Children of the Dirt Oval: Training in SLC Before the Olympic Bid was won
Does anyone else remember Mitt Romney giving some speech at either the opening or closing ceremonies of the 2002 Olympic Games about it being "all for the children?" Keep that in mind as you read this.
In late August of 1994, US Speedskating coach Stan Klotkowski, with whom I had trained in Lake Placid the previous season, invited me to move out to Salt Lake City to continue training with him as he set up speedskating development programs in the area on the new outdoor Oval that would be up and running that season. I agreed, because I knew Stan believed in me as a skater (and I still believe this about him), and I thought the high altitude training would give me an advantage. It would be my last year as a junior skater, and I really wanted to try and make the Junior World Team so that I could justify continuing to skate while I went to college.
So, I went. When I got to SLC, I met up with 6 other "almost-Category One" skaters who came from all over the country to train with Stan. We ranged in age from 15 to 21. I was a 17-year-old high school senior, and my mom dropped me off to live with a host family, then began the long drive back to Mason City, Iowa, where my family lived at the time.
My host family was involved with the local kids' speedskating club that was the first club founded by Stan near the Oval.
Though at the end of August the Oval looked like a giant hole in the ground with pipes sticking out of it, Stan convinced us that it would open on time in November so that we could train there. We all wanted to believe.
We had lots of fun training with Stan that first month, though he worked us really hard. By the end of September, though, a problem arose. Stan sat us down in a meeting and informed us that he would no longer be able to work with us because his work with the developmental kids' clubs was going to take up too much of his time! From that point on, he posted the workouts on the door of his office, and we trained on our own, without a coach. We couldn't believe that we moved all the way to Utah for this.
To make matters worse, nobody was ever working on the oval, and, of course, it never opened during the 1994-95 season. A few of us ended up going up to Butte for a few weeks in November and December.
---
At this time 10 years ago, I was preparing to leave for Minnesota to compete in the Junior Western Regionals and then the Junior Nationals. I'll remember January the 13th as the day I bought my first punk rock record...I went to buy the Offspring's Smash to listen to before my races, because I knew I wouldn't have a coach there with me, and I needed something to get me going. I really ended up bonding with this band's music because it turned out to be the perfect soundtrack to the rottenness of my experiences with sports politics.
At the Junior Nationals, though I didn't come close to making the Junior World Team, I did make Category One, which isn't bad on only 3 weeks of ice time.
When I got back to Salt Lake, my host family and other young skaters' families were pretty upset about things that had taken place that season. It seems that back in October, Stan had also left their developmental club high and dry. These parents had been involved in the sport for a couple of months at the most, and suddenly, they were left to run the speedskating club on their own because the coach simply stopped showing up and returning their phone calls.
The parents planned to write letters to US Speedskating, telling them what had happened (our coach left us and our facility never opened). They invited me to also contribute a letter that stated what happened with Stan's elite group. I was the only one on my team who wrote a letter.
All I said was basically this: "Our coach abandoned our group after convincing us to move out here, and our facility never opened. I also understand that he was not doing the job that USISA sent him out here to do. As a result, we failed to meet our goals this season as speedskaters." (The only controversial thing I though I mentioned was something about some harassment going on related to a skater's perceived sexual orientation. As it turned out, this involved serious physical beatings of an athlete by a USISA employee, for which they could have suffered major lawsuits.)
All I wanted was to tell the truth and ask for help. My objective in writing this letter was to try to convince the two people overseeing this development program - the USISA president, and the person specifically in charge of the SLC development program - that there were some problems with the SLC development program, and that they should come take a look at the situation for themselves and help us.
So, what happened next? What was the fallout of our letter-writing campaign?
One day I came home from school to find my host mother on the phone with Head Honcho from USISA. When she hung up, I asked her excitedly, "Are they coming??? Are they coming???"
She replied, "No, but you don't want to know what he said about YOU."
"Yes I do," I said, knowing what a small world speedskating is, and knowing that my future in the sport was at stake.
When I finally convinced her to tell me, it was this: He said, "Eva Rodansky is an over-emotional no-talent looking for someone to blame for her own failures."
When I heard that, I knew it was over. I knew I'd be discussed in meetings, and my name would be irreparably smeared throughout the sport.
----
In the following years, I discovered that I was right in believing this would come to pass. Nearly 3 years later, after keeping myself out of the world of speedskating, I attempted to skate some Saturday time trials in Milwaukee, and was practically run out of town when they found out what my name was. "Oh, it's YOU!!" said the guy running the time trials, when I told him my name.
