The Protocol

2007-02-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

Big Stink about Retirement Negligence

I just found out that USSPEEDSKATING had been negligent in reporting my official retirement to the U.S.O.C. How did I find this out? Well, yesterday I received in the mail a 1099-misc, which is a Miscellaneous Income form, a copy of which will be submitted to the Internal Revenue Service, stating that I received $3150.00 in nonemployee compensation from the United States Olympic Committee.

As it turns out, the U.S.O.C. was not notified of my retirement until November of 2006, and so they kept me on their Elite Athlete Health Insurance plan for the year of 2006. Therefore, I am now responsible for paying taxes on $3150 in benefits that I had no idea I was getting.

I am aware of the official rules for elite athlete retirement. The athlete's responsibility is to notify the federation (USSPEEDSKATING) of their retirement, in writing. Also, the athlete is responsible for informing US Antidoping of their retirement (which I did promptly in early January of last year). Upon receiving the notification of the athlete's retirement, it is the responsibility of the federation to notify the U.S.O.C. of the athlete's retirement. USSPEEDSKATING failed to do so.

Now, in this post, I will restate my retirement plans, and my reasons for retiring WHEN and HOW I did. Let this post also serve as my official testimony for Mr. Howard Jacobs, an attorney who was hired by a group of short track skaters' parents to investigate unfairness on the part of USSPEEDSKATING.

I retired immediately following my 1000 meter race on December 31, 2005, at the U.S. National Long Track Championships, which was one of the competitions taken into account in the selection of the 2006 Olympic Team. On that day, I had prepared a written statement of retirement. This statement was signed by at least a dozen witnesses. These witnesses included Chief Referee Ernie Kretchman and U.S. National Sprint Coach Ryan Shimabukuro.

Approximately 10 minutes following my 1000-meter race, I handed my signed statement of retirement to USSPEEDSKATING President Andy Gabel. I can contact a friend who has photos of me handing this statement to Gabel.

The reason why it was important for me to retire immediately after my last race at the so-called "Olympic Trials" was in protest of unfairness in USSPEEDSKATING's Olympic Team selection criteria, and in protest of the composition of the actual Olympic Team Selection Committee, which was inherently stacked three to two in favor of USSPEEDSKATING Team athletes, and against athletes from alternative training programs.

I felt that the Olympic selection rules were completely open-ended, allowing the selection committee to take results from the 2005 Fall World Cup season and the U.S. Nationals and spin the results in the best interest of their chosen athletes. I felt that the particular individuals chosen for the 5-member Long Track Olympic Team Selection Committee WOULD do this, because three of the five members were individuals who were employed and paid by USSPEEDSKATING to work directly with skaters who trained in USSPEEDSKATING programs.

At the time of my retirement, I had not qualified for the Olympic Team outright but was next in line to be added, and at a roster of 8 women, USSPEEDSKATING had not yet filled its quota of women for the Olympic Team. They had the option of adding two more women, for a total of ten. I retired because I knew that I would not be added to the team, even though either I or the woman who finished immediately behind me would have been better choices for the Team Pursuit event (due to our superior ability to hold steady lap times at high speed, and our superior ability to match teammates' strides while skating together). However, I believed that an inferior choice for that event would have her position on the Team Pursuit protected because she was a member of a USSPEEDSKATING training team, while I and the woman who finished behind me were not.

Another reason why I believed the Olympic Team selection would be unfair is because of an alleged relationship between one of the committee members and the Team Pursuit skater at the center of the controversy. Though the exact nature of this relationship was never fully exposed, many people felt it was blatant enough to demand the exclusion of the administrator in question from his position on the Selection Committee.

Further information came out that proved me right in my assessment of the situation. Following the original Selection Committee decision on the women's team, which in fact was NOT to add additional women to the team, a coach of one of the other women's Team Pursuit skaters DEMANDED A RE-VOTE on the women's team, stating that in the best interest of his own skater's medal chances in that event, he wanted to replace (the skater at the center of the controversy) with Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr -- the woman who had finished behind me at the Trials. But the Selection Committee stood by their original decision.

A couple of months later, during the Olympics in Torino, I got an email from a spectator saying, "If either you or Nancy had been on that pursuit team, then all the women would have gone home with a medal."

As a side note, two extra men WERE added to the 2006 Olympic Team, filling USSPEEDSKATING's quota for male athletes. Both these men were members of Tom Cushman's USSPEEDSKATING Allround training team. I believe that Cushman, a member of the Selection Committee, pushed for the addition of Charles Ryan Leveille in part to justify allowing this skater to walk-on to the National Team prior to any qualification competitions earlier in the fall, and I believe that he pushed for the addition of Clay Mull to make up for betraying and neglecting Clay (and the rest of his own team, paying more attention to Charles, whom he had just "discovered") leading up to the Fall World Cup Qualifier and thereby screwing up Clay's chances of qualifying for the Olympic Team in the 5000 meters.

As it turned out, USSPEEDSKATING did not bring enough women to Torino, and embarrassingly failed to fill its full entry quota in the 1500 meters -- an event that either Nancy or I would have loved to be able to skate. USSPEEDSKATING had failed to take into account the severity of the injuries faced by two of its female skaters, both of whom declined to compete in that event. The next woman who could have been entered in the 1500, who happened to be the one at the center of the Team Pursuit controversy, declined to skate because she "hadn't been given at least 24 hours' notice."

I believe that the events surrounding and following the selection of the 2006 Olympic Team proved that I was right in considering the USSPEEDSKATING Selection Criteria unfair, and that I made the right decision by retiring on December 31, 2005. It is a shame that USSPEEDSKATING did not follow through and report my retirement to the U.S.O.C.

The fact that I retired on the last day of 2005 is well known and well documented. On the day of my last race, I walked into the Utah Olympic Oval a competitive speedskater, and I walked out of the Utah Olympic Oval a retired athlete. By January 1, 2006, I was officially NOT A COMPETITIVE ATHLETE but a molecular biologist who had re-entered the job market. I was employed by the end of February and at that time I started getting health insurance through my work.

2007-02-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

Inertia: Why USSPEEDSKATING is unlikely to change

"When you first started speedskating and we received our first few issues of The Racing Blade, I noticed that more than half of the photos in it were of old men shaking hands at some Hall of Fame banquet. It was then that I realized what kind of society my child would be entering."

Even if it had been possible for my mother to explain sports politics to me when I was eleven years old, she wouldn't have been able to convince me that it would matter, and why I wouldn't be able to overcome it simply by focusing on racing against the clock.

My family have always been the type of people who would rather go the long way than to step on other peoples' toes; who'd hope that honest hard work and achievement would speak for themselves. But though my parents were the kind of people who would prefer to avoid entirely the type of organization that is run by illogical thugs-- seeing it as an immovable hazard rather than something that could be changed -- I had always seen my fight with USSPEEDSKATING as an opportunity to make the world a better place.

From what I've observed in the past year since my retirement from competitive speedskating, I do not believe that this organization has the potential to change. What is it that I want most for myself right now? I want to wake up in the morning without feeling the gnawing obsession to shape my words into the weapon that will do the most possible damage to my enemies. After all, why continue to endure a state of toxicity, with no hope of reform?

These are the reasons why I think USSPEEDSKATING will not change:

1. The satisfaction of most of the current National-level skaters is somewhat unsettling. Most don't seem to care how much the Norwegian team earns, for example, and aren't concerned with state-sponsored "shamateurism," where athletes from other countries are supposedly "soldiers," or "students," but in reality are paid to train full-time. For many American skaters, all they know is that "Mom and Dad are totally stoked that I'm on the National Team and I won't have to be looking for a job any time soon."

That kind of attitude just makes me wonder who it is that I'm fighting for, and almost makes me embarrassed to care.

2. The athletes who are smart enough to be dissatisfied, while being strong and talented enough to be champions AND have the financial means to support their speedskating careers WILL make it, if they find a way to work around USSPEEDSKATING. And when they do become champions, USSPEEDSKATING will take all the credit.

3. USSPEEDSKATING continues to attract like-minded people to employ (for example, former athletes who were once screwed over by the federation, who have sold out and are now willing to screw the next generation). At the same time, USS continues to repel intelligent, logical, and ethical individuals who would have something of value to offer.

4. The lack of oversight from the U.S.O.C. and incomplete investigations of unfairness by even higher authorities are just another sad commentary on American society; it makes me see that "ethics has left the conversation entirely," and that there seems to be no higher authority that will make corrupt organizations shape up.

5. The dynamics of the forces of power, money, and old attitudes in USSPEEDSKATING between the CONTROLLERS and the CONTROLLED will continue to push against each other in such a way as to keep the system locked in place.

6. "It's just not worth it." For those of us who've tried to change USS, you find that the American speedskating culture is full of small-minded, miserable people, who are fighting over what amounts to bread crumbs.

After a while, you start to feel self-conscious of your own righteous anger, because on the whole, people just don't get it or don't want to see what's wrong. "Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away."

I hope that USSPEEDSKATING's decisions continue to be the joke of team locker rooms around the world. As for me, I'll be going snowboarding this weekend because I don't hate life enough to waste another hundredth of a second in the foul and choking atmosphere of USSPEEDSKATING.

2007-01-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

If I were a USS Board Member...

If I were a member of the USSPEEDSKATING Board of Directors, I would make it my goal to raise funds for my own nonprofit organization, just as Boards of other nonprofit organizations do. I would set as my goal the amount of money it would take to:

1. Provide each World Cup competitor in both Short Track and Long Track speedskating a living stipend of $1000 a month, and

2. Raise enough money to send a team of Junior B and C skaters to the Viking Race in Holland each year.

If I were one of those Board members who had an Olympic medal or two to my name, I would use my name and my influence to help the organization raise these funds. In fact, If I failed to do this, then I would no longer consider myself worthy of using my position on the Board in order to perpetuate my own past glory. Come on! Even the figure skating federation, which makes a lot of money selling TV rights to their events, holds fund raisers to send their developmental athletes overseas for competitions. I've NEVER seen the USS Board put together ANY KIND of fund raiser for their teams, and all they ever do is bitch and moan about not having any sponsors -- not to mention complaining about all the people like me who are "destroying the image of the sport" and preventing them from getting sponsors!

If I were a former Olympic medalist who was on the USS Board, I would realize that the REASON WHY hometowns no longer hold bake sales for their Olympic hopefuls is due to the perception that America's amateur athletes are "all set;" a perception that is promoted every time one of those athletes appears in public wearing the logo of a very large and successful company (while getting next to nothing for it), or every time some article appears in the newspapers about the latest high-tech sports science technology (which is either not available to all athletes or is used by coaches who don't know how to take full advantage of it).

I would also realize that if I promote the attitude that "If we support our athletes, then they'll only go out and buy video games and stereo systems," then THE ONLY ATHLETES WE'LL HAVE LEFT ARE THE ONES WHOSE MOMMIES AND DADDIES ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR EVERYTHING. And that is exactly what will happen when all your self-supported talent burns out and fades away.

I would realize that I am not put into that position of authority only to create and enforce rules, but also to do my best to help the athletes succeed...

...And then I wake up and come to the conclusion that this sport does not belong to people like me.

It's been a year now; my fact-finding mission at the Utah Olympic Oval is over. For the first time this morning, I woke up more than happy to come in to the lab and go to work, surrounded by people who are truly ethical and competent. And as I spread E. coli on 100 Petri dishes, I listened to a few of my favorite songs from the Offspring's Ixnay on the Hombre, and contemplated my experiences in the most un-American organization I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with...

"Nothing changes, 'cause it's all the same
The world you get's the one you give away.
It all just happens again way down the line."

(Derek Parra, you're just another Andy Gabel.)

"Now when the day is set they'll line up all the same,
And those that need the most will never get or gain.
The ones you call your friends
Are failing you again.
Reach into your bag of tricks and make it go away...

You're in it for yourself, no one else.
You're ready, saving yourself,
You're going to change the world

And since you ain't what you say,
Then just go away."

2007-01-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

Why WHIP will fail:

1. WHIP (the U.S.O.C. and USA Rollersports-funded "Wheels on Ice Program") thinks they're going to "find the next Chad Hedrick." What are the real odds of this? At the time Chad switched from inline to ice speedskating, he had won something like 25 world titles in inline. WHIP has thus far not been able to attract inliners of this caliber. Second of all, Chad had played ice hockey as a kid, so unlike pretty much all the other inliners, Chad already knew the feel of a blade on ice.

2. WHIP will fail in the short term because it is unlikely that their skaters will have time to get ready to be medal contenders by 2010. As an example: Jessica Smith is a world championship podium-level inline skater, and it is taking her some time to climb the rankings in ice speedskating.

3. WHIP will fail as a long-term plan because it actually is a band-aid solution that is supposed to take the place of a long-term plan to save speedskating in America. In reality, it is nothing more than an excuse to allow the destruction of ice speedskating infrastructure to continue along its current path.

