Chinese Democracy: The American Speedskating System's Interpretation of the Free World

Why is it, that in the world of American speedskating, we get these people who grab power and then try to prevent others from coming up? They seem to think like this: "If you aren't with us, then you are our enemy."

The conflict between the new High 5 Speedskating Team and the administration of the Utah Olympic Oval provides the perfect platform for a discussion of the culture that has developed within this sport in America. In setting up our team, all we wanted was a chance to train how we want to train, under fair and equitable conditions. But, we have encountered unexpected resistance in the form of unfair fees and discrimination. The economic practices of the Oval/UAF in subsidizing their own in-house program, while imposing excessively high fees on other teams, is unfair and may be in violation of one of the Utah state business statutes.


It's funny how, in this country, which is supposed to be based on freedom and opportunity, we run speedskating like an autocratic system where people with seemingly arbitrarily designated power try to keep everyone else down. It has been that way with US Speedskating/USISA for decades, and now this attitude seems to have infected the Utah Olympic Oval. For example, our team has been told that we have to yield the running track, weight room, and ice lanes to all other users. We will also be subjected to High Performance ice time qualifications which will not apply to USS and FAST teams. These are unprecedented examples of discrimination. What's next? Will High 5 team members be asked to yield bathroom stalls to FAST and USS athletes? Will they start locking down the Oval when the National Team trains, as they do in China?

Maintaining the monopoly of the FAST Program through an unfair elimination of the competition is an example of the "fear of ability" operating on a team scale. If the coaches feel they need to try to force other teams out of existence, what kind of message does this send to their own athletes about the faith they have in their own training program?

I would like to know how the Oval's current attitude towards new teams is consistent with their mission statement, which includes points about "striving for excellence" and "promoting the sport of speedskating in Salt Lake City." How do discriminatory policies towards other teams help in striving for excellence and promoting the sport?

Let us not forget that almost all of the coaches and athletes of the High 5 team had, at one time or another, tried to find a niche within the Oval's existing in-house program. Think of the coach with two Master's degrees and 30 years of experience, who applied for a position and was rejected without even a chance to be interviewed. Remember the coach/athlete who asked to implement certain types of training which he felt were important in the development of sprinting and power? His suggestions were ignored.

Consider the athlete (myself) who kept pushing the former Athlete Services representative to find sponsors for the FAST program, along with ways we could advertise for the sponsors, like having team training and racing suits with sponsor logos. For this, I was reprimanded for hurting that employee's feelings and accusing her of not doing her job.

And, finally, think of the athlete who was told by his coach, "You don't have what it takes to make the Olympic qualification times." (Oh, but by the way, we're happy to take your money.) We didn't exactly have to hold a gun to his head to persuade him to train with our team.

The bottom line is that THERE IS A DEMAND FOR THE HIGH 5 SPEEDSKATING TEAM. A strong group of athletes has already committed to this team, and our two coaches want this opportunity to share their expertise. Fair and equitable access to the Utah Olympic Oval is all that we require.

When we saw that the FAST Program could not meet our needs, we started our own team. We hope that the speedskating community will see that OUR GOAL IS NOT TO DESTROY THEIR PROGRAMS. We are confident enough in our program to wish to compete on a level playing field with all of our fellow speedskaters.

My Truth is Stranger Than His Fiction: Mitch Albom and the Sports Writers of Detroit


While I was talking to one of my skating friends back home, he mentioned that Mitch Albom, a well-known sports columnist from the Detroit Free Press, had been given a mandatory 6-week "vacation" for fabricating (or at least elaborating on) some of his stories. The initial tip-off was a story he did on Michigan State in the Final 4 of the NCAA basketball tournament, when he said that Magic Johnson and other celebrities were sitting in the stands, watching the teams of their alma maters play. Upon further investigation, it was found that he had stretched the truth in quite a few of his other articles.

My family has always liked the writing of Mitch Albom, because he often brings a different perspective to the typical sports story. But I found it especially funny that Mitch felt he had to stretch the truth in some of the articles he has been writing recently. I find it hilarious that he seems to have run out of good, true stories to tell.

"Why is that?" you may ask. It is because last year, at about this time, I sent an email to Mr. Albom informing him that his hometown has an Olympic speedskating hopeful. There was no reply.

Now, I know that Mitch Albom must be a very busy man, between all of the sports column writing and all of the fiction writing. And now, apparently, the author of "The 5 People You Meet in Heaven" has begun to get his facts and fiction mixed up. I'm sure he had way too many things on his mind to deal with some girl who does an obscure European sport and happens to be from his hometown. In fact, there must have been so many GREAT stories bouncing around the bloated worlds of pro and collegiate sports that he couldn't decide which one to tell first! There must have been so many interesting stories to tell...that...uh.....he even had to start making stuff up!

For an aspiring Olympian, the hometown sports writer is a vital link to the community. By writing about local athletes who have a shot at making the Olympic team, the Olympic sports writer is not only promoting the athlete, but also making the community more interested in the Games themselves. It is a lot more fun to watch the Olympics when you know that the person you see competing on your TV is someone from your own hometown.

I think the best thing an Olympic sports writer can do is to help bring attention to an athlete whose financial situation is the main obstacle in his or her way. (Remember that gymnast named Mohini, who was surviving on Power Bars until Pamela Anderson read an article about her and donated some money for her training?) If this is done properly, a connection can be made between the athlete and a potential sponsor. Everybody wins in this case, because by helping the athlete make it to the Olympics, the sponsoring company (or individual) and the community feel more connected to the athlete's achievement and to the entire Olympic experience.


By the time I had completed two seasons on the World Cup circuit, my former coach from the West Michigan Speedskating Club, Mark Jastrzembski, thought I deserved some exposure from the Detroit media. Getting some publicity would be great, because if I could attract a sponsor, I could stop working until after the Olympics and focus on skating.

Mark emailed someone at the Detroit Free Press, letting them know that the Detroit metro area had a speedskater who had competed in World Cup events and had a shot at making the next Olympic team. The story was picked up by one of their Olympic sports writers, who gave me a call after I had come back from Europe.

After covering most of the typical aspects of my skating career, I pushed the interview in the direction of my financial challenges, and from the writer's responses, it seemed like I was really getting my point across. She said she had worked with several Olympians before, and she knew how hard it was for them to make ends meet. I repeated again and again that the most helpful thing she could do for me would be, in the article she would write about me, to get across the idea that even though I loved working in science, I really wanted to focus 100% on speedskating until the Olympics and put my research on hold temporarily. She told me she would do this, and that she would be sure to include my email address in the article as contact information for potential sponsors.

I was puzzled when I didn't hear from anyone. At my parents' house two months later, I happened to see what the article actually said. Basically, it was a cute story about some science geek who had participated in some international speedskating races. The last line said this: "Eva's growing list of fans can contact her at: (the email address I was using at the time)."