In subsequent encounters with other skaters, especially once I came back to the sport in 2001, I found out that in fact my name had come up in meetings, both in US Speedskating and locally in Utah, as a trouble-maker. One US skater, when he finally met me, said, "So, YOU're the infamous Rodansky!!!"
By the way, I'd just like to mention that all the people who mistreated me upon hearing terrible lies about me have been forgiven 100 percent. Stan, I forgive you, too. I believe you tried your best despite a bad situation, and I know you believed in my potential as an athlete, which is more than I can say for some other coaches I have worked with in this sport.
The only person I have yet to find it in my heart to forgive is the person who took my plea for help and turned it against me. About a year after I wrote my letter, the problems in Salt Lake got so bad that he finally had to acknowledge that USISA had to intervene. By that time, however, the damage to my speedskating career had been done.
Because the environment within the sport became so hostile towards me, I missed out on training for speedskating between the ages of 18 and 24. I spent these years as an angry and depressed science student.
----
Can you imagine what it must have been like for me to pick up the Time Magazine article about the Salt Lake Olympic Bid Scandal as I went grocery shopping with my mom one day in..I think it was...1998? Picture this: I'm running to the restroom to throw up because I just found out that back in 1994, some old men probably sat down in a meeting and decided that rather than getting generators for the speedskating oval, they had better put their money to use by hiring the Snow White Escort girls for the I.O.C.
"The truth about the world is that crime does pay."
----
To this day, the greatest experience of my life remains my performance in the 3000 meters at the 2001 Fall World Cup trials, where, only 9 months into my comeback after a 6-year absence from the sport, I obliterated the rest of the field by a margin of 6 seconds. I am not ashamed to admit that that race, and all the preparation that went into it, was fueled entirely by hatred and vengeance.
As for the consequences of this journal entry, let them come. Especially with regards to recent developments, I do not believe that US Speedskating has the best interest of its athletes in mind, anyways.
Besides, if they want to continue maintaining the image of speedskating as a "pure and uncomplicated sport", in which all athletes have an equal chance, then they HAVE TO allow me to continue to participate.
Bring it on.
Does anyone else remember Mitt Romney giving some speech at either the opening or closing ceremonies of the 2002 Olympic Games about it being "all for the children?" Keep that in mind as you read this.
In late August of 1994, US Speedskating coach Stan Klotkowski, with whom I had trained in Lake Placid the previous season, invited me to move out to Salt Lake City to continue training with him as he set up speedskating development programs in the area on the new outdoor Oval that would be up and running that season. I agreed, because I knew Stan believed in me as a skater (and I still believe this about him), and I thought the high altitude training would give me an advantage. It would be my last year as a junior skater, and I really wanted to try and make the Junior World Team so that I could justify continuing to skate while I went to college.
So, I went. When I got to SLC, I met up with 6 other "almost-Category One" skaters who came from all over the country to train with Stan. We ranged in age from 15 to 21. I was a 17-year-old high school senior, and my mom dropped me off to live with a host family, then began the long drive back to Mason City, Iowa, where my family lived at the time.
My host family was involved with the local kids' speedskating club that was the first club founded by Stan near the Oval.
Though at the end of August the Oval looked like a giant hole in the ground with pipes sticking out of it, Stan convinced us that it would open on time in November so that we could train there. We all wanted to believe.
We had lots of fun training with Stan that first month, though he worked us really hard. By the end of September, though, a problem arose. Stan sat us down in a meeting and informed us that he would no longer be able to work with us because his work with the developmental kids' clubs was going to take up too much of his time! From that point on, he posted the workouts on the door of his office, and we trained on our own, without a coach. We couldn't believe that we moved all the way to Utah for this.
To make matters worse, nobody was ever working on the oval, and, of course, it never opened during the 1994-95 season. A few of us ended up going up to Butte for a few weeks in November and December.
---
At this time 10 years ago, I was preparing to leave for Minnesota to compete in the Junior Western Regionals and then the Junior Nationals. I'll remember January the 13th as the day I bought my first punk rock record...I went to buy the Offspring's Smash to listen to before my races, because I knew I wouldn't have a coach there with me, and I needed something to get me going. I really ended up bonding with this band's music because it turned out to be the perfect soundtrack to the rottenness of my experiences with sports politics.