4. WHIP will fail because it IS NOT IN FACT THE BEST WAY to choose the best possible medal contenders for the Vancouver Olympics. How likely is WHIP to produce a 3K skater who will go 4:05, as ice skater Maggie Crowley did in her very first World Cup performance last year at age 19? How likely is WHIP to produce a 1000-meter skater who will go 1:17, like ice skater Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. did last year, at age 18, without even training specifically for that event?

Four years ago, I was a talented ice speedskater with a great deal of potential who was rejected by USSPEEDSKATING. I will not stand here and watch the same thing happen to others. Do you know what an awesome feeling it is for me to be able to take all of the U.S. Team clothing I've earned over the years and shove it into a box way back in my storage closet, all the while being 100% confident in the knowledge that it is not in USSPEEDSKATING's or the U.S.O.C.'s best interest to have mistreated an athlete like me, and to feel sorry that during my competitive career I never had the PRIVILEGE of working with someone of the caliber of those top international coaches and program directors who had said they would LOVE TO work with an athlete like me?

Peter Mueller, whose last words to the USS administration years ago (before he left to seek employment elsewhere) were, "Go fuck yourselves," said it was a shame that I quit speedskating just as I was starting to get good. Well, too bad! I can't afford to do this any more. When I skated a 16th-place time in the 1000 meters at the 2005 World Cup final, on ice conditions that were disadvantaged compared to the rest of the Top 20, I came home to a monthly stipend of $140 a month. Now, Derek Parra is telling me that "inline skaters are the future..." and implying that ALL THEY NEED IN ORDER TO PROVE THEY'RE BETTER THAN ME IS MORE THAN THREE TIMES THE SUPPORT I EVER GOT.

Derek, if I went to the Home Depot, I'm reasonably sure I could trust you to explain the relative advantages and disadvantages of laminate, hardwood, and bamboo flooring, but you have FAILED to explain to me why inline skaters are CATEGORICALLY BETTER than ice speedskaters. Perhaps you'd like to ask Chris Witty, Casey Fitzrandolph, Kip Carpenter, Shani Davis, and Tucker Fredericks about their experiences on wheels? Perhaps you'd like to go up to athletes like Paul Dyrud, Mike Blumel, Tyler Goff, Maria Lamb, and Matt Plummer and tell them what you told me to my face: That it's too bad that this sport has passed them by, because inliners are the future.

This whole situation reeks.

2007-01-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

The Protocol's Most Hated:

Here's an interesting lesson in the history of sports politics, for anyone who'd like to see where some of the attitudes of the American sports system originated. Do a Google search on the name Avery Brundage, and go to the Wikipedia entry that comes up at the top of the list.

Aside from the obvious anti-semitism and other racist attitudes, pay special attention to the acceptance of so-called "shamateurism," and the problems that this created for America's Olympians.

2007-01-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

Betcha didn't know, betcha didn't know!

..and now for the finest in camcorder entertainment from the recesses of my mind, complete with captions for the imagination-impaired...

The year is 1983, some roller rink in Kokomo, Indiana. It's dark, with colorful lights and a disco ball; the sound system is blasting the theme to Star Wars.

This is Eva, age 6. She spends all her money on video games and always gets into fights with the little boys at the rink....

After about an hour, they stopped the public skate and the DJ asked, "Who wants to race?" So they put me out on the starting line with a couple other little kids and I beat them.

Gotcha now, U.S.O.C.! The first race I ever won was on wheels.

(Whoop, whoop, garble, garble...the VCR eats the tape....)

Eva, you dumbass. Your mom put ice skates on you when you were 2 years old.

Crap!

2007-01-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

Analysis of the U.S.O.C: Goals, decisions, funding, programs, and athlete support

The U.S.O.C.'s stated goals are to get American athletes to win Olympic medals and to promote the sports they oversee.

What does the U.S.O.C. sell to sponsors? They sell the right for a sponsoring company to associate itself with the Olympic movement, and access to the 5-ring logo. How expensive is this? For example: when General Mills wanted Joey Cheek to appear on the Wheaties box, they opted not to use the word "Olympic" or the Olympic rings anywhere on the box, because that would have cost them some exorbitant sum of money. If you ever get a chance, take a look at the Joey Cheek Wheaties box and try to find the words, "Olympic champion." They aren't there. It says something like, he "won the biggest event of them all."

What do sponsoring companies and the U.S.O.C. count on? They are counting on the warm and fuzzy public perception that American Olympic hopefuls are supported. This public perception includes the idea that the U.S.O.C. provides housing and/or sufficient funding, as well as cutting-edge sports science and coaching for National Team-level athletes in all Olympic sports, and oversees fair selection of Olympic teams, leading to the best possible medal chances.

Who provides the results (Olympic medals)? History has shown again and again that most American Olympic champions are those talented athletes who have the means of support necessary to get the training they need FROM PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING, and usually by AVOIDING the American sports system as much as possible, because it is riddled with nepotism and dwindling sports science knowledge among National Team coaches. For example: Look at all the speedskating champions who have chosen to train in Europe, or in Canada, or with the FAST Program, even if it costs them more money.

What is the REALITY of athlete support? For a thorough answer on this, you'll have to search through this blog! In short: U.S.O.C. support is both SCARCE and UNFAIRLY DISTRIBUTED.

Where does U.S.O.C. sponsor money really go? It would take an investigation to find out for sure, but I can tell you from experience that not much trickles down to the athletes.

Why does it matter? It matters because the perception of support makes it harder for athletes with potential to find the help they need from outside sources, while the reason why they need outside help is because of the lack of support from the U.S.O.C.

What does the U.S.O.C. want from programs like Wheels on Ice? The U.S.O.C. does not know what to do with a corrupt sports federation like USSPEEDSKATING, especially now that this federation has fallen to such a sorry state. Rather than go in and try to fix what's wrong with USSPEEDSKATING or force USS to clean up its act, the U.S.O.C. wants a "quick and dirty fix," hoping that the inliners will cross over to ice, start winning right away, and that "MEDALS WILL SHUT EVERYONE UP."

In evaluating the U.S.O.C., I'm trying to look at the options available to an ice speedskater who would want to consider training and competing seriously at this time. I want to figure out the attitudes of the leadership, and how these people handle problems. I'm pretty discouraged with what I've learned so far.

Looking back on my competitive career, I know I failed to achieve my goals in speedskating, but one of the things that keeps me sane is seeing it all as an adventure instead of a fairy tale. The dream of standing on the podium and winning an Olympic gold medal was always something I needed to keep in mind, otherwise I would not have been able to take the risks I did, or to push myself as hard as I did in training. If I did not have that dream to follow, then I would have missed out on a great adventure. In the end, I'm not sorry I chose to pursue speedskating.

Now, it seems, the dream is gone. If I were to look at the possibility of coming back to try again, I see that there is not much to look forward to, even if I would somehow be able to win an Olympic gold medal. When I think of standing on that podium, I realize that the only feeling I have left towards the U.S.O.C. is defiance and a sense of betrayal. I wouldn't want to devote all my energy towards standing on that podium, representing them.

Anger has been a powerful motivator for me, but I have found that it is not enough. If you are angry and alone, then you try to fight as best you can, but it is an ugly fight. How can I describe it? I think one person who might be able to relate is a senator I saw speaking on TV after President Bush's State of the Union address. He said he disagreed with the Bush administration on the war in Iraq, but was sending his son there, anyway. He said that as a soldier, you want to serve your country, but you would prefer to believe that your leaders have made wise decisions and have your welfare in mind. The U.S.O.C.'s decisions have proven to me that they do not have their athletes' best interests in mind.

2007-01-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

"Disown the Podium"

Brilliant sarcasm; unfortunately, not mine. One of my friends suggested we refer to USSPEEDSKATING's plan for the current Olympic cycle as, "Disown the Podium." How true.

Since when did starting on ice blades equal dead weight? Just because someone chose to be an ice skater instead of an inline skater should not automatically relegate that person to the ranks of "no-talent hack."

Does the U.S.O.C. really need an explicit definition of the words, "dead weight?" Yes, we have had dead weight in ice speedskating. We'd had a textbook case of dead weight dragging the women's team down for about 14 years leading up to Torino. Dead weight is the kind of person who wakes up one fine Olympic morning to realize that no matter how good a "traveling companion" or "dinner conversationalist" she has been to some former authority figure, the last lap of the 1500 meters is still going to hurt like hell, so why not avoid it entirely?

But does this mean that the legacy of this unfortunate relationship will live on, not only having affected those of us who tried to work around it at the time it was going on, but also to affect the next generation of young skaters, who will now be the collateral damage of the U.S.O.C.'s decision that ALL skaters who started on ice blades are worthless dead weight?

The fact of the matter is that USSPEEDSKATING has destroyed its own infrastructure for development. When they engulfed the Amateur Skating Union, they obviously had no intention of supporting the clubs, as the ASU had. Still, take a look at just about any USS press release and it will include something about USS being "the governing body responsible for producing champions AND for grassroots development." Can you believe that? To me, that's just another example of USSPEEDSKATING's Orwellian doublespeak, falling into the same category as "neglect equals support, favoritism equals objectivity, and connections equal qualifications."

For years, ice speedskaters have faced down and often triumphed over the misfortune of having to navigate a sport with no infrastructure. Should those ice skaters who are still in contention be punished for this?

Throughout my years of speedskating competition, I learned just how far off USSPEEDSKATING is from the ideal American sports federation I'd hoped it would be. Now, I'm starting to figure out why. One of the main reasons seems to be that the "Powers that Be" have such a need to maintain the image that they do EVERYTHING for the athletes, and that the reason why American speedskaters win is BECAUSE OF all those middle-aged male authority figures who strut around wearing the Team USA parkas, that there is a reluctance to seek out enough financial support for the athletes because there is a reluctance to ADMIT that USS needs it!

But don't worry. Even if things look grim right now, and even if this country's best ice speedskaters are disowned, for some reason, when it comes to the Olympics, "American speedskaters always rise to the occasion."

Right?

2007-01-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

Awakening:

Every avenue has been searched and has been met with a refusal by USSPEEDSKATING to clean up its act. What you have here is a sports organization that has effectively cannibalized itself. What you have here is a constituency that has been deeply wounded and continues to be betrayed by the leadership. What you have here is a leadership that turns its head to the side and refuses to look at the reeking pile of shit that they have created.

At this point, I see that there are three steps that USSPEEDSKATING must take if it is to survive:

1. Admit your mistakes.

2. Make amends for the past: Clean up what has been dirtied. Stitch together what you have ripped to shreds. Remove the sticky quicksand of the past and wipe your feet, or everything you try to do from now on will be contaminated.

3. Learn from your mistakes, and write up a new set of ethical guidelines AND BE CLEAR ABOUT HOW THESE RULES WILL BE ENFORCED. You must make your board members and employees accountable for their actions. It doesn't mean anything if you have a code of conduct that is not enforceable. If it cannot be enforced, then it does not work.

Justice and freedom must prevail for the skater. The performance, talent, and potential of the athlete are essential to our sport and must be raised above petty favoritism, moral depravity, and the maintenance of a delusional image of those in power. The stubborn attitude of the present leadership of USSPEEDSKATING must be overcome, or else this sport will surely become extinct.

The form of bullshit which I describe is not unique to the sport of speedskating. It can be found in any organization. The question you must ask yourself is, "What kind of organization do we want to be?"

2007-01-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

"WHIP" It!!!

Get your American speedskating news here first. Today, I'll be sharing the latest news on something I'll call the "What Happens In Private" program. To the members and fans of USSPEEDSKATING, these are some of the decisions that have been happening behind your backs:

Dear Skaters and Parents,

I am sure that all of you are anxious for the Holidays and time is scarce lately so I will be as concise as I can with this letter. Also included is an article that will come out in the next addition of Ice Chips, and USS publication.

On December 11th and 12th representatives from USARS, US Speedskating and the USOC sat down to discus in detail the eligibility and guidelines for the Wheels on Ice Program. (WhIP) It was decided that the program and a majority of it's budget in this first year would focus on the elite skaters that are of age and willing to relocate to Salt Lake City,Utah for a centralized training program. Their support would include coaching and ice time(inline floor time also included), Periodic performance testing, apparel, equipment, nutritional information,required competition support and a monthly stipend. The top candidates have been contacted and I am awaiting their response. I am looking for skaters who commit to the program to come out to Salt Lake some time in early 2007. I am making arrangements for their arrival.