No wonder I didn't hear from anyone! Who would possibly be inspired to do anything, by an article such as this, other than to turn the page? Read between the lines, and it sounded something like this: "Yeah, she's just another one of those suburban, high-achieving, jack-of-all-trades types. She'll never make it -- we better focus on the REAL Olympians."

The apathy gets worse. Before that same visit to my parents, I had called this Olympic sports writer to let her know I'd be in town and to invite her to get together. During the 10 days I'd be in the Detroit area, she couldn't find 30 minutes to meet one of her hometown Olympic hopefuls for coffee, because her "5th grader was going to be graduating from elementary school." It made me wonder how I ever managed to balance cancer research with training for the Olympics. Must be nice to have developed such a low tolerance for stress.

The following year, I decided to give her another chance, so I let her know when my 10K turned out to be the world's best of the season. There was no response. A couple months later, I asked her to forward a message to one of the writers who deals with the Detroit Red Wings, to let them know that I was interested in coaching power skating for their kids' hockey camps. Once again, there was no response.

Just as I was beginning to think she had fallen off the edge of the earth, I saw an article that she had written about next year's potential Olympians. The article mentioned KC Boutiette, Chad Hedrick, Shani Davis, and others. Of course, there was no mention of Hometown Girl Eva, despite the fact that even USA Today managed to pick up on the fact that I won the B Group 1000 meters in Heerenveen.

This coming season, there is an excellent chance that I will make the Olympic team, despite the fact that I have not received any support from my so-called "hometown." I have laid my whole self on the line for this goal. I will drain my savings down to zero. I haven't worked a real job for almost a year now. Sharpening rental skates does not count. The time for compromising is over.

And, if I do make the team for Torino, do you suppose I will even grant that Detroit sports writer an interview? No way. Through every interaction she avoided having with me, she showed her apathy and her belief that I wasn't a true contender. This makes it so much easier to say, "You weren't there when I needed you. BLOW!!!"

So, it happened that after I recovered from my bad experience with that particular sports writer, someone encouraged me to try contacting another local writer, which is how I eventually ended up emailing Mitch Albom. But, apparently, my story wasn't interesting enough, so I was right back where I started.

---

I'm not sure I'm sorry that the story of my speedskating career never truly got picked up by the Detroit media. After all, would a sports writer who was concerned about his or her reputation be willing to take on all of the controversy of my story and do it justice? I think not.

In the end, the person who is in the best position to convey my story is me. Having dragged myself to the point where the finish line is in sight, I no longer really need to be concerned with attracting sponsorships. I don't need to make money from speedskating, because a real career in science is waiting for me. I also don't need to make money from my writing. I'm not scared of getting fired for writing something controversial. With no fear for my livelihood or my image, I am free to tell the whole story.

And maybe someday, if Mitch Albom repents from his little white lies and finds that he has totally run out of material, then he can take on the unembellished, Incredibly True Story of "Lightning Rod" Rodansky.

(Don't laugh...all superheroes wear spandex!)

Survival Tips for Young Athletes, and Thanks to All My Readers:

First of all, I'd like to say "thanks" to all fans of The Protocol for all of your comments. I have to say that I don't actually read the comments on my blog, because I want my writing to be as unaffected as if I were writing in my own journal. I'm working on a post right now about successful sports writers that might explain my point of view on this a little more - it is about what can happen when sports writers become too concerned about what other people think (I just got back from Detroit; the post will be about a certain sports writer from the Detroit Free Press; and that's all I'll say about that right now.)

Anyways, the best comments usually get back to me via my coach or teammates. The other day, Boris let me know that a young lady had posted a comment that she reads my blog and wants to be like me when she grows up! You know, I think this is one of the nicest compliments anyone can get. Thanks for following The Protocol, and I hope that, if you really want to be like me when you grow up, it will be without all the bad stuff that happened in between. That is what I hope to work towards: to help make sports a better, healthier, and more fun experience for the next generation of athletes.

That is why I came up with the idea of making a post with some of my suggestions for young athletes. Though I write a lot about how messed up I think the sports system is, I'm not trying to say, "Don't be a speedskater," or, "Don't be an athlete." Just be aware of the problems so that you can make informed decisions and take control of your own sports career.

First of all, let's talk about one of the most important aspects of your career as an athlete: Your coach. Your coach should both know what he or she is doing, and also believe in your potential and ability. The coach-athlete relationship is especially important for a developing athlete, who needs to take advantage of the coach's knowledge and experience in order to improve technique and become stronger.

One thing to keep in mind when choosing a coach or training group is never to put yourself in a position where you are dependent on people who would keep you down, or otherwise don't have your best interests in mind. For example, you may qualify for free training with a particular program, but if you think another coach would help you more, then you'll want to be in a position to work with that person, even if you have to pay. From my experience, if you really want to be a great athlete, this is worth the cost.

Of course, coaches are human and make mistakes sometimes. You can return to a coach who admits his errors and promises to make changes to improve the program, but never return to a coach who has shown that he doesn't care. Sounds obvious? You'd be surprised how many people I've seen make that mistake.


Besides finding a great coach, your other main concern will be to find a way to pay for your training. When I was coming up in speedskating, I believed, as most Americans believe, that all athletes who represent this country in international competition live in Olympic Training Centers and get all their meals for free. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, the USOC will not take care of you at the time when you need their support the most - which is when you've first qualified for international competition and are beginning to climb in the rankings.

Let's use me as an example: The only USOC benefit I'm getting, as a member of the "Theoretical Olympic Team," is elite athlete health insurance. Our stipends were completely cut out two seasons ago. In order to see a penny from the USOC, I'd have to finish Top 8 in the overall World Cup rankings, or finish in the Top 8 at the World Single Distance championships! To do this, I'd have to be consistently beating a good number of fully-funded professional or government-funded speedskaters from other countries, while I was basically participating in this sport on a "hobby" level because I had to work so many hours to support myself.

No one will tell you this straight up, but rich parents, individual wealthy benefactors, and corporate sponsorships are integral parts of the American amateur sports system. So, if your parents either can't or don't want to help you out, you should think about how you are going to market yourself to potential sponsors.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons why it is so hard to market yourself to sponsors is that most companies think that American athletes are already taken care of. Once this misconception is blown away, it should be a lot easier to convince companies that athletes need them and can be a good investment.


One last bit of advice to young athletes is to learn everything you can about different aspects of your sport, such as the biochemistry of how your body responds to different kinds of training; nutrition - what kinds of foods to eat and when to eat them in order to help you train and recover your best; and how to set up and care for your equipment. Look for this information either in books or online, or just ask someone who is an expert in one of these areas. Of course, reading about the experiences of other athletes is always helpful. By reading this blog, you are already one step ahead of the competition! I hope you can avoid some of the mistakes I have made.

