Don't Miss the AOL Speedskating Commercial!

A week before the Olympic Trials, Becky Lang, Jamie Grundstrom and I flew out to L.A. to shoot a speedskating commercial for AOL. We were joined by Southern California short track skaters Jade Wheeler and Alice Kim. Last night, the commercial was seen on TV by one of my friends.

Getting a role in a speedskating commercial is probably the luckiest break any skater can imagine. For a day's work, you can easily make $15,000 or more, once all of the residuals come in, if you have a principal role.

You never know when an opportunity like this will present itself. Not long after I returned from the Fall World Cup trip, I was skating my warmup on a morning training session at the Utah Olympic Oval when I saw a lady posting a sign to the inside of one of the crash pads in the corner. The sign said, "Make $15,000 for skating!" I couldn't pass that up, so I turned around and skated over to find out what was going on.

As it turned out, the crew from "Bad Girls Casting" was choosing speedskater girls for this commercial. They made videos of a few of us and called us back later that evening. Jamie, Becky and I were chosen and agreed to go do the commercial. We were all glad we did, even though it involved a 14-hour day on the ice at Valencia Ice Station.

The story line behind the commercial is basically that AOL high speed internet can "bring a recreational skater up to the speed of a pack of competitive speedskaters." So, what happens is that this lady dressed in jeans and a sweater, wearing hockey skates, squeezes in between us on the starting line and enters the race! We got to see bits and pieces of the footage, and it's really funny.

When you do something like this, you never know exactly when you're going to get paid for it. The checks come in at unexpected times, after the commercial runs on TV. Last night, the commercial ran during C.S.I. Miami.

So, it appears that I will have something to show for my speedskating career after all. I may even be one of those rare athletes who "breaks even" on their sports career! (Maybe not..it would take a lot of money to get to that point..) Still, it makes me feel secure having some money coming in while I'm applying for new jobs.

While I was competing on the Fall World Cup circuit a few months ago, an athlete representative to the US Speedskating board shared something that one of the administrators said about athlete funding. This administrator (who will remain unnamed) had said, "The reason why the skaters aren't given more access to direct funding from the sponsors is because they'd just go spend it all on video games and stereo systems."

Well, now that I've done the AOL commercial, I'd probably be able to go out and buy myself a Play Station. Normally, that sort of thing doesn't interest me, and when I was competing I was actually much more concerned with buying food and paying rent. But now that I'm done competing, I may just go get myself some video games. I'm really good at that one where you shoot the terrorists at the airport. And every time I splatter someone's brains out on my TV screen, I'll think of the guy who made a career for himself out of stepping on the backs of amateur athletes.

How to Manipulate a Pure Sport: Favoritism and Discrimination in US Speedskating

After five years of competing on the international level in the sport of metric speedskating and experiencing the working of the federation known as US Speedskating, I've come up with a way of explaining how this federation's unfair treatment of its athletes comes about. You may wonder how it is possible to manipulate the results of a sport where we race against the clock. Well, it seems unlikely, but it happens, and here's how.

At first glance, the rules for team selection and the awarding of benefits seems very clearly set out in the Ice Chips: Skaters have to earn certain placings and/or achieve certain time standards. But if you look closely, you may notice that "coach's discretion" is the final standard by which the skaters are judged.

The thing is, even without coach's discretion coming into play, the written standards are manipulated in such a way that they literally become meaningless, except when US Speedskating chooses to refer to them for their own advantage against particular athletes.

I don't think that the methods by which US Speedskating makes decisions about its athletes are clearly defined, even by some "unwritten protocol." But even though there doesn't seem to be any plan or "conspiracy" behind it, there is still a recognizable pattern that emerges from the phenomenon as it occurs, and this pattern is worth describing.

For every rule and standard that is written by US Speedskating, there are three possible "levels of treatment" of athletes according to that rule. From lowest to highest, these are:

1. Discrimination
2. Strict adherence to the rule
3. Favoritism.

1. At the level of discrimination, the athlete is denied a benefit or a spot on a team that they've rightfully earned through their own performance. One of the worst examples of discrimination by US Speedskating against one of their athletes happened to Nate DiPalma, with regard to high altitude funding through the "Live High-Train Low" program.