You are probably thinking, "where does that leave me?" Allow me to answer that. Due to certain circumstances,mostly age for a majority of you, you were not chosen to be in the inaugural group. But please do not let this discourage you in any way. All of you are still in the pipeline coming this way. You are still on the radar screen so to speak. I want to continue to stay in contact with you as you continue to grow and mature as a skater and a person. The program is an eighteen month program. Some of you may be in the next wave of athletes. As it stands now, this will be a residency program. In the future, you must be willing to relocate here to be in the program unless there are special circumstances that surround you. Until you reach that age and or point in your skating career, I want to remain in touch and assist in any way that I can. I have reserved funds for training clinics in the future as a way to stay in contact with you and monitor your progress. Some of the clinics will be open clinics here in Utah and others I may come to you or your part of the country. I want to be a source of information for those of you that wish to continue to explore the ice transition. Even as I write this to you I am working on hosting a clinic here in Salt Lake City around the first week of February. I am thinking about having skaters fly in on the 1st with some type of information meeting that night and have the clinic begin on the 2nd and run through the weekend. You may leave on Monday the 5th if you wish, but I would like to have the clinic and my services available through the 6th with skaters leaving on the 7th. This is all tentative at the moment, but I do not want any of you to fall through the cracks of this program. I hope that you can find the time to participate.

Those of you who are already on the ice, I congratulate you and please continue to make those steps. Those of you who have not made the attempt, I encourage you to do so. Now is the time to get familiar with the ice. You are all young and the earlier you get started the more dangerous you will become to the rest of the world. I wish I was your age when I started on the ice. I will assist in any way I can. If you have any questions please contact me by phone or e mail. I want to remain in communication with you in the future.
Happy Holidays.
Sincerely,

Derek Parra
US Speedskating
Inline Transition Manager
Office 801-417-5376
Cell 321-695-8464
DDPARRA@AOL.COM
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WHIP PROGRAM GETS IT’S WHEELS ROLLING

Update from Derek Parra – Inline Transition Manager

It is an exciting time for our sport. We have had incredible success over the past two Winter Olympic Games from multiple athletes. The sport of Speedskating is not quite a household name yet, but with names of the past like Heiden, Blair and Jansen still popping up around the water cooler and stories of Joey Cheek, Apolo Onho, Shani Davis and Chad Hedrick still floating around in the wake of the Torino games, it shows this sport and it’s representatives have had an incredible impact on our country and the world.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I was not extremely optimistic about the immediate future of sport when the retirement of so many of our top athletes was confirmed this summer. The athletes of our sport have always had a history of rising to the occasion every four years. Believe me, I know, I have seen it and I have also been a part of that movement. But for a short time I believed that there was a huge gap between our skaters at the top and the ones coming up. This Fall I was excited to see as the post Olympic season began some of our younger skaters have already started climbing the national and international ranks of the skating world and fortunately we still have a few top athletes sticking around for more shots at Olympic glory. The future looks bright.

On November 1, 2006, I believe the future of our sport got a lot brighter. I was hired as the Inline Transition Manager heading up the WHIP Program (Wheels on Ice Program) for US Speedskating. An innovative new program conceived by the USOC that partners US Speedskating with USA Roller Sports in an effort to identify talented athletes on wheels and assist in their interest to cross over to the ice as well as encourage current ice skaters to explore the possibilities of inline cross training and racing.

With a budget approved, I sat down together with members of all three organizations in Salt Lake City and developed a plan of action. It was determined that the program would consist of a maximum of 10 athletes. These athletes must be of elite caliber and in good standing with their NGB. If willing to commit to the 18 month transition program, the athletes would be required to participate in a minimum number of USS competitions (both short and long track) as well as continue to participate and excel in USARS events. In return, those skaters would receive support that consists of a monthly stipend, coaching, ice time, periodic performance testing, ice equipment (blades, etc.), team apparel, nutritional education and travel support to required competitions. By the end of the meetings, athletes were identified, contacted and given a verbal invitation to the program.

At this moment I am waiting for responses from those selected athletes and making plans for their arrival. As I said previously, I am optimistic and excited about the future of speed skating and I am extremely pleased to see USS and USARS working together for the betterment of both sports and more importantly, the betterment of the skaters.

Derek Parra

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Now allow me to cut away the bullshit and translate this incomprehensible babble. What they are saying is this: "Those of you faithful club volunteers, Category One development skaters who have already shown proven results, and those of you skaters and parents who have already moved across the country to train specifically for ice speedskating have already proven your dedication to the sport and your willingness to make unreasonable sacrifices and will continue to do whatever it takes to win, until you've collapsed like our good old American folk hero John Henry, who died in his attempt to race a steam shovel with the power of his own muscles. THEREFORE, let us focus our resources instead on those athletes who need to be bribed in order to even try our sport which we "realize" is stuffy and boring and somehow manages to be weird at the same time, and is run by a bunch of incompetent thugs."

2006-12-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

A vision for rebuilding USSPEEDSKATING infrastructure in time for the 2010 Olympics:

To the so-called "new" administration of USSPEEDSKATING: You are doing a lot of things wrong, and unless you make some serious changes to your attitudes and your planning, the Vancouver Games will bring you nothing but failure.

There are two main topics that need to be discussed at this time: First, the inline-to-ice program, and second, the overall direction of the long track program.

The inline-to-ice program is another example of a good concept gone awry because it has been applied with the typical USSPEEDSKATING thoughtlessness and bludgeoning, with no regard for the true goal in mind, or the consequences of carrying out the program in the way you've set it up.

In USS's current inline-to-ice program, inline skaters who have never before set foot on the ice are offered a stipend of $500 a month to train with Derek Parra, who will help them make the conversion from inline to ice. The plan is that once these skaters make Category I, their stipend will be eliminated.

What are the problems with this program? The first and most glaring problem is that those inline skaters who, in the past 2-3 seasons, have ON THEIR OWN INITIATIVE and ON THEIR OWN DIME made the transition from inline to ice, have been completely skipped over for support. Also, several very talented skaters who have been long track ice skaters all their lives, as well as a few skaters who have successfully made the jump from short track to long track and have shown great potential, have also been ignored. These are all people who have already begun to prove themselves in long track ice speedskating, and have already proven their commitment to the sport. They have, among other things, been National age group champions, qualified for Category I, and competed in the Junior Worlds. In most cases, these skaters are still on an upswing in performance and are setting new personal best times on a regular basis.

Another way in which USS's junior development skaters and those skaters who have switched from inline to ice in recent years are getting screwed is by the elimination of the regional development programs. The reason why the regional development programs were eliminated is LACK OF FUNDING. So, instead, you're going to throw money you don't have towards completely unproven athletes? Where's the logic in that? Who is responsible for choosing between these two options, and why wasn't the general membership of USSPEEDSKATING informed of these decisions? You see? Everything is still being done behind people's backs.

In reality, what is the goal of the inline-to-ice program? It is basically to attract, support, and develop those speedskaters who have the best potential to medal at the Olympics some day. But who's to say that the ONLY group from which these skaters are going to come is the group of "green, untested inline skaters?" How do they know for sure?

THE SOLUTION: If the goal is in fact to choose the best "raw physical material with speedskating potential," then have an INDEPENDENT group of experts develop a set of physical tests for various parameters such as power, aerobic and anaerobic ability, speed, strength, balance, agility, etc. Invite all the skaters to the try-outs, including those who have been on ice all their lives, as well as inliners who are planning to switch to ice AND those inliners who have been on ice for the past few seasons, and CHOOSE YOUR BEST SPECIMENS FROM THESE TESTS. This is the only fair way, and is in fact the way that the Canadians have done it for their "Own the Podium" program.

At this time, USSPEEDSKATING also seems to have major problems with leadership, planning, and communication. As far as the long track program goes: The USS Board is now mostly made up of people with a background in short track, who have no idea about what has been going on in long track. There is still time to make a good plan to develop a strong long track team in time for Vancouver, but you have to start RIGHT NOW...and it seems you've already begun with some major missteps.

First of all: The position of Program Director should be held by someone who is an expert in sports physiology and has at least had several years of experience coaching at the national team level. This is a person who is IN POSITION TO BE A MENTOR to the coaches below him (or her).

I do not have any problem with Scott Koons; I think he is a great guy, and that there ought to be a place for him in your organization. It's just that I believe he is in a place in his career where he would benefit from being mentored by someone else for a few more seasons, before being placed in such a position of responsibility. I fear that you are setting him up to fail.

Then there is the truly ugly situation of the National Allround team. This is the background of the unfortunate situation in which Chris Shelley found himself: During the summer, several National Allround skaters were pushing hard to get Derek Parra hired as National Allround coach. But USSPEEDSKATING refused to hire Derek "out of revenge" for the "problems" he caused them with their sponsorship issues in the past few seasons. Finally, USS agreed to hire Chris Shelley for this position, but he didn't get to start working as USS Allround coach until September 1. By then, the majority of the training and preparation phase of the season was over, so what could he really do? And, to make matters worse, some of the skaters started making life difficult for him because they had wanted Derek Parra as their coach instead.

I feel terrible for Chris. In terms of coaching credentials, he is right up there with Ryan Shimabukuro; he has completed the Canadian certification system and has developed several really great skaters. I think he has a very rational, calm, and respectful coaching style that would be very well suited to working with a group of female skaters (if USSPEEDSKATING were serious about rebuilding their women's team, this might be something to consider).

About the women's team: Are you serious about building a strong team of medal contenders in time for the Vancouver Games? Then I will tell you RIGHT NOW which women you should be supporting. You should be doing everything within your power to get these women preparing for the 2010 Olympics. You should be making sure they have as much support as you can give them:

Catherine Raney
Maria Lamb
Anna Ringsred
Jessica Smith
Mia Manganello
Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr.
Maggie Crowley

That list is for the benefit of the short trackers in charge of USSPEEDSKATING. I realize you may not be familiar with these names, but I suggest you do your research.

USSPEEDSKATING, when I look around the Utah Olympic Oval I see skaters who are hurting because they are being neglected and treated unfairly. I have skaters asking me for advice on how to balance work and training and school. I have skaters who want to come to club session to skate behind me and copy my technique because they don't feel that their coaches are helping them enough.

I'm willing to share my experiences with anyone who wants to avoid making the same mistakes I did. I'm willing to help YOUR skaters by offering them the benefits of "intellectual property" that I learned from coaches outside the federation, whom I was forced to seek out on my own during my competitive career. And as you can see, I'm still slinging advice your way with utter contempt for the backdoor dishonesty of your leadership.

2006-11-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

About This Blog:

The Protocol is a first-hand account of "old school" sports corruption on the part of the USSPEEDSKATING administration, from the 1990's through the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, as experienced by one of their own internationally competitive athletes. It describes my own fight against this federation and explains the destructive effects of their corruption on the entire U.S. Speedskating Team.

The purpose of this blog (in addition to satisfying my own need for bloody revenge), is to provide constructive ideas for improving the sport of speedskating for future generations of athletes, and to destroy commonly held misconceptions about the lives of amateur athletes in the United States.

2006-11-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

The State of the Federation:

November, 2006. USSPEEDSKATING is still whitewashing its image, trying to live off medals its athletes won in the past, pretending it is not completely falling apart, and spending money it doesn't have. The truth is, in order for this federation to survive, it needs a leader with the kind of vision and ideas that will offer the kind of solution that steps up to the plate and "knocks it out of the park." But all I'm seeing is pathetic little band-aids being used to patch up problems that are cropping up 10 times faster than they can be fixed.

The bad news is that the USOC is giving USSPEEDSKATING extra time to try to clean up its act, because of the respect that the sport of speedskating has earned over time in this country due to the success of its athletes. The good news is that if USSPEEDSKATING fails to clean up its act and experiences the Enron-like crash that I think it will experience sooner or later, then the USOC will be forced to take over and dissolve the USS Board of Directors.

2006-06-27T09:35:00.000-06:00

A Summary of My Experiences in USSPEEDSKATING:

This is for all the new internet fans that the sport of speedskating has been getting since the 2006 Olympics, and also for anyone who is unfamiliar with the whole story of my speedskating career. I've decided to summarize the most important stories and post them here as a resource for you, so you don't have to dig through all those other posts I've randomly made over the past year and a half.

This is the story of the kind of speedskating career that should NEVER be allowed to happen TO ANY KID, EVER AGAIN. This is my story of how I tried as hard as I could to compete for the USA in speedskating in a federation that tried as hard as it could to get me to fail, to quit, and just to go away. Also important in the context of this story is the fact that my parents did not approve of my speedskating, and that, like many other American amateur athletes, I never had enough money to ensure a sustainable existence in my sport. This, along with the unpleasantness that resulted from my fights with USSPEEDSKATING, was the main reason why I had to retire after the 2006 Olympic Trials.

If you look at the performance of the American women's speedskating team in Torino, you will wonder what it was that the old leadership of USSPEEDSKATING felt was worth protecting from competition within the country. You will wonder why they tried to manipulate a pure sport and give unfair advantages to their favorites. You will wonder why they told the whole world that metric speedskating was "all about the clock," and then when it came to dealing with their own athletes, they forgot that the word "clock" has the letter "L" in it.

Now those bastards have all been fired, and I'm proud as hell of any role I might have played in that "Great Purge!" But anyway, here are the main points of my story.