At the Junior Nationals, though I didn't come close to making the Junior World Team, I did make Category One, which isn't bad on only 3 weeks of ice time.
When I got back to Salt Lake, my host family and other young skaters' families were pretty upset about things that had taken place that season. It seems that back in October, Stan had also left their developmental club high and dry. These parents had been involved in the sport for a couple of months at the most, and suddenly, they were left to run the speedskating club on their own because the coach simply stopped showing up and returning their phone calls.
The parents planned to write letters to US Speedskating, telling them what had happened (our coach left us and our facility never opened). They invited me to also contribute a letter that stated what happened with Stan's elite group. I was the only one on my team who wrote a letter.
All I said was basically this: "Our coach abandoned our group after convincing us to move out here, and our facility never opened. I also understand that he was not doing the job that USISA sent him out here to do. As a result, we failed to meet our goals this season as speedskaters." (The only controversial thing I though I mentioned was something about some harassment going on related to a skater's perceived sexual orientation. As it turned out, this involved serious physical beatings of an athlete by a USISA employee, for which they could have suffered major lawsuits.)
All I wanted was to tell the truth and ask for help. My objective in writing this letter was to try to convince the two people overseeing this development program - the USISA president, and the person specifically in charge of the SLC development program - that there were some problems with the SLC development program, and that they should come take a look at the situation for themselves and help us.
So, what happened next? What was the fallout of our letter-writing campaign?
One day I came home from school to find my host mother on the phone with Head Honcho from USISA. When she hung up, I asked her excitedly, "Are they coming??? Are they coming???"
She replied, "No, but you don't want to know what he said about YOU."
"Yes I do," I said, knowing what a small world speedskating is, and knowing that my future in the sport was at stake.
When I finally convinced her to tell me, it was this: He said, "Eva Rodansky is an over-emotional no-talent looking for someone to blame for her own failures."
When I heard that, I knew it was over. I knew I'd be discussed in meetings, and my name would be irreparably smeared throughout the sport.
----
In the following years, I discovered that I was right in believing this would come to pass. Nearly 3 years later, after keeping myself out of the world of speedskating, I attempted to skate some Saturday time trials in Milwaukee, and was practically run out of town when they found out what my name was. "Oh, it's YOU!!" said the guy running the time trials, when I told him my name.
In subsequent encounters with other skaters, especially once I came back to the sport in 2001, I found out that in fact my name had come up in meetings, both in US Speedskating and locally in Utah, as a trouble-maker. One US skater, when he finally met me, said, "So, YOU're the infamous Rodansky!!!"
By the way, I'd just like to mention that all the people who mistreated me upon hearing terrible lies about me have been forgiven 100 percent. Stan, I forgive you, too. I believe you tried your best despite a bad situation, and I know you believed in my potential as an athlete, which is more than I can say for some other coaches I have worked with in this sport.
The only person I have yet to find it in my heart to forgive is the person who took my plea for help and turned it against me. About a year after I wrote my letter, the problems in Salt Lake got so bad that he finally had to acknowledge that USISA had to intervene. By that time, however, the damage to my speedskating career had been done.
Because the environment within the sport became so hostile towards me, I missed out on training for speedskating between the ages of 18 and 24. I spent these years as an angry and depressed science student.
----
Can you imagine what it must have been like for me to pick up the Time Magazine article about the Salt Lake Olympic Bid Scandal as I went grocery shopping with my mom one day in..I think it was...1998? Picture this: I'm running to the restroom to throw up because I just found out that back in 1994, some old men probably sat down in a meeting and decided that rather than getting generators for the speedskating oval, they had better put their money to use by hiring the Snow White Escort girls for the I.O.C.
"The truth about the world is that crime does pay."
----
To this day, the greatest experience of my life remains my performance in the 3000 meters at the 2001 Fall World Cup trials, where, only 9 months into my comeback after a 6-year absence from the sport, I obliterated the rest of the field by a margin of 6 seconds. I am not ashamed to admit that that race, and all the preparation that went into it, was fueled entirely by hatred and vengeance.
As for the consequences of this journal entry, let them come. Especially with regards to recent developments, I do not believe that US Speedskating has the best interest of its athletes in mind, anyways.
Besides, if they want to continue maintaining the image of speedskating as a "pure and uncomplicated sport", in which all athletes have an equal chance, then they HAVE TO allow me to continue to participate.
Bring it on.
posted by Eva at 10:15 AM
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