According to this program, athletes who achieved a high enough placing at the US Nationals, and lived at a high enough altitude, were entitled to either free housing in a US Speedskating high altitude house, or a stipend of $300 a month if they lived in their own home. Nate was entitled to that funding because he had met both of those requirements, but he wasn't getting it, and nobody at US Speedskating was answering his emails and phone calls regarding his stipend.

Finally, Nate had to take US Speedskating to court to get the funding that he had rightfully earned. He won.

But there's more to the story. During US Speedskating's presentation of their side of the story, President Andy Gabel said that the reason why USS was denying Nate his funding was because they were supporting other skaters instead: "You may have heard of Derek Parra...K.C. Boutiette..." Oh yes. The actual argument presented by Gabel was that US Speedskating was denying Nate a benefit that he had rightfully earned BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T BELIEVE THAT NATE HAD THE TALENT TO GET ANY BETTER.

The judge thought that was ridiculous, awarded Nate his funding, and ended up giving the USS representatives a lecture on the unfairness of their rules. You see, the judge had been involved in track and field in his younger days, and he told USS that he couldn't believe how subjective the rules of USS were, compared to track. He said that USS should expect to face more lawsuits from their skaters in the future, unless they did something about the subjectivity of their rules and their openness to interpretation.

2. Most of us speedskaters have experienced a time when the rules set down in the Ice Chips cracked down on us. Strict adherence to written rules is important and it would be totally fine and acceptable IF THE RULES WERE APPLIED IN THE SAME WAY TO EVERYONE. But those of us who've been subjected to the rules really resent the way that US Speedskating can and does pull strings for certain people to protect them from the standards that are used against everyone else. More on that in the next section on favoritism.

When you're held to the rules, you lose your OJOB with Home Depot when you fail to perform up to the standards of the program, like what happened to Chris Callis and Tim Hoffman after last year. Or, like the story I posted in the spring about short tracker Lindsay Appuglise, you're told to go searching through the Ice Chips for the rule that says you can't be Category I even though you won Nationals, because if you're over a certain age you have to skate a certain time standard in the 1000 meters that is different from those skaters under that age, blah, blah, blah.

In the year when I trained with the National Team and half our group underperformed due to the "Overtraining Experiment," I didn't get to go to the winter World Cups because of such a technicality. I had earned a spot at the Nationals, but skated the time standard a week late because I didn't know there was a deadline. Also, as a result of not making any World Cups that season, I lost my stipend and was not put on the list to get a bike from the Orbea deal.

When I explained to Andy Gabel that my season had been trashed by Cushman for the purpose of data collection, he asked me if there was anything that US Speedskating could have done after that. I suggested that maybe they could have tried to make it up to me by letting me get a bike, since I had met all of the requirements to go to those World Cups anyway, it was just that I had skated the time standard a week late. Gabel's reply? "Oh, we couldn't do that. That would be FAVORITISM."

No, not really. That would have been REPARATIONS. I should have sued the pants off them for using me in an experiment without my consent.

3. Favoritism happens when someone fails to meet a standard but they are given things anyway, because someone is protecting them and doing them favors. An example of this is when Amy Sannes got to keep her OJOB at Home Depot for this season, even though the people running the program wanted to take it away from her and give a job to someone who was ranked higher in their sport. Technically, being 25th in the World Championships is the last possible ranking that can earn someone an OJOB, but these jobs are in high demand, and often, people who were ranked much higher are not given OJOBS because there aren't enough jobs available. One season, Chris Callis finished Top 10 and was still denied a job!

But somebody called in a favor and made sure Sannes kept her job. I can just imagine the conversation: "She's not focused on the third season of the Olympic cycle; she'll do better next year at the Games; look how she finished in the last Olympics; please give her another chance."

(The final verdict has yet to come in, but things are looking up so far. At this year's World Sprints, Sannes finished two spots higher -- at 23rd!)

The things you hear from an athlete who knows she is protected are priceless. On the Fall World Cup trips, I heard her say that the Milwaukee race weekend would be "a write-off" because she had a cold. (Yeah, Jen had the same cold, and she won the 1000, setting a track record in the process.)