Let me begin with a list of my best accomplishments in the sport:

-B Group Champion, World Cup Final, 1000 meters, Feb. 2005 (the time was 16th overall, A-group and B-Group combined.)

-World's Best Women's 10K skater, 2003-04 season.

-American Record, Women's 10K, 2005 (held for one week!)

-U.S. Single Distance Champion: 3000 meters, in 2001, 1500 meters, in 2002.

-World Cup Points Scorer in every distance from 500 to 5000 meters.

-Alberto Nicolodi Trophy, Allround Champion, Feb. 2004.

(As you can see, though I may not have been a star, I didn't exactly suck, either!)

By the end of the 2004-2005 season, I had managed to collect the opinions of several world class coaches on my real potential in this sport: A Russian national team coach, scientist, and program director, who had been involved with their program for decades and had produced several World Champions and Olympic Champions, said I was "great raw material with the right sort of competitive drive." A Norwegian national team coach said that if I were one of his skaters, he'd make me "fucking win." And a Dutch professional team coach went on about the great results I could achieve the following season, "if only USSPEEDSKATING stays out of her way..."

1. I started speedskating at age 11, in 1988, with the West Michigan Speedskating Club.

2. At age 15, National Team coach Mike Crowe picked me out as "a talented skater" and invited me to train with the team. My mom said I was too young and couldn't go. Later on in my career, Crowe would turn against me as I took a different path through the sport and had success with other coaches.

3. In 1994, I moved to Salt Lake City with a USS coach, who abandoned my team after only one month of training. I was alone in a strange city, finishing my senior year of high school and living with a host family. That year, I wrote a letter to USS, telling them what had happened. As a result, they branded me a "No-talent troublemaker." I quit speedskating and pursued my education.

4. In December of 1997, figuring I'd spent enough time away from speedskating and that people had forgotten who I was, I decided to skate some time trials in Milwaukee. The people running the races recognized my name as "the troublemaker," and kicked me off after one 500-meter race on a selectively enforced technicality. After that one race, I had to drive 300 miles back to Detroit, where I was living at the time. It was then that I knew I'd truly been blackballed within the sport. In all, I ended up spending 6 years away, between the ages of 18 and 24. For an athlete, these are prime years of training and competition, and they'd just been thrown away.

5. In January of 2001, I took a leave of absence from the Ph.D. program I was doing, and made a comeback to speedskating, joining the Utah Olympic Oval's FAST Program. By October, I had made my first World Cup team.

6. I missed making the 2002 Olympic Team by 0.26 in the 3000 meters.

7. I was invited to train with the National Team and decided to take a spot on that team in the 2003-04 season, mostly because of financial advantages. While training with that team, I got overtrained and had the worst season of my career. At the end of the season, our coach, Tom Cushman, informed us that he had seen half of our team falling off the edge of overtraining but DECIDED TO CONTINUE PUSHING US IN THE INTEREST OF COLLECTING DATA ON OVERTRAINING. He said he was not concerned at all with our individual race results.

8. From that point on, I was determined to NEVER AGAIN train with a USSPEEDSKATING program. I began to work with a local Salt Lake City coach, Boris Leikin, and had my most successful season ever with him.

9. I started posting on The Protocol in November of 2004. By January of 2005, I was pissing people off, and even earned myself a phone call from the USS President.

10. After qualifying for one of my many World Cup Team spots, I was wrongfully kicked out of a catered dinner that was paid for by the USOC. This wasn't a one-time event I'm talking about. No, I'm talking about 3-4 nice meals per week, brought into the Oval in front of everyone, throughout the entire training and competition season, paid for by the USOC, who intended these meals to be for all skaters who had qualified to represent the USA in international competition. However, USSPEEDSKATING decided that the only people who got to eat this food would be those who chose to train with THEIR teams. If I had wanted to pursue it, I could have sued USSPEEDSKATING for denying this to me, but I didn't have the time or effort to waste.

11. Along with the other speedskaters on the team, I was subjected to then-President Andy Gabel's backdoor sponsorship deal with Qwest and became a "walking billboard" for this sponsor without getting any benefit from it.

12. I trained with Boris's team through the summer of 2005, and qualified for the Fall World Cups. Two weeks before the competitions began, I had a back injury, and was denied access to a USSPEEDSKATING trainer because I trained with a different coach and program. It didn't even matter that I was wearing all of the USS sponsor logos in competition. One of the last things former Program Director Mike Crowe did before he got the axe was to argue that it was absolutely right of USS to do this to me.

13. I missed making the 2006 Olympic Team by 0.08 in the 1000 meters but was next in line to be added to the team and could have been an alternate for at least 3 events. But even though USS had two more women's spots to give out, I retired from competition IMMEDIATELY following my last race at the Olympic Trials, BECAUSE I REFUSED TO SUBJECT MYSELF TO POLITICALLY CORRUPT DECISIONS, which I knew would happen. I forced my speedskating career to end ON THE ICE, NOT IN SOME FREAKING BOARDROOM!!!

In fact, I was right. USS added two men, but FAILED to add two women, and as a result, they did not have enough women to skate the 1500 meters at the Olympics in Torino.

14. At the USS Spring Board Meeting in April 2006, Gabel stepped down as President. Soon after, Marquard resigned as Executive Director, Crowe was fired from his position as Program Director, Cushman lost his job as National Allround Coach, and several other staff members were fired or resigned. This series of events is what I call "The Great Purge."

I believe that speedskating sites on the internet, such as the Yahoo Skatelist and athlete blogs, played a major role in the shakeup in USSPEEDSKATING. This shakeup has been long overdue, but it hasn't happened until now. I believe the internet sites forced certain issues that USS tried to cover up out into the open, and forced the corrupt former leaders of the federation to be accountable for their actions.

The one thing I'd like to say to the parents of skaters who have just reached or are close to reaching the elite level in this sport is that the USSPEEDSKATING system that has fallen apart since the end of the 2006 Olympic season IS NOT the sports system that you expected when you and your child began your journey through the sport of speedskating. However, even though things will not be easy for you in the near future, you now have the opportunity to help set up the kind of speedskating training and development system that you want and deserve.

I hope no kid ever has to have the kind of speedskating career that I did. I hope the new administration of USS will have more integrity and will be better for the athletes. Now, I'm going to get on with my life.

2006-06-24T15:55:00.000-06:00

The Other Side of Several Stories:

Last night, I met with Ryan Shimabukuro to discuss some of the controversial issues I covered on this blog. I was so pleased that Ryan was willing to do this, and also that he still considered me a friend no matter what happened or what was said during the past season.

I learned a lot from my conversation with Ryan, not only about his own point of view, but also about USSPEEDSKATING's position on several of the stories I told on The Protocol. After hearing what Ryan had to say, I realized that maybe I should have given "the other side" a chance to tell their story.

The reason why I'm posting this is because the truth is important to me. In controversial stories such as the ones I told on The Protocol, especially the ones involving some instances of an athlete being screwed over by the federation, there is a shade of gray. Not everything is clearly black or white. Therefore, having the opportunity to hear both sides of a conflict can bring us all closer to the truth.

Just as in science, it is important for a researcher to retract data that has been proven wrong, it is important for me to let people know when I have failed to consider the source of my information or to tell both sides of a story. The only way I can inspire positive change in the sport of speedskating is by making every attempt to be a trustworthy source of information, and to make sure that if I am being critical of the organization, then my criticism is based on the truth.

As far as my own stories of my own experiences of being mistreated by USSPEEDSKATING, I stand by them 100%. These are any stories I've told of things that happened to me, things I saw with my own eyes or heard with my own ears. Stories shared with me by others, on the other hand, are stories of one person's word or perception against another's, and then my own interpretation of the events that transpired comes in on top of that, to become a post on The Protocol.

I must admit that I almost always jumped to take the "anti-USS" position on any story, because it totally seemed to fit with my own experiences with the federation. But in all fairness, let me now present The Other Side, and let you, the reader, decide what you think is right.

1. The main issue Ryan and I talked about is when I posted about the Olympic Trials, saying he was "holding the lap board for me, and then a few hours later, was fighting against me in the draw." I got this information from a skater's parent who was at the draw and told me that "Ryan was one of the USS coaches fighting for the top 4 women to be in their own separate grouping for the draw," and to keep me and Erin Porter down in the next group.

From my perspective, I knew that I could have a good race no matter whom I was paired with, but it just disturbed me, because from that parent's story, it sounded like Ryan was trying to artificially separate the top 4 women out and put me at a disadvantage.

But there were a few things that I did not know at the time. One of these things is that on the men's side, Ryan also had a couple of guys who were just out of the top grouping, and he was still trying to keep the top 4 guys separate from the next group down. His rationale for wanting to maintain these groupings was to keep people of the same speed together so that no pair would have trouble crossing over and running into each other on the backstretch. It makes sense to me now.

Still, I felt that one of the races of one of the Top 4 women's pairs was called back for no good reason, after one of the women stumbled, but there was no false start on the pair. I feel certain that if anyone other than another one of The Chosen had been that skater's pair, then that person's coach would have noticed that the pair had been called back for no good reason. Ryan says he fought for the Top 4 women based entirely on time, and not based on the names of the skaters. I do believe him, and whatever happened at the start of that particular race had nothing to do with his involvement.

2. I thought it was not fair that two men were added to the Olympic Team to skate the pursuit, while USSPEEDSKATING did not add two women. The reason for adding two men and not two women is that there were not enough men among those who had qualified in individual distances who WANTED to skate the team pursuit, while there were plenty of women who were ALREADY QUALIFIED for the Olympic Team who had agreed to skate the team pursuit.

However, even though USSPEEDSKATING has used this as an excuse for not taking more women to the Games, I still think that this was the wrong decision for them to make. I think the main problem with the way the Olympics played out for the U.S. women's team is that USSPEEDSKATING underestimated the severity of the injuries of two of their competitors, and they also underestimated the additional toll, both physical and mental, that the team pursuit event would take on the athletes during the Olympic Games. Skating several rounds of a 6-lap race is not insignificant, and I'm not surprised that some of the athletes might be reluctant to race too much more after that kind of effort.

Still, in my own skating career, I've raced a 1500 and a 3000 on a sprained ankle and a 10K with full-blown bronchitis and a temperature of 101, so I feel I've earned the right to criticize Amy Sannes for not stepping up to race the Olympic 1500 meters. People who were there said, "Well, we couldn't hold a gun to her head and make her skate." No, really, they should have. They should have thought of me and Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. sitting at home, and they should have pointed a gun at Sannes and said, "Get the fuck out there, you worthless and ungrateful piece of shit."

I did not believe that Amy Sannes was a good choice for the team pursuit, anyway, but Ryan said it wasn't Mike Crowe who pushed this decision through at all, while I was sure it had been Crowe. I still think I have good reasons for believing Sannes was not a good choice for this event: She skates her 1500's by getting up to top speed but dying in the last lap, she can't skate a 3K at all (compared to Canada's Shannon Rempel, who, despite being a sprinter, can go under 4:20 in the 3K on any given day), and most importantly of all, Sannes IS NOT A TEAM PLAYER and has complained repeatedly about skating behind at least a few of the women who were in contention for skating the team pursuit last season.

Ryan insists that Sannes proved, in competition, that she was not a weak link on the team. But I'm not sure -- after the pursuit race at the Torino World Cup, Maggie was saying that she still had a lot of energy left, but Amy was pretty much spent.

3. There was a story I told about a junior boy who supposedly got left off the list for being added onto the National Team last year, because he had too much going on with school. This was a story told to me by the boy's mother, who had heard from the boy's coach that USS had been considering inviting him to the team, but decided not to, for that reason.

In fact, the boy in question was not even in consideration for a National Team spot. There was another skater who WAS in consideration for one of these spots, but in a tough decision, was denied. I should have considered the source of the information on this one. (the coach, I mean, not the parent.)

4. There was a story of a junior girl who was denied funding on a junior competition trip because she only wanted to attend one of the race weekends, not both, causing her to miss too much school in between. USS's position on this is that juniors have to either commit to ALL of the trips, or they get no funding at all. Maybe this is not an optimal situation, but that was the rule at the time. If this rule is found to be generally unacceptable, then the people who are affected by it will have to try to pressure USS into changing the rule.

5. During the Olympics, I briefly mentioned the disorganization of USS staff leading to the failure of the pursuit teams. This came from a story from a parent of a skater who said that after the women's team failed to qualify for a medal round, the coach and program director told them not to bother to show up for their consolation round.

USS's position on this is that they INSISTED that both the men's and women's pursuit teams show up for their consolation races because, "This is the Olympic Games!!!" In this case, it's obviously one side's word against the other's.

6. I also talked about the failure of USS to fill all of its spots in the women's Olympic 1500 meters. Chris Witty and her coach, Bart Schouten, insist that they gave USS plenty of time to know that Chris was not going to skate the 1500, enabling them to fill that spot with another skater. Bart insists that Chris's hip was severely injured and that she was physically unable to skate that race.

