDA approval for further clinical trials.

Since that time, I have been unable to find another job in my field that fits with my training and competition schedule. After going on a couple of interviews, I found that most of the labs were looking for the sort of person who is willing to work 80 hours per week and get paid for 40, not the sort of person who wants to get paid by the hour and can finish 40 hours worth of work in 25 hours!

I've gone back to the Utah Olympic Oval to sharpen rental skates for $8 an hour, and have reluctantly accepted some help from my parents while I attempt to find some sort of sponsorship to get me through the Torino games, which will probably be my last chance.

Here are some of the different ways that skaters have paid for their training:


The best athletes, as I have mentioned before, have corporate sponsors and win money on the World Cup circuit. Some skaters who have come from the world of inline skating still compete in inline, and can live off their inline winnings. A few inline skaters (especially some of the short trackers in Southern California) are actually paid by their inline sponsors to cross over to ice skating.

A lot of skaters are supported by their parents, though only a few skaters get much help beyond their junior years. Parental attitudes towards the sport, and their ability to help out financially, vary greatly among speedskating families. In the world of speedskating, we have parents who have picked up and moved halfway across the country so their kids can train at the Olympic Oval. We have parents who go around begging for sponsors for their kids. We have parents who won Olympic medals and want their kids to do the same, and we have parents who don't even accept speedskating as an activity that their kids should be doing, or parents who think that everything else should come before speedskating.

Many skaters work part time to support their training. Most either have "O-jobs" at Home Depot, or work at the Oval as coaches. Only a few have college degrees and work in their field.

A few skaters at the lower levels have found sponsors, but I will cover sponsorships in more detail in a later post.

Let's Crunch Some Numbers:


This is the reality of a speedskater's budget, and how many hours of work it actually takes in order to make ends meet:

Let us take, for example, a skater who skates World Cups and finishes "twenty-somethingth" regularly. If this person spends 2 months on the road with the team (a conservative estimate), then they have 10 months at home in which to come up with the money they need for the year.

Now, say this person works for $8 an hour, sharpening rental skates at the Utah Olympic Oval (a flexible job that can be arranged around training hours). In order to meet the bare minimum living expenses of food, rent and utilities, auto (gas, insurance, basic maintenance), and training expenses such as equipment and travel to national championships, this person needs to make approximately $10,000 in a year.

What we want to calculate is, "How many hours per week does this skater have to work in order to make ten grand in ten months?" (For simplicity's sake, let's ignore the additional burden of income tax...it's depressing enough as it is...)

$1000 in 1 month= $250 per week, which, for a person who makes $8 per hour, breaks down to an average of just over 31 hours per week of work, which is in addition to the 30-40 hours per week that this skater spends on training.

When I was working in the lab at Genta, I kept track of my hours. The longest work week I ever put in was 38 hours, and I had quite a few weeks where I put in under 20 hours. My average was around 22-24 hours per week. Fortunately, my pay was better than $8 per hour, so I was able to get by.

For an athlete who trains at the elite level, 31 hours per week of work is unhealthy, unreasonable, and has a detrimental effect on performance and recovery.

"So, you're all set, then?"


This is the most common response I used to get when I would tell people I was on the U.S. National Speedskating Team, as I was last year. By "all set," these people would mean that they believed that all national team athletes had all their living and training expenses paid for, and that all we had to do is train and race. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sure, some athletes on the team are "all set," but these are the people who are on the podium every World Cup weekend. The money they make comes from their winnings, and from the sponsorships that they have managed to find for themselves.

An athlete such as myself, who was competing in World Cups and finishing "twenty-somethingth" there, is entitled to the following:
1. An annual stipend of approximately $1500 from U.S. Speedskating
2. 3-4 meals per week
3. Ice time and coaching
4. Physical therapists and sports science support
5. The chance to live at the high altitude house in Park City (where your transportation costs for driving to the Oval every day would negate any financial benefit of the free housing - one of the reasons why some skaters choose to live in the Salt Lake valley)

In order to pay for their basic living expenses, such as food, housing, and transportation, almost all the skaters who are at this level have to work.

Now I will share a story that may illustrate the contrast between U.S. athletes and those from some other countries:

My friend Vlad, who used to work at Genta with me, was hosting a Russian skater at his home during the 2002 Olympics. Vlad took the skater up to Park City, and they happened to stop by an ice cream shop there. Inside the ice cream shop, the Russian skater saw a U. S. National Team girl he knew working behind the counter.

Surprised to see her there, he asked what she was doing, and she replied that she had to make some money to support her training. The Russian skater was shocked that an American national team athlete needed to support herself by working in an ice cream shop.

...Do you hear that? That is the sound of the Russians laughing at the idea that a skater of the caliber of, for example, Chris Callis, has to go push carts at the Home Depot.

I'm not saying that the situation is worst for American athletes. There are skaters in other countries who have it even worse, and their countries will not send them to competitions even if they qualify because their national governing bodies have so little money. However, I believe that the problem here is more about the image that we present to the American public, because for some reason, people think that our athletes are being helped out a lot more than they actually are.

I really believe that if American companies were more aware that our athletes need help, then they would be more open to sponsoring us.

Amateur Sports and American Society:


Since I am currently on leave of absence from a graduate program in science, I've decided to find other ways to keep my brain active. I would like to use my experiences in speedskating to inform people about certain realities of life as an elite amateur athlete in America. This will be the first in a 10-part series of blog entries which will examine issues of athlete funding, and how speedskaters manage to pay for their training.

I intend to point out some common misconceptions about athlete funding, and to show speedskating fans and sponsors what we skaters really have to go through in order to make our training work.

Something Isn't Right


There is definitely something wrong with the way I'm feeling right now. I'm having a hard time finishing my workouts, I'm not recovering properly between training sessions, and I need to sleep all the time. This has been going on for about a month.

I'm not too happy with the way the Can-Am races went last week, though the last 1000 meters on the inner lane was kind of fun. Before my 1500, I really had to work to convince myself that I was capable of having a good race. The night before, I drew a picture of the track and wrote 2 pages of notes on what I was going to think about during each part of the race. Then I walked around in circles in my hotel room, studying my notes to get the race into my head. I must have done a good job of convincing myself, because I really believed I was on a good one until I crossed the finish line, looked up, and saw a 2:03 next to my name.

With only a few weeks left until the U.S. Nationals, I need to figure out what my fatigue problem is all about. I'm going to see my doctor tomorrow, and hopefully we'll get some blood tests done...I'd like to check my blood cell count, ferritin levels, and maybe cortisol/DHEA to test for adrenal exhaustion.

The most encouraging thing about my training this fall has been the change in my technique, which a few skaters and coaches at the Oval have been noticing. I'm sitting lower, putting my foot down straighter, and getting more out of my forward hip drive. Once I get some rest, these technical changes should translate into faster speeds. And maybe when I start to skate faster, I'll feel like writing more in my Blog!