Then in Italy, she said something about the volunteer hours she had been working in a veterinary clinic. What the hell?? You mean she was getting paid by Home Depot to meet requirements for vet school?

The fact that USS officials will pull strings for certain people to make it easier for them to keep skating tells me that, despite their best efforts to ignore the issue, they realize how hard it is for athletes to support themselves. If you're one of those skaters who has always been fully accountable for your own performance, and who has only been paid for the hours you actually worked, then it's very hard to watch someone else getting special treatment.

The view that metric speedskating is "pure" is only an illusion that is (not very successfully) perpetuated by US Speedskating. The judge presiding over the DiPalma lawsuit was very clear on his views on the subjectivity of the rules. The rules themselves are only "pure" when it is convenient for USS to use them against certain athletes. And, of course, the sport is far from pure when someone's friendship with the program director makes sure they get special treatment.

These are just some of the things I have observed over the years. I can say for sure that these actions and decisions destroy team unity, make athletes disloyal to the organization, contribute to early burnout, and cause skaters to leave the sport with a bitter aftertaste. I also believe that such treatment of athletes ends up being detrimental to the main goals of US Speedskating. But maybe the root of the problem involved losing sight of the goals in the first place.

Readers agree that there are "Things that Need Saying:"

Some people may wonder why I'm still posting on this blog, since my speedskating career is over, but others believe there is more that needs to be said. I've mentioned at one point that my experiences in speedskating remind me of my work as a graduate student in science: I ask questions, seek the answers, carry out experiments, record my results and draw conclusions. Even though I won't be competing in the 2006 Olympics, there are still some important questions left to be answered. I'm not going to stop until the most important results from the culture medium I'm studying have come in.

Recently, I heard from a reader who has knowledge of inequalities in the ranks of the junior skaters. He shared the story of a junior girl who always had to pay her own way to the Can-Am competition in Calgary, while the rest of the junior team got to go for free. The reason why this skater had to pay for her own trip is that she only wanted to go to the main event, rather than losing a week or more of school in order to travel around doing some "worthless time trials" with the rest of the team. Instead of helping this young lady, who has been one of the top American junior skaters for several years, US Speedskating would pay for a much slower skater to go with the team in her place.

What would inspire an athlete who has been treated in this way (and her family, for that matter) to be loyal to the organization? I mentioned before that the way USS treated me throughout the years made me unwilling to participate in the team pursuit. I'm sure other skaters on the outside have their own ways of doing what they need to do, while keeping the federation "at an arm's distance."

The reader who shared his thoughts on this topic said he doesn't think there is a conspiracy against certain skaters, as much as a general lack of a centralized, unified vision of where the sport needs to go, and a plan of how to get there. I tend to agree, and this is something I have been thinking a lot about, lately.

It seemed that after the 1998 Olympics, in preparation for the 2002 Olympics, a lot of thought and effort was put into the building of a strong speedskating team. People within the organization knew what they were supposed to be doing, and why.

After the strategy worked and US Speedskating turned around from having a very poor showing in Nagano to having several different skaters winning medals in Salt Lake City, it seems they grew complacent and failed to build upon their success. Teams splintered as coaches like Bart Schouten moved on to working with other organizations. Some skaters who had had success at the 2002 Olympics found that they could only capitalize on their winnings by moving out of the country to train with professional teams. It just wasn't worth their while to stick around. The first season after the 2002 Games, the USS Allround team was down to three skaters!

You have to wonder what USS was thinking at this point. Were they worried because people were going with other training programs, or were they feeling complacent about the medal-winning potential for the 2006 Games because so many of the 2002 medalists were back for another 4 years?

Did they ever think about their talent pool of skaters as a whole: Who they had to work with, what their abilities were, and how they might work best together and help each other? The only USS team that really came together was Ryan Shimabukuro's sprint team. I want to know if US Speedskating had a vision and a plan for its women's sprint team, between the years of 2002-2006. This is a question that is worth asking.