USS says that Bart and Chris waited until the last minute to inform USS that Chris was not going to skate the 1500, which didn't give any other woman the chance to prepare for the race. Ryan said that Maggie said she didn't want to skate it for sure, and that Amy said she'd only do it if she had a day's notice.

I found out soon after that Maggie was injured, and was righteously pissed that Amy simply didn't want to skate that event. I felt at the time that Crowe had protected her spot on the team pursuit by failing to add women to the team, and that this was the only reason why we didn't have an alternate for the 1500 meters. I felt that Amy owed it to us to go out there and show the world the 2:12 she was probably going to skate. (What, did she think that if she'd had a day to prepare, she'd have been on the podium? No way! If she'd had a day to prepare, she might have pulled out a 2:09 instead of a 2:12.)

7. At the USS Spring Board Meeting, it was not Mike Crowe but Bill Cushman who said the USOC should give USSPEEDSKATING more money. Ryan says that Cushman is not aware of how much help the USOC gives, but that Crowe is. The fact that this was said by Cushman and not Crowe is the only inaccuracy I'd like to remedy in the post about whether the program director deserved his salary. I stand by everything else, including my belief that he in fact did not deserve his salary or his job. Apparently, the new leadership of USS agreed with me.

8. The issue of the athletes who breached the Athlete Agreement also came up, and the usual 2 sides to this story were presented: The federation sees the athletes who breached as selfish sellouts who don't care what happens to the rest of the skaters, while the athletes who breached insist that USS doesn't give them what they want or need. I tend to support the individual sponsorship position because of how badly I've been treated by USSPEEDSKATING throughout my career, because I disagree with how they allocate resources, and because I want to choose my own coach.

But Ryan presented another unusual twist to this story, saying that "the Dutch destroyed USSPEEDSKATING by throwing money at us." By this, he meant that maybe the real reason why the Dutch bank DSB wanted to sponsor some of the individual athletes within USS was an attempt to break USSPEEDSKATING apart. It makes sense to me that USS would think this way, but even in the unlikely case that this were true, I AM NOT SORRY THAT IT HAPPENED.

What I mean to say is that I'm not surprised to hear that USSPEEDSKATING once again believes that the only reason why they have any problems is that someone or some group has a "conspiracy" against them. The previous season, the supposed "conspiracy" involved the Norwegian team stealing American intellectual property, and now USS believes the Dutch banks tried to break their team apart by offering to sponsor the top American skaters. So, does this now mean that DSB is sorry that they supported the top American Olympic medal winners at the expense of the Dutch skaters? They sure don't seem to see it that way. After all, when the 2005-2006 season was done, DSB offered a sponsorship to the American sprinter Kip Carpenter.

Of course, the Dutch conspiracy theory is absurd and is another excuse that USS will use for the falling apart of the federation. I feel bad for the skaters, because they surely will suffer due to the current lack of funding. But when Ryan asked me how I'd feel if USS had suddenly lost funding in the middle of the season and became unable to send me to World Cups, the only thing I realized was how close my attitude had really come to that of a terrorist. I realized that I had nothing to lose, because under the current system of USSPEEDSKATING, I knew there was no way I would ever be able to have the speedskating career I wanted and knew I deserved. And, having reached that point of utter hopelessness, I was so willing to see the federation ripped apart that I was not only willing to contribute to the process of its destruction, but I was also willing to experience the destruction of what was left of my own speedskating career in the process.

9. I talked with Ryan about not being able to tolerate his celebration of Amy Sannes's unexpectedly good 500 meter race at the Olympic Trials. He said that it wasn't anything personal, but that he just appreciates good sport, and that he'd congratulate any athlete or coach on a good performance.

I told him about the progression of my hatred for Amy; how at first she was nothing more than an unfriendly, antisocial and selfish person, but then she officially became "a bitch" when she left me without a ride to a competition by jumping on the last seat of another team's van after we had planned to drive up together. Ryan agreed that after that, I didn't even owe her the common civility of acknowledging her existence.

---

Well, I guess that pretty much covers the misinformation of some of my previous posts. The only concerns I may have are about the actual "truthiness" of some of the things I have written, not about the effect. In fact, I think that those of my posts that have caused people to say, "Hey, that's not how it happened, it happened like THIS!!" turned out to be some of the most useful ones, because they got people to talk about the real issues.

I have no regrets if my words have contributed to the shake-up and the firings that happened in USSPEEDSKATING throughout the past few months. I do believe that Katie Marquard was a poor face for the organization and set up a toxic, clannish, unwelcoming culture for the federation that was not conducive to progress and growth. I do believe that Andy Gabel is untrustworthy, to say the least. I do believe that Tom Cushman is utterly clueless. I do believe that Mike Crowe is an unskilled leader who has demonstrated inconsistencies between his words and his actions. I'm glad these people have lost their positions and will no longer be leading USSPEEDSKATING down the wrong path.

In conclusion, let me try to sum up the main reason why I was so pissed off at USSPEEDSKATING that I was willing to play "suicide bomber" with my speedskating career: I believe that the reason why I was willing to do this is the knowledge that in any speedskating federation other than this one, I would have been treated as a valued member of a strong women's team, instead of treated as an enemy by a system that sets up a sick and backwards environment where spoiled princesses are expected to thrive in a sport that is not suited to the success of spoiled princesses.

One of the things that USSPEEDSKATING needs to figure out is what sort of women's team they want to send to an event where they will face skaters who posess BOTH THE WILL TO WIN AND THE SUPPORT OF THEIR FEDERATION. Are these things really mutually exclusive?

2006-06-09T06:17:00.000-06:00

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Continuing to Post on The Protocol:

I've mentioned that my posting about speedskating politics has been interfering with my ability to concentrate on my work, and that has made me think about whether it's worth it to me to continue. The lab where I'm working is gathering data to publish a paper within a few months, and my project is a major part of this research. So, it seems to me that I can either concentrate on having my name on my first published scientific paper, or I can continue to be the Judas goat for this sport that frustrated the years of my youth.

My friends say I'm a fighter and love a challenge, but because of the way I'd been mistreated by USSPEEDSKATING over the years, trying to speedskate for the USA was not really just a "race against myself."

A race against myself is more like my experience running the marathon last weekend, where the 3:30 pace guy from the Clif Bar Pace Team passed me just after Mile 20, and I told myself that I wouldn't let him out of my sight, no matter how badly my legs were hurting. Fighting the speedskating politics battle, on the other hand, is like sticking both hands into a rotting corpse and smooshing things around: It smells bad, it makes you queasy, and there comes a point where you wonder why you're even doing it.

It's bad enough that the environment at the Utah Olympic Oval has been irreparably damaged for me, and that people there snicker about me behind my back for laying my anger out for all to see. It doesn't matter that I was the first one to tear into a corrupt organization that eventually collapsed. I will always be known as "The Notorious."

Right now, there is nothing for me to gain by continuing to grind the axe. After all, the people who, I believe, were leading USSPEEDSKATING down the wrong path, have all been fired or have resigned. The National Team coach who burned out more athletes than he helped; who admitted to trashing half his team for the purpose of data collection on overtraining; who ruined the Olympic medal chances of Jen Rodriguez; has been fired. The Executive Director, who, I believe, was responsible for setting up the unfriendly and elitist "country club atmosphere" of the sport, has resigned. And the Program Director, Mike Crowe, whose lack of leadership led directly to several specific instances of failure at the 2006 Olympics (covered in an earlier post) and whose favoritism towards one woman on the team clouded his ability to make decisions, was fired.

At the time of this post, the new leaders of USSPEEDSKATING have not come out and informed us in any way of the direction in which they plan to take the federation. We literally have no way of knowing if ANYTHING but the names and the faces of the players has changed at the top. And, although it is possible that my continuing to post my views on The Protocol might help the new administration stay on track, this fight is no longer worth it to me in terms of the disruption to my life.

2006-06-07T10:58:00.000-06:00

A Vacation from Sports Politics:

I'm going away tomorrow, for a long weekend, and maybe that will give me some time to figure out what I want my involvement to be in USSPEEDSKATING politics. Thinking about those issues is seriously interfering with my ability to concentrate at work, and I'm kind of getting tired of being attacked by the same people I'm trying to support.

I've had a request to post comments on the USS MySpace site, and maybe after I've taken a break, I can do that, but right now I don't know.

I'll leave you, for now, with the latest hilarious misconception about me. Apparently, I, a subversive "Almost-Olympian" in an obscure European sport, am a sellout who is capitalizing on my success, and is ungrateful to USSPEEDSKATING for all the ways in which they helped me in my development as a speedskater.

And now, since I'm such a sellout, let me get back to my Southern blot DNA analysis and my mouse tissue iron level measurements. Don't get me wrong - if I ever had a chance to sell out, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

2006-06-06T16:37:00.000-06:00

Paralyzed by Inertia? A short term compromise might help:

Right now, USSPEEDSKATING is facing a crisis. There are so many decisions before the new administration that they seem to be paralyzed and unable to respond, like a deer caught in the headlights. Maybe the thing to do, especially in terms of the athlete agreement, would be to come up with a short term solution; a sort of compromise between the two sides, that would allow USS to move forward with this season.

It might be good to avoid locking people into any long term contracts at this time. That would allow more time for serious issues involving the direction and philosophy of the federation to be hammered out, instead of making quick decisions right now that USS or the athletes might regret later on.

Why do I mention this? Here's a sobering thought: ICE OPENS ON THE UTAH OLYMPIC OVAL IN LESS THAN A MONTH. Please think of the skaters, and let them know what is going on.

2006-06-06T09:17:00.000-06:00

A few words on the skinsuit debate:

There is a very intense discussion going on among the skaters right now as to whether the racing skinsuit should be designated personal apparel or competitive equipment. The top athletes (those who can easily find big sponsorship deals) want it designated personal apparel, so they can put their own logos on it, while the up-and-coming skaters want it designated competitive equipment so that it will be provided to them, and so that USS's ability to find sponsors as a federation will not be placed in jeopardy.

Both sides make excellent points, and I hope the discussion will continue.

I really think that right now USSPEEDSKATING, as a federation, needs to step up and show some leadership. If they want the skaters behind them, then they have to show that they have the skaters' best interest in mind. They have to communicate and let people know that changes are being made for the better, and that USSPEEDSKATING is going in a new direction.

If not, then even as a former skater who never made the big breakthrough, I can see why the top skaters would want to be on their own.

2006-06-05T16:47:00.000-06:00

Does the lack of communication disturb anyone?

Hey USSPEEDSKATING, what is going on? There are National Team athletes who have no coach and no program. There are internationally competitive short track skaters who feel like they have had no input on the skinsuit decision of the athlete agreement. And now that the June 1st deadline that the USOC put on the new athlete agreement has passed, can you let us know what has happened?

I know you're in a state of upheaval right now, and that some of this information may be of a sensitive nature. But if that is the case, then at least come out and tell us that much! Your own members deserve to know.

This is the problem that arises when there has not been a good history of communicating with the general membership of USSPEEDSKATING.

With each passing day, the silence becomes more deafening. With each passing day of silence, you are showing your lack of concern for your own athletes and for their need to plan their training seasons.

2006-06-05T13:41:00.000-06:00

Thumbs Up on the Salt Lake City Marathon:

I'm so glad I ran this race; it was such a great experience. The whole atmosphere was so supportive and celebratory. Spectators lined the course and cheered us on the whole way. It felt like the whole Salt Lake community was involved.

I'm happy with my own results. My time was 3:31.51, a new personal best (it's funny - the last personal best I set was a 10.85 in the 100 meter speedskating...) I placed 20th overall among the women, and 4th in my age group. Yes, it hurt really bad, but not until Mile 20.

There really was a taco stand on State Street, around the 24th mile, and people standing on that corner must have thought I was becoming delirious from the heat, because I couldn't help laughing out loud about it.

I ran into another speedskater along the way -- Ron Macky was running the marathon, too. We passed each other, back and forth, a few times. Wanna know who was faster in the end? I'm not going to tell. You'll have to look it up.

My friend who was so scared of running the 5K ended up spending the weekend in a state of giddy euphoria, having realized that she'd actually enjoyed participating in a competitive athletic event for the first time in 10 years.

Ralph, the bloody blister, came back with a vengeance and exploded all over my shoe. I'm glad I didn't look down until after the race was over.

I really did listen to the Offspring the whole way. I can think of worse ways of spending a Saturday morning than trotting around for 3 and a half hours listening to all my favorite songs.

2006-06-01T08:30:00.000-06:00

"Is It Taco Time Yet?"

For several reasons, it's predictable that I'd end up running the Salt Lake City Marathon this year. Since the race is coming up this weekend, I guess I should say a few random words of motivation and de-motivation about it.

1. Personal best time: 3:38, Detroit, 1997.

2. Time goal for Salt Lake City: 3:30

3. Charity: None. I suffer for DNA every day! Besides, wasn't my entire speedskating career one big Kamikaze mission on behalf of the Speedskating Justice League? (Hey, at least it worked!)