The Therapeutic Effect of Mastering Your Sport:

It was the America's Cup Final competition of February 2004, and I was topping off 5 straight weekends of awesome racing that were my reward for digging myself out of the hole of overtraining. Over the past month, I had figured out the proper strategy and skating efficiency for the 1000 meters -a race I rarely had the opportunity to skate- at a couple of outdoor events in Italy. My times in those outdoor races had unexpectedly approached my all-time personal best. As I came to the starting line of my America's Cup 1000 meters, I was excited to try this race on the super-fast Salt Lake City ice.

The race went like a dream, and I came through the finish line carrying a ton of speed and barely feeling the effort. Still, looking up at the leader board for my result, I was stunned to see 1:18.53. This time was 3.3 seconds faster than I had ever gone.

Then, when I coasted around to the backstretch, I saw him: The Mean Old Man from Minnesota, who had brought several of his skaters to Salt Lake City for the competition. In a posture that seemed greatly exaggerated, he had his nose buried so deeply in the pairs sheet that he didn't even look up when other skaters glided past him on the warmup lane. Could it be that he had really forgotten which of his young skaters was coming up in the next race, or was he just trying as hard as he could to block some unsavory sight from his field of vision?

Looking up again at the leader board, which was now to our immediate right, I saw my name next to the Time To Beat - and what a time it was! It was a faster time than a couple of the American women who were away in Europe at World Cups had skated all season.

I began to laugh as I coasted by the man from Minnesota, and I joked to myself, "How's that for no-talent, old man?"

You know the feeling you get when you're watching CNN, and you see an elderly former S.S. officer led across the screen in handcuffs after a raid on his newly discovered hideout in Argentina? It's a sort of stab of pity (which, for me, lasted exactly 0.26 second) followed by a slow, calming sense that all is right with the world and he will finally get what he deserves? That is the feeling I got as I watched Bill Cushman attempt to erase the fact that Eva Rodansky is a good speedskater.

The revenge that is possible in metric speedskating is truly the vengeance of the civilized technological world. The leader board would light up with my results for all to see, contradicting the hypothesis that I was a no-talent. All I needed in order to make my point and to keep banging them over the head with the club of regret was to keep coming back and keep skating fast. I would make them see that the things that can be done to an insecure 17-year-old whose parents don't want her to be a speedskater can no longer be done to an adult in her late 20's who knows she is right.

I thanked God for letting me live long enough to see how weak my enemies really are -- to find that their last remaining power over me was to pretend that the fast race I just skated never really happened.

---

Achieving control over one's sports performance is important not only in terms of defying the low expectations of others, but also in building one's own self-confidence. For someone who has struggled with the demons of self-loathing as I did in college, finding success in speedskating has been critical. My mom used to try to convince me of the futility of my pursuit by saying, "Even if you win one gold medal, it won't be enough for you. You will always want more." I'm so glad I came back to skating in order to prove to myself that this is not the case.

My accomplishments in speedskating have made me a stronger person and have improved my outlook on the world and life in general. Though I wasn't the World's Best Women's 10K skater this season, I was the previous season, and that can never be taken from me. Though I don't currently hold the American Record in the women's 10K, there were 5 days when I did, and that will always remain with me in some way. I've competed internationally on the world cup circuit, and I've been on the podium in the B Group 4 times.

All these achievements are so much sweeter to me because they were unthinkable to the suicidal grad student that was me about 5-6 years ago. They are the bricks from which I have built a strong foundation of self-confidence, and they are the reason why I can now look at pictures of myself from the time when I was at my weakest without fear that I will slip back into the person I was then. I am WINNING the race against myself.

---

Throughout my comeback, I have also learned a little about the language of sports politics. In this world where "A" does not equal "A", "No-Talent" equals "Threat." I am honored that Cushman Senior considered me a threat to the 2002 Olympic Team chances of his Minnesota girls and that, in labeling me a no-talent troublemaker in front of the entire speedskating federation, it was his intention to plow the road for them.


One of the most helpful things for me has been to hear the opinions of a few world-class speedskating coaches on my potential in this sport. In recent years, I have had the privilege of hearing that Boris Vasilkovsky, Kostya Poltoviets (sp?) and Peter Mueller all think that I have the ability to make it to the top. Knowing this makes me wonder why I was ever foolish enough to pay any attention to the words of some club coach from Minnesota.

Damaged on the Inside, Ugly on the Outside.


Looking through the old photo albums at my parents' house never fails to remind me of the days of my exile from the sport of speedskating. One picture in particular stands out. It was taken on the back porch of our old house in Mason City, Iowa, in the summer of '96, following my escape from the loathsome Iowa State University.

There I was, a look in my eye that dared Mom to take that picture; thighs like huge, shapeless potato sacks; a "smile" that was no more than the grim setting of the corners of my mouth against the unwelcome encroachment of a bulimic's chipmunk-chubby cheeks. It is only now, when I look back from my current perspective as a healthy, happy elite athlete, that I realize how truly sick I was back then.

Throughout the year of the Kearns Dirt Oval season, which was also my senior year of high school, my family was living in Iowa, while I lived and trained in Salt Lake City. If all had gone well with speedskating, I would have stayed in Salt Lake City, attended the University of Utah, and continued my training. Since I was no longer able to speedskate after USISA decided to label me a "troublemaker" (for asking them for help when my coach left and construction on the oval was being severely delayed), and I had made no other college plans, I sort of ended up at Iowa State by default -- so that we could pay in-state tuition.

Though I was sad to end my skating career, I still had a glimmer of hope that I could have fun in college. After all, I was always a good student, and I looked forward to hanging out with other smart kids. For this reason, and in the hopes of avoiding too much of the typical all-night college drinking binges, I chose to stay in the honors dorm. Maybe I'd stay up all night with my new friends, talking about the meaning of life! Isn't that what you do in college?

I soon found out that this would not be the case. Even the honors dorm turned out to be like one giant high school sleepover. Every Thursday evening, the girls would gather in the lounge to watch "Friends."

Since I had loved playing in my high school orchestra, I decided to join the University Symphony. One guy from my dorm thought it was pretty cool that I was walking around campus with a cello, and he invited me to come and hang out with his group of friends. But another time he was passing by my room and happened to see my collection of Southern California punk rock CD's. He picked up Pennywise's "About Time," flipped it over a couple of times, and said, "I can't believe you listen to this crap!" He walked out and never spoke to me again.

Though I had always been a good student, my depression over no longer being able to be a speedskater, combined with my disillusionment with college life, began to make it very difficult for me to study. I remember re-reading the same paragraph 6 times and still not being able to make any sense of it. I had very ambitiously signed up for 18 credit hours my first semester, but found myself having to drop out of my calculus-based physics course.

By second semester, I told my advisor I was "too dumb for college" - literally, in those words. I told her I planned to drop out and become a truck driver.

My brother, who was a senior in high school up in Mason City, had piano lessons in Des Moines every Sunday, and Mom would always stop by ISU along the way to pick me up for a little reprieve. Every time she had to drop me off afterwards, she said it was "like I'm returning you to prison."