From the standpoint of information-gathering, I don't dread the approach of the 2006 Olympics. According to US Speedskating's own mission statement, Olympic medals are the main goal of the organization. Therefore, the Games will be the "moment of truth" in which US Speedskating will be held accountable for their performance.

All along, I never believed that the way to build a strong team is by subjective application of the rules, through favoritism and discrimination, but even this hypothesis must be tested. For some of the perennial "favorites," the pressure is on to prove that they've deserved all of the special treatment. Now there are no more World Cups (or World Championships!) to consider as "write-offs." Now it's time for the big show, and we'll all be watching.

World Cup AVOIDANCE Travel, Courtesy of Qwest?:

The World Sprint Championships were held last weekend in Heerenveen, and there's a sprint World Cup scheduled for Collalbo this weekend. So, what are Ochowicz and Rodriguez doing here in Salt Lake? Nothing against these two skaters, but it's another sign of US Speedskating's totally arbitrary decision making.

The day before the Torino World Cup event began last December, we competitors received an email from Andy Gabel threatening lawsuits against those skaters who were not wearing the US Speedskating sponsor logos in competition. I thought that threatening the competitors like this, on the day before a major event, was totally disgusting and unnecessary. One of my teammates spent the rest of the race-prep afternoon on the phone with her lawyer, before he managed to convince her that USS was "just blowing smoke."

Well, here's a quick and easy lesson, from me to my least favorite sports federation, in getting your money's worth from advertising: NOT SHOWING UP TO A COMPETITION IS THE SAME THING AS NOT WEARING THE LOGO ON YOUR SUIT. In all fairness, the only way to explain this situation would be to say that Jen and Elli paid for their own trip home. That chance always exists, but how likely is it?

Sometimes it's not the pie; it's the ice cream!

The inspiration for this post came from Andrew Love's blog. After reading it today, I just couldn't resist. Andrew recently returned from a successful tour of the Master's circuit in Europe, setting world records in the sprint events in his age group. Congratulations, Andrew!

In today's post on his blog, Andrew talks about the reward for eating the most pie being...more pie. While some athletes are "hungry" for more "pie," others hit a wall and get tired of pushing themselves to train and compete more.

In my former life as a World Cup speedskater, I found that the reward for eating the most pie was a big, heaping mouthful of ice cream. At first, the ice cream tasted good, but then I found out that it was contaminated with salmonella!

Eventually, I had to ask myself, "What is it that is making me feel so sick?"

Rex Albertson used to tell me last summer, "You still love the sport, right? It's just the people. Can you keep these two things separate?" Not forever. Not for as long as it takes to achieve my goals.

What happens when there's this activity that you really love to do, and you really want to do well at it, but in order to pursue it, you're forced to join some sort of sorority or fraternity that you would never otherwise join, of your own free will?

At some point you have to weigh your options: "Can I have this ice cream without the salmonella?"

No.

"Is there any way I can build up a resistance to this bacteria?"

Not without giving up my mind or selling my soul.

"Can I put the ice cream in the autoclave?"

Already tried that...it didn't work.

"Is there any way I can have my elite metric speedskating without swallowing some swirling cocktail of distortion along with it?"

Apparently not.


Last weekend, I skated a 10.85 in the 100 meters. I didn't even find out until a few hours later, when my roommate, Jannicke, told me. We had been paired together, and she had set a season-best time for Norway, with 11.34.

This race proved one thing to me, and that is that setting a new personal best time feels just as good when I'm not skating "for The Man." I still love the pie; I'm just going to have it without the ice cream!

Tough Questions: "Go get 'em, European media!"

This fall, during my last set of World Cup competitions, I had the dubious honor of observing some of US Speedskating's relations with the media. While sitting in on a press conference before the Salt Lake World Cup, I got to learn some things that I may or may not have actually wanted to know; the "cultural terrorist" in me smiled and thought, "I told you so." But what remained of the honest athlete within me wanted to reach for the Pepto-Bismol.

At some point during the press conference, Program Director Mike Crowe said a few words on athletes who trained with programs outside USS. His comment was that athletes who train with alternative programs are very important to our team because they increase our level of competitiveness.