4. Injuries: A giant bloody blister named Ralph. He's gone now.

5. How I compare to other runners:

-Not nearly fast enough to make enemies, thank God!!!

-I can't even run one mile at the marathon race pace of the top women registered for this event...

...but if I'm not on pace to beat Oprah, then you should probably call for an ambulance.

6. Chance that the 2006 Salt Lake City Marathon will be more unpleasant than the 2006 Olympic Speedskating Trials: Slim to nonexistent.

7. For those unfamiliar with Salt Lake City's Olympic theme, "Light the Fire Within" does not mean you should eat a taco before your race.

8. The only way that Mexican food could possibly wreck my race: Getting hit by a runaway taco vendor cart on State Street.

9. Top 3 Offspring lines I would NOT sing to Dexter if he were running with me:

- "You're only feeling stronger 'cause your body's getting numb."

-"Burning out, strung along, now my sorrow is my song."

-"The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care."

10. One of my friends, who was inspired to register for the 5K run (her first race in several years) now says she feels "like a one-legged man signed up for an ass-kicking contest."

11. Though I tried to keep my marathon training a secret from my lab coworkers, they found out eventually. Fortunately, they're not exactly offended by their new technician's jock tendencies. In fact, a couple of them have said, "Now that you've cleaned up speedskating politics, will you try again for Vancouver?"

12. Reasons why running the marathon is better than speedskating at the Utah Olympic Oval:

-Being outside in the fresh air, instead of going around in circles like a gerbil in a cage.

-Chances are good you won't run into the kind of person who is afraid of a 2-minute speedskating race.

-Getting lost in a field of 10,000 runners.

-No full spandex clown suit!

-No sign above my head identifying me as the "Evil, Toxic, Subversive Speedskating Terrorist!"

And, the number one best reason why running the marathon is better than speedskating is: I DON'T HAVE TO PUT MY MP3 PLAYER AWAY BEFORE GOING TO THE STARTING LINE!

2006-05-30T07:35:00.000-06:00

Coach-Athlete Relations Under a Corrupted Systetm:

I have heard that Ryan Shimabukuro was hurt by something I posted during the Olympic Games, and I'm pretty sure I know what it is. I'm sorry about a lot of things that I saw happening in this sport during my last 5 years competing in it. I'm sorry about certain pressures Ryan faced, as a coach, from the people who were overseeing his coaching performance. I'm extremely sorry about the attitudes of the Powers that Be (Oh, excuse me. I mean, "the powers that WERE!" Hooray for the Great Purge!!!) towards outsiders such as myself. I'm also sorry about the way the attitudes of Ryan's superiors towards me intersected with the working coach-athlete relationship I had with Ryan.

In this post, I'd like to talk about how the corrupt system of the old USSPEEDSKATING affected the way I worked with Ryan. I'd also like to talk about why there was no way Ryan could have been the coach I needed him to be at the Olympic Trials, and why I should never have expected him to be. Finally, I'd like to talk about where things stand right now and what we can all learn from this.

Ryan is a good coach and a good person. He always did whatever he could to help me with my skating technique and my equipment while we were on World Cup trips and my regular coach couldn't come along. But there was always a limit to what Ryan could do for me, because he worked for USSPEEDSKATING and I was an outspoken outcast.

Let me put it this way. Back in mid-1930's Germany, a good little German boy did not give a little Jewish girl a chunk of bread for her starving family that was hiding out in the attic next door, even though they had been friends at school. Back in Stalin's Russia, a good Communist college student did not study together with his former friend, the counterrevolutionary. These people "followed the protocol," and thus were able to keep on living and keep from being thrown into prison.

In the same way, Ryan had to "follow the USSPEEDSKATING protocol" when it came to working with me. He had to kick me out of a catered team dinner to which I was technically entitled, because the "current protocol" demanded it. He had to argue against me in the draw at the Olympic Trials, just hours after he had held the lap board for me in a race. And, whether the decision involved me or not, he cast his vote against adding two women to the Olympic Team in order to protect Amy Sannes's position on the team pursuit - a decision which was dead wrong, any way you look at it.

It wasn't Ryan's fault, it was just the current protocol. When the Nazis are in power, don't piss them off. When the Communists are in power, don't be seen hanging out with counterrevolutionaries, or you'll get hauled off to Siberia. When Crowe, Marquard, and the Cushman family are running your speedskating federation, dance to whatever tune they're playing, or you'll lose your job.

The little things Ryan had to do to me, politically, added up, but what really hurt me was the whoop-and-holler and "high-five" victory dance he and Tom Cushman did on the backstretch after Amy Sannes pulled a 38.5 out of her ass in the 500 meters at the Olympic Trials. I just felt that Sannes's performance, relative to the rest of the American women at the US Olympic Trials, was entirely artificial, because she was the only one of us who had the luxury of peaking specifically at that time. As the program director's coddled favorite, she was the only one who had the luxury of treating the fall world cups as a "write-off."

I see now that it is a personal problem of mine that I was unable to allow Ryan to be happy for Amy when he saw her skate a fast time. Maybe Ryan really felt he was applauding her return to her 2002 level of performance. But I was upset with him because I felt betrayed, because he was working with me, not with her. I felt he should have realized that the playing field was not level, and that he was applauding a hollow victory.

As it turned out in the ensuing months, Sannes's subpar performances at the World Sprints and at the Olympics were nothing more than a symptom of the disease within the old USSPEEDSKATING, and her outrageous peak at the Olympic Trials, while apparently a cause to celebrate at the time, was nothing more than another one of Cushman's screwup miscalculations.

Because of the way things ended up for me in USSPEEDSKATING, there was no way I could have expected Ryan to be the race coach I needed to help me succeed at the Olympic Trials. One of my friends told me, "When you've been treated so shoddily by an entire group of people in a sport, what you end up needing is not a race coach but a war god."

I really did need a war god by my side, more than anything else. I needed someone with an "Us Against Them" attitude. I needed someone who wanted the same thing I did, which was total destruction of the Chosen Ones. I needed someone whose burning rage and hatred matched my own. There was no way I could have expected this of Ryan.

It's not normal to come to the point of needing a war god instead of a race coach, and the old USSPEEDSKATING is responsible for setting up that condition for me.

I knew Ryan could see me getting seriously demoralized throughout the Olympic Trials. Truly, this event was a horrible nightmare for me, and I think Ryan could see how sick I was of fighting my war against USSPEEDSKATING. I also believe that he didn't think there was any way he could help me in terms of team selection. If I really wanted to know where he stood on that, I suppose I should have asked him at some point during the Trials, but even now I know I was trying to spare myself an answer that might have sent me over the edge.

But Ryan had a great deal of respect for my ability to fight my way through my races, and before my last 1000 meters, he said to me, "If this is to be the last race of your speedskating career, then go down swinging." It's funny - in this sport I always came out swinging, and now I was going down swinging. When it was all over and I'd had one of the best races of my life, Ryan said he was proud of me. He knows how much I love this sport.

It's such a shame that speedskating politics had to come between me and Ryan, but that's just the way it goes. Just as the good citizens of Germany are still asked the question, "Why did you let the holocaust happen?" there are certain truths that need to come out about how good people were pressured to behave under the corrupt system of the old USSPEEDSKATING. I never whitewashed anything. I had to tell the truth.

But when I told the true story of how the TOSH trainers were forced to deny me treatment before a World Cup, they were not offended, but rather were happy that I pointed out a major flaw in the system. They stood by my side and insisted that what they were forced to do was downright medically unethical.

In the end, did not the good guys win? Did not Marquard step down? Did not Cushman's incompetence become so glaringly obvious that he had to be let go? Did not Crowe get the boot? Did not the corrupt former leadership of USSPEEDSKATING come crashing down like Godzilla stomping on the thawing ice of a winter that has lasted WAY TOO LONG???

Now that logic and reason have prevailed, it seems that Ryan "the Flyin' Hawaiian," who was never really a part of the "Minnesota Northshore Royalty," is the last man standing. And now that he is the only one they still want to keep, isn't it awesome that he has received a great offer from a Japanese team, and is seriously considering taking it?

Ryan, I hope you take that offer, because I'm sure the Japanese can give you what you're worth. I hope you get to see what it's like to be a speedskating coach in a different system. And someday, when this all blows over, I hope that you and I can be friends again.

2006-05-26T08:30:00.000-06:00

Selling the Image of Speedskating in the 21st Century:

As everyone knows, USSPEEDSKATING is in dire financial straits right now. Most people can admit that USS's previous leadership has led them down that path. The question now is, how is the new Board going to market the sport and bring more money in?

I see that there is a dilemma that the speedskating administrators have to solve. They have to reconcile the "whitewashed" image of the sport with the true marketing potential of several of their athletes, as individuals.

During the Olympics, I noticed some online news articles discussing "whether the Olympics have lost their soul," and whether the Games are still relevant to today's culture. Well, maybe most people can no longer relate to the "old protocol" of the parade-riding, flag-waving Olympic medalist, but some sports federations, namely our own, are still trying to hang onto this image.

One problem is that several of the individuals who were running USSPEEDSKATING during the past Olympic cycle were setting up obstacles for many of the skaters to fight, practicing favoritism and discrimination, utilizing unethical training methods, and signing misleading contracts, while, at the same time, projecting a false image of goodness to the public. Just yesterday, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron were convicted "of a total of 29 criminal counts, including a conspiracy to hide the failing health of the company by selling a boosterish optimism to Wall Street and the public." The only difference between what Enron was doing and what the former leaders of USSPEEDSKATING were doing is in the value of what was at stake. So far, it's not criminal to destroy a young person's athletic career, but it is criminal to make people lose their life savings.

Another problem is that, although the stories and personalities of several of our Olympians and other skaters are interesting and marketable, they don't exactly fit in with the image that USSPEEDSKATING has wanted to maintain. For example, let's take Chad Hedrick. First, I have to say that I totally disagree with his attacks on Shani, and believe that USSPEEDSKATING allowed this to go on, in order to let this conflict between the two Olympic champions take the media's attention off the conflicts between USS and its skaters. I read in the Salt Lake Tribune that Chad intended to make a "Nancy vs. Tonya" sort of feud out of this because he felt it would bring attention to the sport, and I don't really like that.

However, this being said, Chad is a very marketable athlete. Girls see him as a "hunk." He's a party animal and a fun guy who loves attention and having the camera on him. He's been called the "Paris Hilton of speedskating," (OK, so I despise Paris Hilton, but whatever...that's just my own opinion.) and in terms of Winter Olympic sports, he's kind of like Bode Miller. Chad is a controversial figure who doesn't do things in the conventional way. He does have the potential to bring attention to the sport of speedskating, but is speedskating ready to let him have the freedom to market himself?

Then, there is Shani Davis. Shani is a pioneer for African Americans in the sport of speedskating, and has the potential to attract many new athletes to the sport. He is a great role model and loves kids. However, USSPEEDSKATING has treated Shani very poorly, and has totally missed out on the opportunity to attract African Americans to the sport of speedskating.

There are also some great stories in the ranks of those skaters who are climbing the ladder of the sport, but in speedskating, these stories are never told. What I like about internet sites such as OhnoZone is that Noelle, who runs the site, writes about all the different athletes "on the tour," not just the stars. Unlike Andy Gabel, the former USS president who publicly displays his shallow disrespect for any skater who doesn't have an Olympic medal, Noelle begins with an attitude of respect for all skaters who have achieved the level of international competition in short track. She seems to have an understanding of what it takes to get there, and her postings on OhnoZone really get people interested in all the athletes as individuals.

As I've discussed before, I feel that USSPEEDSKATING missed out on some great publicity this past season by not televising the Olympic Trials events. I'd even say that following some Olympic hopefuls around as they prepared for the Trials and for the Games would have made a great reality TV show, and anyone who has their finger on the pulse of "what's hot" knows that reality TV is hot right now.

However, I also think that avoiding the cameras fit the agenda of USS's leadership at that time. Can you imagine how disastrous this might have been for them? Can you imagine Mike Crowe and Andy Gabel speaking on TV, losing debates to their own athletes over what is good and what is bad for the sport? Can you imagine them justifying their own decisions?

Even just televising the Olympic Trials would have caused people to ask too many pesky questions, for example, "Why did that skater retire immediately after the last race, when she still had a chance to be added to the team?" or, worse, "Why did they call that pair back to the starting line, pretending there was a false start, when there really wasn't, because one of the Chosen Ones had a stumble that cost her several tenths of a second?"

The trade-off for publicity is a willingness to be accountable to the public. Is USSPEEDSKATING ready for that?

In terms of the whitewashing of the image of speedskating at the expense of the athletes, believe me when I say that THE TRUTH IS MORE THAN JUST A GOOD STORY. We don't want the sport to be dragged through the mud, but at the same time, what has been happening in speedskating is that the athletes have been eating the cost of the corruption within the sport in order to preserve the sport's image. WHEN THE EVIL GO UNPUNISHED, THE GOOD MUST PAY.