One time, in February, I tried to run away. It was probably about 10 degrees outside, with 5-6 inches of snow on the ground, and my parents' home in Mason City was about 120 miles away. I walked out to the I-35 freeway, but my fingers had started to freeze, so I turned around, walked back to my dorm room, and got into bed. I slept for 48 hours straight, until it became physiologically impossible for me to keep my eyes closed any longer. Finally I gave up, and resumed attending classes.

After surviving a year at Iowa State, I decided to move to the Detroit area with my parents in the fall of 1996. Taking a semester off, I worked as a cashier in a local supermarket in order to convince myself that I really wanted to finish school. Then, I enrolled at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in January of 1997.

My eventual academic success at UMD only provides further evidence that my early college years were wrecked primarily due to the effects of the unfortunate ending of my speedskating career. By my senior year, I was maintaining a course load of 18 credit hours, 2 part-time jobs, and an independent research project in plant genetics. I was also the president of the school's chapters of Amnesty International and the Biological Honor Society, and had pulled my grade point average up to 3.96. I graduated as the top student in my major of microbiology, and was accepted into graduate school. Finally, after a great deal of unnecessary extra struggling, I was at least living up to my academic potential.

It sure looks good on paper, doesn't it? Finally, I had learned to study successfully through my depression, but I was still plagued by other problems that stemmed from an inability to cope with the way my speedskating career had ended. One of the worst was my exercise-bulimia.

A bulimic can consume vast quantities of food while on a binge, and then uses various methods of "purging" the food out of her system. My favorite method of purging was to immediately go on a very long, very hard run until, one way or another, all the food I had just eaten would get cleared out. When the "fullness sensor" switches off, it is not unheard-of for a bulimic to eat 10,000 to 30,000 calories in one sitting! I was once just a few pieces short of inhaling an entire 2-pound bag of peanut M&M's.

The story of how I eventually cured myself of this problem is kind of funny, and I still can't fully explain how it worked. The idea came to me during the time when the problem was at its worst, and I would go on a binge about once a week. I got so tired of the feeling of being so full I was afraid my stomach would burst, and then the stomach ache that would last for days after I ran it all out of my system. I wondered if all it would take for me to give up this cycle forever would be to make it just a little bit MORE painful for myself....just one time...

My own personal cure for exercise-bulimia had a soundtrack, and this was a Lunachicks song called, "The Day Squid's Gerbil Died." This song brought up just the combination of futility and annoyance that I was looking for, so I filled one 45-minute side of a cassette tape with this song, repeated over and over again. Once I had The Song, I then located The Hill. It was a little pimple of a sledding hill, visible from I-75 just south of West Rd. in Woodhaven, and it took about 20 seconds at the most to run up it the long way.

By the next time I had stuffed myself with all the junk food within reach, I was prepared. Driving to the park with my Walkman, I vowed to run up and down that hill as hard as I could, listening to "The Day Squid's Gerbil Died" until the tape ran out:

"The day Squid's gerbil died,
Oh my god, how she cried..."

(Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.)

"...came in from playing one day
and he was dead on location..."

(15 minutes...Urp! Whoops... a Ramen Noodle just came flying out of my nose. I spat, and kept right on going.)

"...Dad gerbil bit their heads off,
Squid came too late to pull him off..."

...and so on, and so on, and so on, until the tape finallly ended.

Believe it or not, it worked. I never binged and purged again.

---

I guess the most extreme self-abusive thing I used to do during my college years was cutting up my arms and legs with razor blades and safety pins. Judge me if you want, but you'll never understand what I've been through until you've done finger paintings in your own blood on your bedroom walls.

---

The things I went through after my first "retirement" are not unusual. I'm sure that after those USISA/Minnesota Mafia officials ended my career through the lies they spread about me, they probably expected no less...that the girl would crawl away and hide somewhere and begin living the life of a typical self-abusing college student. What none of them ever counted on was that, eventually, I'd be strong enough to come back.


And now, sitting here at my parents' house, looking through those old photo albums after the most successful speedskating season of my entire life, I'm adding a new caption to that most hideous snapshot of my Blackball Days. It reads:

YESTERDAY CRIES, TOMORROW LAUGHS.
AND THE JOKE IS ON YOU, US SPEEDSKATING.

A Blogger's Indecision:

Whenever I come to visit my parents, I lose a little bit of my Blogging courage. This is a shame because these visits also tend to inspire some pretty good writing. A couple of days ago I finished a piece that is sitting in my Draft folder right now, waiting to be posted.

In previous posts, I've covered the events leading up to my being blackballed from speedskating back in 1995. I have even mentioned that the years following my banishment from the sport were the worst years of my life. But what I haven't talked about is what actually went on during those years of exile. I want to share this story, but at the same time, I hesitate.

I'm reluctant to tell this story because admitting just how bad things got for me is a little bit embarrassing. I also hesitate because my parents are such private people, and Mom has already mentioned that she wished I were recording this in some notebook that sits in my room, rather than sharing it with the whole world on the internet.

On the other hand, I feel that this is an important part of my story, and it should be told. During my most difficult days, I was inspired by someone's words, and these words helped me to figure out my own life. Carl Cepuran, who encourages me to keep on writing, believes that my writing can be this kind of inspiration to someone else.

I guess the people I'm trying to reach are those who have been the collateral damage of the Olympic dream; the kids who have been chewed up and spat out by the American sports machine as it grinds on and on in search of the next cute Olympic Disney-movie fairy tale.

So, in the interest of what I believe to be the greater good, I will swallow my embarrassment and family pride, and at some point within the next couple of days, I will post the story of my Blackball Days. It's coming up next, guaranteed.

NGB Favoritism and Team Selection

I have replaced the post that was here out of respect for an athlete whose story had a lot in common with mine, but I would hate for anything I have written to stand in this person's way.  The post has served its purpose, and I know I'm not alone in what I've experienced. 

Road Tripping for Dummies: Don't let it affect your training!

I just got back to my parents' place in the Downriver suburbs of Detroit, following a whirlwind tour of Chicago and Muskegon with my brother Mark. We had a lot of fun, and crammed a lot of visits into a few short days, but apparently I've pushed myself a little too hard in the last few days because my immune system is starting to break down. Fortunately, I'm able to recognize this feeling earlier than in previous seasons, and can make myself take the rest that I need in order to turn the situation around.

After three days of waking up with a sore throat and elevated heart rate, I decided to take a couple of days off from training. Yesterday was my first day off, and I already feel better today, but I won't resume training until tomorrow, just to be sure.

Though Mark and I had to cram a lot of traveling into a couple of days, it didn't have to affect me as much as it did, and I know exactly where I went wrong in my planning. It all came down to straying from my ideal energy balance by not eating frequently enough. I didn't want to eat Power Bars on the drive to Chicago, because I was kind of sick of them, but I also refused to take any extra time to get food along the way.