At this point, I began to think about how this statement fits with US Speedskating's treatment of outside-program athletes. If they believe athletes like Chad, Shani, Derek, Chris Witty, and others who train outside USS are important to the U.S.'s performance in speedskating, then why do they insist on trying to take everything possible away from us?

I wondered if Crowe was aware that one coach is not necessarily the best coach for every athlete; that an athlete may work better with one coach than another. I was reasonably sure that he understood this. In fact, Derek Parra later told me, "Mike knows that Bart Schouten is the best coach for me." But we couldn't figure out why, while knowing what was best for the athletes, Crowe wasn't willing to stand up to the administration in defense of the athletes' rights.

If everybody agrees that Derek works best with Bart, what's the problem with letting him work with Bart, while still having access to TOSH physical therapy, massage, and testing, high altitude funding, training camps, catered dinners, etc.? Derek tried working with the National Team the same season I did, and obviously it didn't work for him, because he went back to Bart the next year. As soon as he did, all of the benefits I mentioned above were taken away from him. How does this demonstrate USS's supposed belief that athletes in alternative programs are helpful and important to them?

During that press conference, it became obvious that the American media were willing to let things slide and had no further questions. If US Speedskating didn't want to make clear the difference between what they called the "US National Team" and "the actual athletes who represent the USA on the international level in speedskating," then the American reporters weren't going to press the issue.

There was one reporter (I think he was Dutch) who asked a very interesting question, directed towards Tom Cushman. The reporter said, "US Speedskating held several training camps in Milwaukee this summer because the ice there is more similar to the ice in Torino. Is that correct?"

Tom replied that they had held three two-week camps in Milwaukee. Then, the reporter went on to ask, "And who was invited to these camps?"

To which Tom replied, "The US National Team."

Of course, nobody asked what was meant by that, but I think the Dutch guy got the answer he was looking for. Anyone who is aware of the situation would realize that none of the skaters who train with outside programs were invited to these camps. In other words, several Olympic medal favorites were not invited to six weeks' worth of camps held on ice similar to that in Torino.

When someone spends several months trying to set up inequalities between you (and fellow alternative-program athletes) and his "favorites," the last thing you want to hear is that person wishing you "good luck" 10 minutes before your World Cup race, and asking if there's anything you need. Come on. Maintain some integrity! What they should have said is, "You know, Rodansky, I didn't want you to make this World Cup team, but now that you're here, I hope you fall on your face."

It really became uncomfortable for me to travel on the World Cup circuit with such two-faced people. Now that they're in Europe preparing for the Games, I'm counting on the tough questions of the European sports media to make THEM squirm.

Inconsistencies in the USS "Physical Therapy Protocol":

Back in early November, I posted about being denied access to a trainer when my back was injured AFTER I had qualified for the Fall World Cups, but BEFORE the competition actually began. I was having muscle spasms in my back, and was told to "ice it and stretch it. We can't help you because you don't train with the National Team."

As it turned out, I had a rib out of place. A couple weeks later, when I was finally allowed to see the trainer during competition, it took him about 5 minutes to pop the rib back into place and another 5 minutes to show me some simple rehab exercises. I haven't had problems with it since then.

Now, get this: During the month of November, when we were away at the World Cups, a Category One skater who had been training with a non-USS team in Milwaukee and had recently moved to Salt Lake, broke his ankle in a training session. Somehow, he managed to convince US Speedskating to cover his surgery and full rehabilitation.

Mr. Program Director, if you and I ever see each other face-to-face again, you are going to have some explaining to do. So, why don't you try not to pretend that the issue doesn't exist, and I'll try not to puke on your shoes! How do you explain this discrepancy? How is it in the best interest of US Speedskating to NOT fix the injury of a skater who is going to actually represent them in international competition within a couple of weeks, but you'll go out of your way to spend tens of thousands of dollars helping someone who has never been at the level of international competition and doesn't even train with one of your teams -- a requirement which I was somehow held to, but others apparently are not.

I don't care if you hate my guts. Like it or not, I qualified to skate those World Cups by skating faster than the women who didn't qualify. Obviously, you people don't care about your athletes being in top racing condition (as if I ever had a doubt that this was the case.) Horse trainers treat their animals better. Iditarod mushers treat their dogs better.