Look at what happened at the Olympics. Shani Davis is not the bad guy. Shani Davis is the good guy. He is the hero of a great Olympic story and an inspiration to young people everywhere. But because his true story was not told, people tried to ruin his Olympic experience and taint his image in order to preserve the false front of "America's Purest Sport," which was, in reality, festering and crumbling on the inside.

In the same way, I am not the "bad guy" in my fight with USSPEEDSKATING. People think my story is pretty amazing, and most people believe that despite my rage, which is sometimes over-the-top, I am right about what I say. However, my story will probably never be told because it is too controversial. And because my story will never be told, I also eat the cost of maintaining speedskating's false and whitewashed reputation, when people say that I'm exaggerating, or that I complain too much, or that "things like that don't really happen in speedskating," or that I'm bitter because I wasn't strong enough to "beat the clock."

Enough of that!!! I'm not guilty. I'm the talented speedskater who was wronged by the system and never had a chance to reach my full potential, while Mike Crowe was the program director who destroyed the U.S. long track women's team in order to protect one person who had maxed out her potential years ago. You can look at the conflict between the Davises and Andy Gabel in the same way. Some people say, "Andy Gabel is a savvy businessman and a tireless promoter of the sport," while Cherie Davis is the mother of an Olympic gold medalist, and Cherie and Andy don't see eye to eye. But that's not the true story - that's the whitewashed version. The truth is that Andy Gabel is a poor leader who signed a misleading sponsorship deal behind his skaters' backs and then expected the skaters to pay for his mistake, and Shani was a victim of this decision, and later was the victim of other peoples' attacks on his image as an athlete.

Can you see what is happening? This is no longer about protecting the image of the sport. This is about protecting the reputation of individuals who have tried to ruin the sport for their own selfish reasons. This is about people like Mike Crowe and Andy Gabel being protected at the expense of people like me and Shani.

USSPEEDSKATING has a new Board now. I feel that the first step towards being able to market the sport is to tell the truth about what happened in it, and how changes are being made. The next step will be to evaluate what the American people want from their Olympic athletes, in terms of entertainment value, and to move in that direction. USS is lucky to have skaters who are very marketable, as well as being speedskating champions, but their marketing potential is not being fully utilized.

2006-05-21T19:56:00.000-06:00

A Rebuttal: My True Position on Athlete Sponsorship and Logos:

Recently, an individual has accused me of siding with USSPEEDSKATING against athletes who breached the Athlete Agreement to wear logos of their own individual sponsors. This is absolutely false and completely the opposite of my true position. Obviously, I have not managed to make myself clear enough, so I will try to say it again.

First of all, I am no friend of the people who were in charge of running USSPEEDSKATING during the time when I was competing. I disagree with the way Katie Marquard was running the federation as Executive Director. I think Mike Crowe's performance as Program Director was deplorable, unethical, and incompetent, as well as personally destructive to my own speedskating career. And, especially relevant to the topic of this post, I think Andy Gabel showed extremely poor leadership as USSPEEDSKATING President, most of all in the signing of a misleading sponsorship deal with Qwest.

For anyone to say that I "flock together" with USSPEEDSKATING is extremely insulting to me and goes against everything I have ever written on this blog. I believe that my writing and ideas have contributed to the downfall of several individuals in power in USSPEEDSKATING who were very bad for the sport, its athletes, and its future.

Second of all, I have always been in favor and in support of the individual sponsorship position. I believe that athletes who are able to find individual sponsors, especially those who do not benefit from any of the services of USSPEEDSKATING, should be able to wear the logos of their own sponsors on their suits. In stating the fact that certain athletes were seen and photographed wearing suits where the Qwest logo was painted over, and an individual sponsor logo painted on top, I was not blaming the athlete for causing problems for USSPEEDSKATING. On the contrary, I was happy, because that was the only way that the whole world was going to see how many problems USSPEEDSKATING was causing for its own athletes!

I think that having the whole world see this issue brought to light was a good thing, not a bad thing. I think that USSPEEDSKATING losing the Qwest sponsorship deal was a good thing, not a bad thing, because it pointed out Andy Gabel's arrogance in signing a sponsorship deal behind athletes' backs, while making a promise to the company that he couldn't keep. In the end, because some of USS's top athletes were seen wearing the logos of other companies instead of Qwest, Qwest had to force Gabel to face the consequences of his mistake.

In a way, I'm glad this issue came up again, because this brings me to something I need to point out. The most important thing USSPEEDSKATING should learn from this Qwest experience is to make sure that Andy Gabel never again has the position or authority to make such a decision.

People have called Andy Gabel a "savvy businessman and a tireless promoter of the sport." But I think Andy Gabel is a guy who "wants to be the next Richard Branson," but he wants to do it not by skill, or by making sound business decisions, but by stepping on YOUR backs, and by kicking YOU for his own mistakes.

The Qwest deal that he signed was not a good deal, either for the company or for the athletes. Qwest did not get what they expected, and the athletes were forced to GIVE UP TOO MUCH IN EXCHANGE FOR TOO LITTLE.

Does anyone still believe that I am a friend of USSPEEDSKATING, who stands with them against athletes who want to wear logos of their individual sponsors? Then read this. I resented the fact that, when I was competing, I was pretty much forced to wear a logo while getting nothing for it; while not benefitting from any of USSPEEDSKATING's training programs and even being denied access to a trainer when I was injured before a world cup, because I refused to train with a program that had admitted to using me as an "experiment." I resented the fact that Andy Gabel told the athlete reps last year, "The reason why the athletes don't get more of the sponsorship money directly is because they'd just go out and buy stereo systems and video games." I resented the fact that Andy Gabel sent our whole World Cup contingent an email threatening to sue all of the athletes who breached the Athlete Agreement, on race prep day!!!

To summarize my response to being accused of being a friend of USS who stands against athletes who wear individual sponsor logos, I'd like to reiterate that I am NO FRIEND of any of the people in USS who were involved in the signing and enforcement of the Qwest sponsorship deal, and that I am IN FAVOR of athletes wearing the logos of their individual sponsors.

2006-05-16T16:40:00.000-06:00

And Now You Need Money:

Let me say once again what a great thing it is that the new USSPEEDSKATING Board of Directors has decided to "clean out the dead wood." When a federation goes bad, it is often an insidious process that takes time to develop. In USSPEEDSKATING, problems had gone on for years, but people tried to pretend they didn't exist. With the emergence of the internet as a means for skaters, fans, and others to communicate, it became harder for the people who had been running the organization to hide the problems going on within it.

Finally, it was time for a change. A critical mass of dissatisfaction was reached, and the good people of speedskating were able to come to power and overthrow the status quo.

But the new administration has to deal with the problems created by the old. Sponsors are leaving (and suing!) The USOC is cracking down. Soon, USSPEEDSKATING may find itself completely out of money. What should they do next?

For a sport that prides itself on its wholesome image, this is a very difficult time. I believe that USSPEEDSKATING's best option for finding new sponsors as quickly as possible is simply to come clean. How else will they be able to explain why so many of their former top people are leaving all at once?

Why not just spread the word that the people who had been in charge of USSPEEDSKATING were leading it in the wrong direction, and so they had to be let go? How about telling the world that USSPEEDSKATING is re-evaluating its goals and moving in a new direction?

So, maybe one disadvantage of this time of change is that USSPEEDSKATING is very short on funds. But a major advantage is that they no longer have to be dishonest about "what they are selling" to sponsors! They don't have to pretend that metric speedskating is a pure race against the clock, while some "committee" decides that a girl who can't go under 4:30 in the 3K - and hadn't even skated one at all that season - is a better choice for the Olympic team pursuit than two girls who went 4:15 and 4:16 within the previous month. They don't have to lie and say that their top skaters will wear a logo, when they haven't even asked the skaters if they will or not. They don't have to "sell" an Allround program that nobody wants to train with.

The most important things you can do right now, USSPEEDSKATING, is to assure potential sponsors that something like the misleading deal with Qwest will never happen again, and to give your athletes reasons to be loyal to the federation.

Now, how about talking to some of your 2006 Olympic Champions and seeing if they will help you raise money? I'm sure people would love to meet them!

2006-05-15T15:42:00.000-06:00

An Epitaph for my Nemesis:

Today is the day USSPEEDSKATING cleaned house. Mike Crowe, Tom Cushman, and Marion Wohlrab have all been fired.

Don't worry, Crowe. Maybe you can drive the Zamboni up in Butte. Or you can get a job as a janitor at "Some Veterinary School."

It appears that the new USSPEEDSKATING Board of Directors is sick and tired of this federation being the butt of the speedskating world's jokes. Now, there is no reason why they have to be. Congratulations to the new USSPEEDSKATING board, and best of luck to you all in the upcoming 4-year cycle. As far as I'm concerned, you are starting with a clean slate. I'm really happy and proud of you. Life makes sense again.

PARTY AT MAMA EVA'S RIGHT-ON BOARDING HOUSE!!!!!

2006-05-14T09:22:00.000-06:00

Sports, Cultural Differences, and National Team Support:

There has been a discussion on Andrew Love's blog, Zen and the Art of Speedskating, about differences between various National Team programs, in terms of how a sport is built on a grassroots level, how athletes are developed up to the elite level, and how the teams are funded. This issue came up because the Canadian and American programs believe they can start a dialogue to learn the best aspects of each others' systems in order to improve their own.

For example, in speedskating, the Canadians have a great grassroots development program that feeds a lot of skaters into their system, while the Americans seem to do a good job of bringing what few skaters they have up to the Olympic podium.

Some people have asked the question of how the culture or society impacts how a country's national teams are supported. I would like to share my ideas on that again, even though I briefly mentioned it when I was first starting this blog.

When most people in the USA think of elite amateur sports, where the final goal is an Olympic medal, they think that the USOC is responsible for the support of National Team-level athletes. Most people I've talked to, throughout the years when I competed for the USA on the World Cup circuit of speedskating, believe that athletes on my level were "all set;" that we lived for free in training centers, had all our meals cooked for us, and didn't have to work. And, although this was the furthest thing imaginable from the true situation of long track skaters who live and train in Salt Lake City (and I'm sure this is the case for most athletes training for the Olympics in other sports), the USOC was pretty much fine with this image being spread around and generally accepted.

Let me give you an example, using the community of long track speedskaters in Salt Lake City. Although the Utah Olympic Oval has been the home base of USSPEEDSKATING's long track National Team program since before the 2002 Olympics, there is no housing available for skaters close to the Oval. The only housing that has been provided is the high altitude house in Park City, which only has room for a few skaters. Besides, even if the housing is free, the extra money spent on the gas needed to drive up and down Parley's Canyon every day pretty much negates the financial benefit.

USSPEEDSKATING gives out stipends of $150 per month to World Cup competitors, and skaters are given the chance to increase their USS stipends by finishing Top 20 in overall World Cup standings at the end of the season. The $150-per-month stipend is a joke -- it won't even buy half an athlete's food for the month! In comparison, Canadian World Cup qualifiers get stipends of $1500 a month (sure, it's in Canadian currency, but it still works out to be almost an order of magnitude more than the American skaters get!!!)

There are also other issues of athlete support relating to the USOC. After I made my first World Cup team in 2001, I started receiving a Level 1 athlete grant from the USOC, of $2500 a year, which isn't much, but at least it was something. But by 2003, this funding was cut out entirely, because the USOC had decided they were only going to support athletes who were "performing," which, to them, meant Top 8 in a World Championship or in overall World Cup standings.

This seems backwards to me. I can't think of a Top 10 speedskater who isn't professionally sponsored! Although I hate to say that someone who has gotten to that level should be denied anything, I'm not the only one who believes that "helping the rich get richer" does not seem to be what the USOC needs to be doing in order to help our National Teams become stronger and deeper.

Another thing that the USOC does that seems backwards to me (and this is probably going to sound really bad to a lot of people, but what the hell...) is awarding $25,000 to Olympic gold medalists. I believe that the gold medal itself opens doors to money-making opportunities for the gold medalist. It's getting there that is the problem. It's getting the athlete there that should be the USOC's problem. Isn't that what the American people expect from the USOC, or am I totally off base?

This could be where cultural differences arise. Some societies and governments are just more willing to direct their resources towards supporting their National Teams. For example, I think it is very important to China right now, as a developing superpower, to show their supremacy in sports, especially with the Beijing Olympics coming up in 2008, so their government has put a lot of money into the development of a strong sports system.

Here in America, our government doesn't have a whole lot of money to direct towards a lot of truly worthwhile pursuits, and, working in the field of biomedical research, I realize this first-hand. I don't think that our sports system is a priority right now, either. Right now our main focus is getting ourselves out of a very expensive war that was started based on a lie.