By the time I had picked up my brother in downtown Chicago, drove to his neighborhood on the north side, found parking (what a nightmare!!) and we sat down to dinner, it was 10 PM and my stomach was cramping with hunger. Of course, I then proceeded to stuff myself so full that I couldn't sleep all night, and the exhaustion just snowballed from there. I could kick myself for being so stupid.

Still, I'm glad we got the chance to visit some people and places we haven't seen for a while. After an early dinner with our aunt and uncle in Highland Park on Saturday, we looped back around the southern end of Lake Michigan and headed up the coast to Muskegon, where we had lived from 1985 to 1993. It was in Muskegon that I had started speedskating with the West Michigan Speedskating Club in 1988.

We arrived in Muskegon by midnight and crashed in a hotel by the airport. The next morning, we drove out to Lake Harbor Park for a run on the beach. We ran along the shore of the lake, and through the wooded trails that used to lead right up to the backyard of our old house. Though the current owners wouldn't be able to go all the way through the woods to the beach because of new construction, it was still a beautiful place to live. As I thought of my parents' current home, located right off the freeway and under the high power lines in a not-very-special suburb of Detroit, I found myself wishing that Muskegon was still home.

We spent the rest of the morning driving around the town, visiting our old haunts and taking pictures. We even went to my old high school, Mona Shores, "Home of the Sailors", where I had spent two years- the longest time I had been at any of the 4 high schools I had attended.

In the afternoon, we visited with my 6th-grade social studies teacher, Joan Majeski, who has been following my speedskating career ever since she had me as a student. Then, we had dinner downtown with Mark Jastrzembski and Tom Cole of the West Michigan Speedskating Club. Mark was the one who initiated the formation of our speedskating club in 1988, and I was one of the original 6 members. Tom is a nationally competitive Masters skater in both short and long track, and he is planning to stay at my house in Utah this summer to do some hard-core training on the Utah Olympic Oval.

My brother and I got back to Detroit Sunday night, and after that he only had a day and a half to recover before having to fly back to Chicago. He had to be back at work by Wednesday morning. I returned to my hard training right away, but that didn't turn out to be such a good idea. Hopefully, I'll be ready to go again by tomorrow.

Have Fun in Torino!

This morning, all those skaters who signed on for a season with one of the US National training groups are leaving for a training camp in the Olympic host city of Torino, Italy.

I am so sorry that I will miss the presentation on, "THIS IS WHERE YOU BOARD THE SHUTTLE BUS THAT WILL TAKE YOU TO THE SPEEDSKATING OVAL."

This trip, taken on the dime of US Speedskating, was a sort of reward for those peope who decided to train with a USS program. But the main reason why I chose to sign on for another year with Boris Leikin and the High 5 crew instead is because I want a trip to Torino...


...next February.

All Aboard the Lightning Rod Express!

Can I just mention how much it means to me to feel like I have the full support of my parents (for my speedskating) for the first time ever? I don't mean financially...I mean that I finally feel accepted! I feel that it is OK for me to be an athlete right now.

I'm visiting my Mom and Dad in Woodhaven, Michigan, for a couple of weeks. I always come out here at this time of year because the training I'm doing right now is not too specific and I can do it anywhere. Also, Mom and Dad could use my help getting their yard ready for the summer.

Usually, when I'm on this annual excursion, I feel like I'm "doing my time" so that I can be free to play around for the rest of the year, but this time it is so much better. Why are things so different now?

-----

I've always known there were several reasons why Mom would have preferred that I not pursue speedskating seriously. Mom introduced me and my brother Mark to many different activities when we were younger, and, by the time we were in our mid-teens, there was a sort of "hierarchy of activities" in which sports were on the bottom. So, from a very early time, it seemed that the first people I had to fight for the right to skate were my own parents.

I know that all Mom wanted for me was that I be healthy and happy, and from this perspective, she probably didn't see elite sports as the best thing for me to do. Back in Poland, she and my aunt Maria both participated in track and field, and Mom watched as her sister's track career was ended abruptly after two clubs fought over her. I'll bet that Mom also wondered whether it would be possible for me to reach the top of any sport without using drugs. Also, speedskating was the one thing that beat me down the most when I was young. Mom used to hide my old race videos and training journals so that I wouldn't obsess over my failures. (Just this year, she finally dug out my Dirt Oval Season training log and left it in my room for me to look at!)

Mom used to tell me that I probably didn't have the genetic make-up or the mental toughness to make it on the elite level, in an attempt to make my transition from speedskating to real life a little easier, but it didn't work. She used to ask me why, if I was doing something that I loved, was I so miserable? There was a very simple explanation for that: TRYING HARD AND FAILING.

But now that I am finally climbing the ladder of world rankings in this sport and have an excellent chance of making the 2006 Olympic Team, I have proven that I am able to control my speedskating career under the right conditions, that I can reach a high level without the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and that I really do enjoy this sport when things are going well.

I've always hoped that if my skating really started to take off, then my parents would just enjoy watching the process. Luckily for me, this seems to be the case.

----

This weekend, I'm driving out to Chicago to pick up my brother. (Mark is the architect for a high-end residential interior design firm, and he works out all of their technical details. He has a real job!!!) Together, we will drive through Muskegon, Michigan, to visit some of my old friends from the West Michigan Speedskating Club. I haven't seen most of these people for years! I can't wait to share some of my stories with them, and to hear about what's new in West Michigan. The greatest thing for me about being an Olympic hopeful is to share the experience with my friends all over the world.


I'm here to stay; I'm skating well; so let's make the best of it! Sit down, hang on, and enjoy the ride.

Sneaking Into the Buffet Line: "What does this remind me of?"

Last Saturday afternoon I went to the Golden Corral restaurant to meet 3 of my team members for lunch. Lyle MacDonald and I (the Team High 5 science geeks) had planned to share notes on a nutrition seminar that we are preparing to give to our team.

I paid, told the cashier I was meeting some friends who had already arrived, and walked into the restaurant to find them. Along the way, I was stopped by one of the hosts, who asked me, "Did she ring you up already?" I said yes, and mumbled something about finding my friends who had already been seated. Suddenly I realized he was accusing me of trying to get into the buffet without paying! I glared at him, dug into my pocket for the receipt, and flung it down on my tray.

I guess my hands were shaking pretty badly because as soon as I found Rex, Lyle, and Caleb and tried to set the tray down on the table, I promptly dumped my entire glass of water across the table and onto Caleb's full plate of food. OK, so I was upset. Enraged. But still, I seemed to be over-reacting. Why, exactly, did I have such a strong reaction to being accused of sneaking into the buffet? I didn't figure it out until the next morning.

My buddy Derek tells me that any time you have a negative reaction that is out of proportion to the precipitating event, then you are being reminded of something that happened to you in the past. So, in order to figure out why you're feeling what you're feeling, you have to ask yourself, "What does this remind me of?"