For those of you who want to ask me why I immediately present these issues in a public forum instead of bringing them to the attention of the administration, I would remind you that I am very familiar with what happens when one tries to bring up an issue with the USS administration. This administration has shown repeatedly that it blacklists people who question them, and kicks out anyone who has any ideas about how to do things better. The fact is, they WANT to maintain the status quo. They want to keep setting up huge differences between athletes by arbitrary application of their own rules and standards.

Go ahead, US Speedskating. Keep doing what you've been doing. Your unwritten protocols of favoritism and discrimination may have defeated me through my own disgust with you, but let's see how your "protected little club" holds up against the Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Germans, Canadians, and Russians.

Thoughts on the Women's Team Pursuit:

There has been a question on the Skatelist as to why US Speedskating did not add women to the pursuit team (as they did with the men's team), despite the fact that two openings remained on the Olympic Team for the women. Here are my thoughts on that.

First of all, USS has a history of not adding people to the Olympic Team despite open spots, like in 2002, when they refused to add Kristine Holzer to the 5K team even though she won that distance at the trials, resulting in an embarrassingly bad performance at the Games by someone who had qualified for another event.

Second, you have to look at the next women in line for possible spots on the pursuit team. If USS went by 1500 meter results at the Olympic Trials, which would only make sense, those women would have been me and Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. Considering the fact that I officially retired within 10 minutes after my last race at the trials, you'd have to add Sarah Elliott to that list.

Of the three of us, Sarah and I are absolutely unwanted by USS. Only Nancy would have had a slight chance of being politically acceptable. Still, they did not add her, which I think was a mistake. They would not have run into any trouble from me, even though I finished ahead of Nancy at the trials. My retirement still stands; I even made it official with US Antidoping. I am serious about quitting elite competition. But Nancy Jr. should have been added to that pursuit team. She is fast and strong enough to be an asset to that team, and she has experience with training and racing on the slower ice of a lowland track.

It was also a mistake not to include Nancy on the Olympic Team because she is an up-and-coming junior skater on a team where many skaters are older and will soon retire.

As for me, I never had any intention of skating the team pursuit, even in the early part of the season. Back in September, before USS organized the first pursuit practice, I remember sitting down with Boris Leikin and Andrew Love and having a conversation about this event. Both of them tried to convince me that it would be in my best interest to skate this event, but I argued that I did not want to skate it on principle, because after the way US Speedskating had treated me throughout my career, I did not wish to contribute in any way to the organization. Competing for them as an individual was a necessary evil, if I wished to compete at all, since there is no other American speedskating federation -- and even that became too much for me to stomach, eventually.

The only reason why I even participated in that first team pursuit training session was in a last attempt to maintain my coach-athlete relationship with Boris. That situation turned out to be the final straw.

It's a great day to be a former speedskater!

By now you probably know that I missed qualifying for the Torino Olympics by 0.08 second in the 1000 meters. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking: Another heart-breaking speedskating sob story, right? So why did I have such a huge smile on my face after my last race at the trials?

As you go through this crazy journey of an elite athletic career, your perspectives and your goals become shaped by your experiences. Things can change so much over the course of a few months.

This fall and winter, I've watched my speedskating career die a drawn-out, painful death in front of and at the hands of people who made it their goal to weed me out, and who rejoiced at this goal's fulfillment. I have lived to see my competitive drive crawling on the floor, and my will to win snuffed out well before its time.

A successful ending to one's athletic career means being "ready to be done." But as the end approaches, you're never sure exactly when that feeling will come. It may not come at the best or most appropriate time. My time came a little too soon.

Though I do not regret the decision to leave coach Boris Leikin and the High 5 team back in September, in consideration of what was happening with my skating performance, it was still a very sad time for me. I lost a friend and a coach who believed in my potential. I also lost the sense of protection and belonging that I had when I was part of a team, and became more vulnerable to the negativity of "US Speedskating atmosphere."