Last season, after making the Fall World Cup Team, I walked into one of the catered dinners that is offered to the National Team at the Oval a few times a week. I knew that the food is paid for by the USOC (not US Speedskating), and as an athlete who is qualified to represent the USA in international competition, I figured I was entitled to a few crumbs off their massive tablecloth.

"I'm sorry, Eva. You can't eat this food. We have to make sure that nobody who isn't in the National Team program gets any of it," said one of the coaches.

Oh well. I walked home and opened a can of tuna, mixed in some mayo, and threw a sandwich together.

A couple of weeks later, Kip Carpenter - who had watched as I was denied food that day- informed me that he had asked some USOC lawyers about the situation, and they concluded that as a World Cup qualifier, I have a right to that food, even though I choose to train under a program other than the US National Team. But by that point I wouldn't have been able to eat their food anyways. It would have gotten stuck in my throat.

The Protocol's Joke of the Week (Thanks to Boris Leikin)


What is the one thing the former Soviet Union feared more than the entire American nuclear arsenal?


ONE DRUNK POET WHO COULD TELL FUNNY JOKES.

Speaking of Retirement: The Importance of Retiring Well

When you're involved in a sport at the elite level, you start to think of your life in terms of an annual cycle of training and racing. It's easy to start thinking that this routine will go on forever, but, of course, it can't. I have actually been thinking about my retirement from speedskating since the beginning of last season, and here is how that came about.

I had been working in the lab at Salus/Genta for two full seasons, and it was becoming obvious that the hours I had to maintain and the mental stress of working in science was detrimental to my speedskating performance. My mom and I talked about this, and she offered to help me out financially so that I could quit working and focus on skating full-time until the 2006 Olympics. I was very reluctant to accept this. I had tried very hard to support my own skating career so that I could make my own decisions about when to stop skating, and I wasn't sure I'd be ready to be done after 2006.

However, after Genta closed down last July and I was stuck without a job in science that fit my training schedule, I was forced to re-examine my options. It has often happened to me in my skating comeback that I have to look at two options that are quite painful, and have to choose the one that is slightly less so. After a couple of months of deliberation, I chose to accept Mom's help.

Guess what she had to do to help me out? She had to liquidate one of her retirement accounts. That made me feel really great. But she knows that when I'm done skating, I have a very promising career in science waiting for me, and there won't be anything for our family to worry about.


At first, this whole situation made me feel like I was in a "12-step program" designed to cure my addiction to speedskating so that I could get on with my life. "Give the next one and a half seasons your best shot, and then hang 'em up." So, for about a year now, I have been coming to terms with the impending end of my speedskating career.

----

The way in which an elite athlete's career comes to an end is very important. End things on a sour note and you risk having to carry the baggage around for the rest of your life. My first "retirement" left me feeling like my life and destiny were out of my control, and even though I tried very hard to find purpose and enjoyment in other pursuits, I was left with too many bad feelings. I ran away to Southern California for grad school partly to escape all thoughts of winter sport, but you know there's something wrong when you sit there on the beach just staring at the waves because you know you're too depressed to go surfing any more. Speedskating was like a thorn lodged inside of me that I couldn't squeeze out.

I came back to speedskating to tie up loose ends, and to see if I could gain control over the rest of my life by fixing what went wrong on the ice. In the process, I have also been learning about the process of retirement.

----

"I am not what I have already accomplished. I am who I aspire to be."

( -from Andrew Love, loosely quoted before his first cup of coffee)


One of the greatest examples of a good retirement is Dr. Eric Heiden. His 5-gold performance at the 1980 Olympics is arguably the greatest individual sports achievement in history. Now he is a respected orthopedic surgeon at UC-Davis. You'd think if anyone had a right to having a big head, is Dr. Heiden, but he is one of the nicest, most down-to-earth guys you could ever meet.

I met Eric Heiden on my first World Cup trip in November 2001, when he came along as our team doctor. I remember sitting with him at dinner in Innsbruck one night, and we talked about the mechanism of HIV infection of T-cells. That was pretty cool! He also told us some stories from his own days of skating. I always knew that Heiden had trained hard, but in his stories, there wasn't any of that attitude of, "I won because I suffered the most." He seemed to acknowledge and recognize his natural physical giftedness through his humor and humility.

I believe that moving on to other goals in life, as Dr. Heiden has done in the field of medicine, is the best thing an athlete can do. From my perspective as a current US Speedskating athlete, I can see that Dr. Heiden's involvement with our team is representative of his positive experience of retirement from the sport. You can see that he wants to help us in the best way he knows how - and that is by being our team doctor on trips. Unlike some other former skaters, he doesn't feel the need to remain involved in the sport in order to perpetuate his own glory or to use the current generation of champions for some other advantage.

---

Regarding retirement from a sport, there is always this question: Do you have to win, or to reach your highest goal, in order to have a happy ending? Certainly, in speedskating, one couldn't do better than Eric Heiden did in 1980!

But, honestly, how many athletes' careers end well? My friend Anna, who used to be an elite-level long distance swimmer, has a perspective on that. She believes that happy endings in sports are extremely rare, even if an athlete manages to win an Olympic gold medal. She has said to me, "The best way to end an athletic career is to have an aneurysm while you're standing on the podium with your gold medal around your neck!" She cited several examples of very successful swimmers who tried to defend their titles but were thwarted by injuries or were pushed out by younger, up-and-coming athletes. It can't be fun to watch your career go down, if you haven't managed to leave while you're on top.

I'm always inspired by the story of my friend Derek Groves - a former Kearns Dirt Oval teammate of mine. I brag to everyone that Derek is "the most well-adjusted former speedskater I know." Though he didn't even come close to reaching his goals in the sport, he finally realized that his heart wasn't really in it anyways, and now he owns an interior design company and custom furniture gallery right here in downtown Salt Lake City. He loves what he does, and has absolutely no regrets.

---

As I said before, a big part of my comeback to speedskating is about retiring well. It's not just about revenge and proving something to the people who hurt me before, although that certainly is a part of it. It's not just about winning, though being successful would be nice. It's about seeking answers to my questions of why athletes fail or succeed; why they get frustrated and quit; determining the real obstacles along the way. It's about measuring the size of the gap between the image of the Olympics, and my sport in particular, that is portrayed on TV every 4 years, and the reality of our lives as athletes. Maybe I'll have the opportunity to open some eyes along the way, but even if nobody is paying attention, I need to put these questions to rest, for myself. As my friend Anna says, I am in the process of saving my own soul.

The goal is to leave the sport at peace with the effort I put into it, and with the knowledge I have gained. Then, I hope to move on to other aspirations in life, without regrets and without a fear of looking back.

Turn the Page: Is this Good-Bye to my Favorite Band?

(*NOTE: This post was written after I had heard some information that made me believe that the Offspring were going to call it quits. I guess this is one of those occasions where IT'S GREAT TO BE WRONG!!!)

"Pobably the most definitive American cult...the one which best represents freedom, individuality, bravery and innovation is rock and roll. Rock and roll comes closest to defining the American spirit, and those in the forefront of rock and roll are the most visible modern American pioneers. As Greil Marcus points out in Mystery Train, 'what links the greatest rock and roll careers is a volcanic ambition, a lust for more than anyone has a right to expect; in some cases, a refusal to know when to quit or even rest.'"

-from "Endless Winter: An Olympian's Journey" by cross country skier Luke Bodensteiner

---

The other day, while I was listening to X-96 here in Salt Lake City, I heard a very disturbing song. It went like this:

"Yesterday laughs, tomorrow cries.
Turn the page, wipe these eyes..."

It was my favorite band - the Offspring - and this song is going to be on their upcoming Greatest Hits album. Could it be? There's only one reason these guys would put out a Greatest Hits album: The Offspring are going away.

I always dreaded this day, but I knew the time would come when I could no longer wait and hope to hear new material from my favorite band. All good things must come to an end.

You have to understand what this band means to me. Without them, there would certainly have been no Incredible Rodansky Comeback. Hell, I might not have even survived my college years. I've mentioned before that I picked up their album Smash just before going to my last Junior Nationals without a coach. It was the first album I bought for myself.

By the time those two miserable weeks of racing in Minnesota were over, my life took a definite turn for the worse. My sport was wrenched from me by unscrupulous bastards, and I was forced to pick up the pieces of my life and go on to college.

Nobody around me understood what I was going through. Even the people I loved told me things like, "Snap out of it," and, "You're behaving like a spoiled brat," when I had trouble getting over the end of my skating career. I was made to feel like being blackballed from speedskating was my own fault: "If you really cared about your skating career, why did you write that letter?"

"Be a good Catholic girl."

"Turn the other cheek."

"Dedicate your entire life to curing the diseases of a society that has taken everything you love away from you."

Through it all, the Offspring were putting out songs that were always somehow relevant to my struggles, like when the album "Americana" came out, not long after the breaking of the Salt Lake Olympic Bribery Scandal story: Lies, hypocrisy, corruption, failure, disappointment, shattered dreams...Most of the time, during those worst years of my life, I literally had nowhere else to turn.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I came across the February 1995 issue of the Rolling Stone. My favorite guys were on the cover! And there was a long article about the band inside. It was there that I found out that frontman Bryan "Dexter" Holland had been a cross country runner and Valedictorian of his high school class, and was currently on leave of absence from a Ph.D. program in molecular biology at USC. Wow. No wonder his songs made so much sense to me.

And there it was -- Ph.D. candidacy, presented to me as a good kid's last chance to try and do what he loves. By the time you reach Ph.D. candidacy, you're far enough ahead of your cohort to prove that you've been responsible, but you're still not to old...to be a punk rocker; to be an athlete. But still, guilt can nag at a person who leaves biomedical research. "Waste of time, waste of time, waste of time...and while you're playing around, people are suffering and dying of AIDS and cancer...."

But there he was, throwing off society's expected role for him; being the only one in the whole world who could make me believe that my life -- the one I wanted to live--was also worth saving.

I almost got to meet Dexter at a DNA Recombination and Repair meeting held at USC while I was going to City of Hope. That is, my friends from Dr. Bailis's Recombination lab got to go to the meeting, but I was stuck in the tissue culture room setting up a retroviral oxidative mutagenesis assay. "Guess who was at the meeting?" my friends asked. "It should have been you instead of me," said my friend Michelle.

Well I guess that's just the WAY IT GOES. While I can fix a "near-miss" like what happened to me at the 2002 Olympic Trials just by sticking around for another 4 years, there is nothing I can do about the infamous DNA Repair Meeting. You can't "make" a chance like that for yourself. I simply missed out.

There were so many things I wanted to ask him: "Do you ever feel guilty about leaving science? How will you know when it's time to retire from punk? Do you think you'll ever go back to the lab?" It's not like I can just walk into Nitro Records and say, "Hi, Dexter. I missed the DNA Repair Meeting. Wanna go to Del Taco with me?"

But then there is this: "...Yesterday laughs, tomorrow cries..." Could it be that this man, whom I admire so much, looks towards his own future with dread?

It's just a song...just a song. I'll keep telling myself that.

----

This thing I am doing with my own life right now is so uncool-- it's so "Spandex and Metal." But the Olympics are still kind of a big deal, especially for a former Bribery Scandal Victim and biology student. Wherever I go, there I am...the world's biggest Offspring fan!

Thanks for all the songs. Thanks for saving my life. Thanks for making my world a better place. And for what it's worth, from one scientist to another, it wasn't a waste of time.

Slushy Chunks: "Them's the Rules, Sucker!!!"

Coach: "I'm sorry, you didn't make the team after all. I guess we didn't read the rules carefully enough."

Skater: "But I won my class at the Nationals! Isn't that what I was supposed to do?"

Coach: "No, look. It's right here in the 136th issue of Slushy Chunks, Page 5, fine print: 'Any skater under the age of 18 and 7/8ths, who skates faster than 1:39 in the 1000 meter time trial, held at midnight on the night of a full moon, with her underwear over her helmet, qualifies for Category One Status.'"

Skater: "I thought it said to wear the underwear over the skinsuit!!! Besides, what does any of this have to do with my ability to compete in short track speed skating?"

Coach: "Tough luck. Maybe you'll be more careful next time. All MY skaters knew what they had to do. Besides, aren't you 18 and 15/16ths years old already?"

-----

Here's a sad story from the world of Short Track that I wish could have turned out differently, but I don't know how it could have. Lindsay Appuglise barely missed qualifying for the Top 16, who go on to compete for World Cup and Category One spots. So, she went on to skate the Intermediate category of the age-group Nationals, believing that if she won that group, she had another chance to make Category One. As it turned out, only the winners of the Juvenile and Junior classes in that meet got to earn Cat I status, but Lindsay didn't find that out until weeks after the event was over. Apparently, there was also a time standard of 1:39 for Senior Women in the 1000 meters. She was not aware of that, either.

It didn't matter that she broke a record in the 3000 meters that had stood for 10 years. It didn't matter that she beat a current Category One skater in that competition. The only thing that mattered was some nit-picky rule written down in some issue of Ice Chips. So, Lindsay and her friends went online and dug deep into their recycling containers to find the issue of Ice Chips that contained the rule. Sure enough, it was there.

Who is to blame for the failure of this information to be passed on? I hear that there was an elite athlete meeting that took place before the Nationals began. Shouldn't the qualification standards have been discussed in detail with the athletes at that meeting? Or maybe it was the responsibility of Lindsay's coach to look up the qualification standards. Maybe so, but that information should be made much more accessible than to be buried in some random issue of Ice Chips. I suppose the final responsibility falls on Lindsay herself -- and we'll just have to say that she got burned and maybe next time she will learn from this oversight. How cruel.