By the time the Fall World Cups began, my skating technique had deteriorated and my legs did not feel strong. Still, I tried everything possible to turn my performance around. From the time we traveled to Milwaukee, Ryan Shimabukuro helped me with video analysis, and, one by one, we began to fix my technical issues. I tried to focus on the progress I was making, to stay focused on my goals, and to prevent myself from getting bogged down by negativity, but this World Cup trip just kept on pulling me down.

For the first time in my speedskating travels, I was homesick; I missed my dog and my friends; a certain teammate's thinly-veiled insults and blatant attitude of entitlement began to grate on my nerves...Not the sort of things I wanted to be thinking about, along with poor race performance, frustration with myself, threatening emails from "The Federation," nagging injuries and equipment problems.

What finally "Doused the Fire Within" was my 3 days of racing in Torino. My last World Cup competition basically felt like this:

Try to get motivated despite not feeling strong. Race poorly. Work yourself up to try again the next day, and get beaten down again. One last day: Give it all, for nothing, once again, and there you are, burnt to a crisp, standing on a road that leads nowhere, wondering where you are and how you got there.

Once I returned to Salt Lake City, I had two weeks to prepare for the Olympic Trials. First, I solved my skate problems by changing back to the boots I had used last season. Then, I spent about 4 days fixing my turn tecnhique. Finally, I started my pre-trials taper.

The first two days of Olympic Trials competition were a bit of a disappointment to me, but I felt the pressure lift before my 1500 on day 3 of competition. Finally, things came together, and I skated a good race, setting a personal best time in that event.

Before the 1000 meters on the last day of the trials, I knew that I was ready to retire from speedskating. Of course, I was still prepared to do my best, and if I had made the team in the 1000 that day, I would have continued skating for the next two months. But, in a way, I dreaded going to Europe on another trip with the team, so maybe, on a subconscious level, I sabotaged myself.

But when I arrived at the Oval on the 31st of December, I immediately signed an official retirement statement, which I planned to give to a US Speedskating official after the 1000 meter race. During the warmup, I went around collecting signatures of witnesses to my retirement -- not because this was required, but just because I wanted to.

In the second 1000 meter race, I was paired with Elli Ochowicz; she had the inner and I had the outer. In the first 1000 meter race, Elli had set the time to beat for the last qualifying position for the Olympics, and that time was 1:17.31. If I wanted to make the team, I knew that I had to skate faster than that, and to beat Elli head-to-head in the second 1000.

Before the race, I remembered something that my former coach Jan van de Roemer had said about the 1000: "If the paired skaters are evenly matched, the skater on the inner lane will almost always win." Well, Elli and I seemed to be far from evenly matched. Her personal best at that distance was a full second faster than mine, and she seemed to have just about every other possible advantage over me -- including the inner lane start and finish. But I knew I had a chance, if I skated the race right. All I had to do was stay close enough on the first lap of outers, then chase her down on the inner-lane lap, and hope I had enough left for a strong finish.

In a very close race, I won the pair, pulling ahead as I came out of the last outer turn. Though my finishing time of 1:17.39 wasn't fast enough to make the Olympic team, I was really happy that I was able to fight until the bitter end!

I couldn't have asked for a better ending. When I came back around in the warmup lane, I waved "good-bye" to the crowd with a big smile on my face. No, I wasn't sad that I would not be going to Torino. I honestly didn't want to spend another minute in the world of US Speedskating. I didn't want to travel with them, or to score one single World Cup point in their name, ever again.

I realized then, that for the past few months, all I had wanted from these Olympic Trials was to finish my speedskating career with guts and maturity. I've known for a long time that any other outcome was not within my reach, and that dragging my competitive career out for another two months was not something that I wanted.

A good friend of mine who also retired after the Trials said recently of his skating career, "I'm tired of rolling around in crap and pretending that it smells good." At some point, most of us realize that putting up with US Speedskating's crap is not worth it any more. This sport hurts enough as it is.

I love the sport of speedskating, but I've found that this sport is run by people who are not worthy of the honor of breaking my heart. I will no longer be surrendering my future to the control of "sleazy used-car salesmen." I am entering into a more civilized world; a world where my effort and contribution will be appreciated.

Good-bye, US Speedskating, and good fucking riddance.