Will there even be a "next time" for Lindsay Appuglise? Who can say if she will even stick around. I know what this girl has to go through in order to speedskate. She moved to Southern California to train with Wilma Boomstra because Wilma is one of the best (if not THE best) short track technique coaches in the world. Lindsay has no means of support other than her own working hours, and life is very expensive in Orange County. With all her struggles, she has made exceptional improvement in the past season, and the decision to deny her Cat I status must have been a slap in the face.

"We have to go by the rules. Otherwise, people will accuse us of favoritism." This is what I was told when I faced a similar situation. (Favoritism? U.S. Speedskating? No!!! Who would ever accuse them of that?)

I had pretty much blocked this episode from my memory, for my own good, but Lindsay's story brought it up again. It reminded me of how close I had actually come to making World Cups during that year I was overtrained. At the US Nationals, I had earned a World Cup spot in the 3000 meters but had to skate a qualifying time of 4:23 in order to go. Before the Regional Qualifier for the World Allrounds, my coach came up to me and said, "You know, Eva, it WOULD BE NICE if you could skate that qualifying time in Calgary this weekend."

Yes, I agreed, it "would be nice." A good 3000-meter time "would be nice" in that it would help my Samalog score and improve my chances of making the Worlds. Well, that weekend was a terrible weekend of racing for me, and, knowing I was worn out, I took the whole next week off and planned to skate a qualifying time back in SLC the following Saturday. I did it, with a 4:20.

Afterwards, the coach came up to me and said, "Why did you do that, Eva? Didn't you know that last weekend was THE DEADLINE for making the qualifying time for World Cups?"

No, not really. "It would be nice" sounds a lot different than, "This weekend is the deadline." It didn't matter. I got burned, and I learned never to trust a coach to pass the rules on to me.

---

Next, I'd like to address some issues that are more specific to this short track competition. First of all, why is there a loophole enabling the first place finishers in the Juvenile and Junior categories to make Category I, but this is denied to highly competitive Intermediate skaters? After all, an up-and-coming 22-year-old still has many years of good skating ahead of her.

Second, why is there a time standard imposed for ANY kind of short track team selection? I understand that this is a quick and easy way of picking the Top 16 for the skate-off, but for any final team selection, it does not make sense. Short track is a pack-style sport involving tactics and physical placement. When you are trying to win an overall competition, you have to not only budget your energy throughout a series of heats and finals, but you also have to gauge your competition and adjust your pace accordingly. This is not necessarily the situation that yields the fastest times.

As far as I know, the 1000 meter short track time trial is not an Olympic discipline. Besides, we sent a person to the last Olympics who had a blazing fast 1000 meter time trial but was utterly incapable of racing with multiple people on the line and, if I remember correctly, didn't even make it out of a single heat.

---

I guess Lindsay's story really affected me because her struggles in this sport remind me of my own. Athletes who have had a hard time have different reactions to the stories of others who are coming up. My immediate reaction is to want to help someone in this situation, but I know of others whose knee-jerk reaction is, "They must suffer as I have suffered." We seem to have a lot of those types hanging around in positions of power these days. They know who they are...

My image, my role, and my purpose in this sport:

Springtime is always a time of reflection for me; a time when the skating season ends and I think about where I have been and where I'm going. Along with that come thoughts of funding and the sponsorship search, and I often use this time to ask people for advice on how this is done. I have learned that, in speedskating, it is important to maintain a positive and wholesome image, because even though you can't always sell your results, you have to be able to sell your personality.

This is kind of hard for me to swallow, because, as I've said before, it is important to me that metric speedskating is the kind of sport where nobody has to care about you in order for you to succeed. But, when you look for sponsorship, you are forced to MAKE somebody care about you and your story.

Looking for sponsorship has always been such an odious chore to me because it seems so much like begging, and this is a concept that has always been utterly foreign to my whole family. When I look around me at some of the local "Olympic wanna-be's" who have no shot at making the team this year but are lying and misrepresenting themselves in the press in order to obtain funding, it turns my stomach and I want no part of it.

I wish that the results I have already achieved could stand on their own, but unfortunately, if I want to survive, then I have to sell myself. "The system" does not recognize an athlete in my position. My funding situation is a farce. For the upcoming season, I will be receiving a stipend of $150 per month, beginning in June.

So, I always come back to thoughts of the sponsorship search, and I begin to consider the image of myself that I want to present to the world, and compare that to the accepted ideal of the wholesome Olympian. I think back to the time when I was a kid growing up, remembering how my brother and I used to love watching the Olympics so much that we'd both cry during the closing ceremonies, knowing it would be another 4 years before the Games were back on TV. There was a time in my life when the only thing I wanted was to be the best speedskater in the world, and I was ready to dedicate my entire life to the sport. But too many things got in the way.

Everyone who lives in reality knows that sports have a dark side: Eating disorders, abuse of athletes by coaches, the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and the list goes on and on. Once you have experienced the dark side of sports the way I have, there is no turning back. Certain experiences cannot be erased from one's memory. I have been a victim of events surrounding the Salt Lake Olympic Bribery Scandal. I was blackballed by my own federation when I asked them for help. I have been used as an experimental lab rat by people I trusted to make me skate faster. How, then, would it be possible for me to ever become the wholesome, ever-smiling champion who stares at you from the cereal aisle in the grocery store? I'd have to get a lobotomy! I'd have to soak my brains in bleach!

Of course, I still love speedskating and want to win, but I want to win AS MYSELF. I want to be there to represent all the kids who never reached their goals in sports, because I know that most of them suffer in silence and their stories will never be told. These are the people who dread those 2 weeks every 4 years, when the Olympics come around, and they have to watch other people living out the dreams they were never able to achieve. I know. I have been there. If I become an Olympian, I don't want to become one of those people who tell those who failed that it's their own fault and that they didn't try hard enough.

I think the American sports system needs someone like me. I want to be the "conscience" of the system. I want to be the truth that didn't walk away. Most people think that all you have to do in sports is to train hard and make sacrifices, and you will succeed. I beg to differ. For me, the whole process has been more like crawling on my belly on the ground and occasionally getting kicked in the teeth. Meanwhile, I'm looking around me and watching people who don't really care about their sport getting a free ride. I consider it my duty to bounce back, bloody but grinning, and to show The Man that he can't keep me down!!

How, then, would I describe my "image?" First of all, I'd say it isn't very marketable, ha-ha-ha!!! I'm the kind of athlete who considers "exposing hypocrisy" to be my second favorite sport, but I also don't take myself too seriously. I'm the sort of person who rides a skateboard down to the Oval the week of the World Sprints and people call me a "fruit loop" until I go out there and skate a 1:17.1 in the 1000 meters. Most of all, though, I'm the frumpy Sociology student who is working on a dissertation entitled, "WHY the Kids Aren't Alright." Maybe I'll report my findings after Torino.