On the other hand, we're capitalists here, right? So why should we Americans depend on handouts from our government? Why can't we, as athletes or as teams, just try to market ourselves? Are we stuck on this whole "amateur" thing? (By the way, do you know what "amateur" means to me? It means, "I'm a spoiled little brat who doesn't need to get paid for what I do, because my parents are loaded!")

The problem right now seems to be that we're stuck somewhere in a horrible middle ground between "professional" and "amateur," and we haven't decided on a clear direction with clear guidelines. So, in this situation, we end up fighting a bunch of irrational power struggles over sponsorship rights.

The sponsorship fights within USSPEEDSKATING were really bad over the last couple of years. When Andy Gabel was president, he made promises to sponsors (about which athletes would wear a company's logos) that he was unable to keep. Now the sponsors are upset, nobody wants to work with USS, and the federation's funding situation is a disaster.

I think the American sports system is in crisis, because we don't know where we are going or how to get there. I think that companies give a lot of money to organizations like the USOC (which has had its own scandals with CEO's skimming off the top), and that somehow, the money is not getting down to the athletes.

Athletes from other countries are surprised that American athletes have so much trouble because "The USA seems to be THE PLACE for money." I agree: It is the place for money, but the USOC and our sports federations are not doing what they need to be doing in order to take advantage of the situation.

---

(10/26/06) Here's some more info I've recently come across. Take a look at this article about Canadian athlete support:

Winnipeg Free Press

Olympians thankful for RONA's millions

Fri Oct 20 2006

Randy Turner

NO, it's not a fortune, but for Olympians like Winnipeg's Shannon Rempel, it's as good as gold.

Who knows? In four years, it just might lead to a precious medal, too.

What we're talking about is the not-so-little matter of RONA's Growing with Our Athletes program, a five-year sponsorship of 100 of this country's elite Olympians and Paralympians that will be worth a minimum of $4 million.

That works out to $40,000 per athlete, or $8,000 a year, which might not sound like the lottery, but to speed skater Rempel, who won silver in team pursuit at the Turin Olympic Games last February, it's the difference between life and debt.

"That's exactly what it does," Rempel said Thursday from her training base in Calgary. "It allows me to live."

Winnipeg's Jennifer Botterill, a veteran of Canada's women's hockey team, was the only other Manitoban on the funding list.

Of course, as a world-ranked Canadian, the 21-year-old Rempel already receives $1,500 a month in tax-free funding. She also gets a grant from Sport Manitoba of about $1,500 a year.

But when you're paying between $500 and $700 a month in rent and each pair of skating boots costs $2,000, it's not exactly like Rempel has been rolling in wealth the last five years while striving to reach world-class performance levels away from home.

After all, Rempel's main financial backers have been her parents, Shirley and Rick. "The Bank of Mom and Dad," the daughter joked.

"They're really supportive," she added. "But it's nice not to ask for money from them. I can't even imagine how much money they've spent on me and my skating career."

Which is why the involvement of RONA, Canada's largest home improvement retailer, can't be overstated in a country where the funding of Olympic athletes has been such a contentious issue -- and widely considered directly tied to results, both good and bad.

It wasn't long ago, in fact, that many Canadian Olympians were living on funding below the poverty level, prompting a high-profile lobbying effort in which athletes, in grungy urban environments, posed with signs that read, "Will Compete for Money."

The Canadian Olympic Committee's director of international performance, Alex Gardiner, another Winnipegger, believes there will be a direct correlation between corporate funding and Canada's results in Beijing in 2008 and Vancouver in 2010, where Rempel and Botterill are expected to represent the country once again.

"It's huge, but the effect is going to be even more magnified because it's directed to our 100 best athletes," Gardiner said Thursday. "It works out to about $700 a month. That can buy an entire month's rent.

"It's a long way from food stamps," Gardiner added. "We've come a long way in the last three years. But athletes have extraordinary costs."

For some athletes, Rempel noted, the money could be used for trips to international events (unlike speed skating, some sports don't cover travel costs) and even coaching.

Or it simply buys a level of security and reduced stress in paying for everything from physical therapy to car repairs to healthy food.

"Who knows what can come up?" the speed skater said. "It may be the car breaks down, or it may be eating good food like fruits and vegetables, which can be more expensive. Or going to the chiropractor and not have to worry about the cost so much."

Now you might be thinking that if RONA is funding the 100 top Canadian athletes, why aren't Clara Hughes and this country's most decorated Olympian, Cindy Klassen, on the list?

Turns out they both declined the money, and not just because of some scheduling conflicts, but because they thought others who aren't blessed with as much corporate support needed it more, Gardiner said.

Olympian, eh? They know more than anyone just how precious those few extra dollars can be when it comes to the enormous challenge of being one of the best in the world at anything.

"They know how hard it is to get sponsors," Rempel said.

So $700 a month from RONA might not sound like a windfall, but this is Canada, remember, where every nickel in support of amateur athletes is almost as hard-earned as a medal. Almost as hard-earned as the sacrifices made during the four years we don't pay them much attention and less money.

Besides, all we know is this: The less burden and strain you put on an athlete's shoulders, chances are, the faster they will go.

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

(No, really, says The Protocol. Didn't USSPEEDSKATING have something similar in place? I believe it was called "BLOWJOBS FOR O-JOBS!!!"

Take a look around at your shitty U.S. women's speedskating team. Now think of all the talented women who left the sport because we have better shit to do with our lives.)

If you look at the article above, you can easily tell the difference in attitudes between the Canadian and American speedskating federations. The Canadians come right out and say that their federation, though it tries its best, still has trouble supporting its athletes to the level they need. They come right out and admit that there is a correlation between a lack of support and poor competitive results, and they want to help their athletes get more support so they can perform better without stressing out about how they're going to cover real expenses such as food, rent, and equipment.

USSPEEDSKATING, on the other hand, tells its athletes that they DON'T NEED support from their federation. In fact, former USS president Andy Gabel has said that the only thing American speedskaters will do if they receive more funding is to spend it all on "video games and stereo systems."

I believe that the purpose of a sports system and sports federation is to support its best athletes and to find ways of helping them perform at the highest level. ANY SPORTS SYSTEM THAT ARGUES THAT ITS ATHLETES DON'T NEED SUPPORT FROM THE FEDERATION IS MAKING A VERY COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR THE FEDERATION'S OWN NON-EXISTENCE.

2006-05-12T20:13:00.000-06:00

The Process of Change:

Ever since the USSPEEDSKATING Spring Board Meeting, those of us who follow the world of speedskating have been getting little bits and pieces of news about the changes taking place within the federation. The biggest surprise so far has been the resignation of Katie Marquard, who will step down from her position as Executive Director in September of this year.

Many of the changes have been encouraging. People who care about the grassroots development of speedskating seem to be happy that Brad Goskowicz has taken over as USS President, because of his previous involvement with the ASU. Also, many people are certain that Beth Bedford will do an excellent job as Treasurer, because of her professional experience as an accountant (That is, assuming the budget can even be fixed at this point! I heard Beth just about had a heart attack when she first saw it...)

The budget is only one of USSPEEDSKATING's many concerns right now, but the lack of funds will end up impacting every part of the organization. Already, the regional development programs have been cut.

I guess right now there is some uncertainty about the National Team coaching situation as well. I have heard that the Allrounders have not yet begun training together as a group. I have also heard that Sprint coach Ryan Shimabukuro may be considering an offer to coach another team.

The allocation of benefits to skaters in different training programs is also up in the air. President Brad Goskowicz has brought up the possibility of giving the National Team-level skaters a stipend and allowing them to choose their own coach and training program. But this has not yet been decided, and time is ticking away.

I have continued to post about some of my experiences in USSPEEDSKATING, in order to make people aware of the problems that have gone on in the past. But lately I have realized that I speak of these problems in an angry way, because I have forgotten that it is now my goal to help inform the new USSPEEDSKATING Board, and to help them get this Olympic cycle off to a good start. I have to remember that things are changing in USSPEEDSKATING, even though these changes are not happening out in the open. And, of course, I have to remember that there are some new people involved in USS leadership now -- not just the people who hurt me.

Yes, I have been very open about my anger towards people like Mike Crowe and Andy Gabel, and about my anger about someone like Tom Cushman getting seemingly limitless chances to screw up (but should I be surprised? After all, this is the country that re-elected a president who lied to us about our reasons for going to war!) I am sorry if my angry words against "the federation" ended up hurting the good people who are involved.

USSPEEDSKATING includes some people who, I feel, abused their power to do things that were unfair, unethical, and bad for the sport. This federation is also made up of people who just made mistakes, people who had to "play by the rules" in order to keep their jobs, people who kept their mouths shut even though they knew that things were not right, and people who tried to fight to make changes but were pushed out.

When I started writing The Protocol, I wanted to tell my story because I wanted people to know that there was more to my own failure than just "me racing against the clock," or against myself. I also hoped that someday, my words would combine with the ideas of others who were also "fed up," and that a critical mass of dissatisfaction would be reached. I think that time has arrived.

I've heard people say, I've been around the sport of speedskating for decades, and I've seen the same old crap happen over and over. What do you think? That everything will change now, just because it happened to you?" I don't know exactly how or why, but I do believe it is happening. USSPEEDSKATING is being forced to change.

2006-05-11T17:31:00.000-06:00

The Leveille Situation: What, exactly, is USSPEEDSKATING's policy on National Team walk-ons?

Back in the fall of 2005, I posted the story of how Tom Cushman started working with Tony Goskowicz's skater, Charles Ryan Leveille, while the U.S. Allround Team was on a training camp in Milwaukee. Charles had been training with Tony's team up until that time, when Tom decided to let him "walk on" to the National Team.

Now, I'm not saying that Charles is not a good enough skater to be on that team. All I would like to do is to ask how this fits in with USSPEEDSKATING's insistence that the only people who are entitled to National Team benefits are those who are "Chosen By The Board" in the spring, before the season begins.

So, the story goes like this: At the Milwaukee training camp, Tom starts paying attention to Charles (videoing, lap times, technique analysis...) at the expense of his own skaters. This gets so bad that the parents of some of Tom's Allround skaters call a meeting with the program director to complain.

Then, at the Fall World Cup Trials, Tom coaches Charles, who happens to make the World Cup team ahead of several Allround Team members. One of my friends told me that there was subsequently an article in one of the Milwaukee newspapers where Tom was talking about the new talent he discovered.

Excuse me, but isn't this the kind of thing we call "poaching?" You know -- taking credit for an athlete developed by another coach? Goskowicz is the one who taught Charles how to skate long track in the first place, and wrote his training program throughout the summer. Not only that: Look at Leveille's history in the sport of speedskating. He first developed as an inline speedskater, and after he became a champion there, his sponsors agreed to fund his transition to ice, as he learned short track under Wilma Boomstra in Southern California. After an unfortunate crash and a horrible back injury, he decided to switch to long track, and trained with Goskowicz at the Pettit in Milwaukee.

Considering USSPEEDSKATING's typical treatment of athletes from outside their own teams, letting Charles walk onto the National Team in the fall of 2005 was a surprising move. I'm wondering what Tom was thinking when he did it. I'm wondering what rules he followed. I'm wondering what his superiors thought of his decision. And did anyone ever give any serious thought to what benefits Charles would be entitled to, or denied? I once asked someone why Charles's skating was being videoed, when he was not a member of "The Chosen 20." The answer I got was this: "Well, Tom has decided he wants to work with Charles. But don't worry - he doesn't get to see the trainers either."

What??? So, you're going to let the guy train on your team, but you're going to deny him the chance to see the trainers? What happens if he gets hurt? None of this makes any sense. This is just an example of how USSPEEDSKATING twists any of their rules to fit any situation to their liking.

As a contrast, let me present to you now my story of being a promising outsider, coming up in the speedskating world during the season of the 2002 Olympic Games:

I was training at the time with Jan Van de Roemer and Lester Pardoe, with the Oval's FAST Program. In the first time trial weekend of October 2001, I skated a 1500 meter race, paired with Elli Ochowicz. She beat me by only a few tenths, and immediately the murmurs of fear and uneasiness began. A week or so later, I skated a 3000 meters in 4:28, during one of my many bouts with tonsillitis. After this race, Jan tells me that the "USS people" are relieved at my slow time, saying, "Oh, don't worry about her. She can't skate the long distances."

The Fall World Cup Trials arrive, and USS craps their collective pants as I beat the field in the 3K by 6 seconds.

Can you see the difference between how they treated me in 2001, and how they treated Charles in 2005? Does anyone care to speculate on a reason? I sure don't.

Coming back to the main point: What we have here is a few basic problems. The first one involves USSPEEDSKATING not being clear on its rules about National Team walk-ons: How they'll decide who walks on, and what these walk-ons will get. The second problem involves a coach abandoning his own team after wrecking them through his typical "overtraining protocol," in favor of an athlete who had been working with another coach, and taking credit for that athlete's success.

And, finally, the Leveille situation proves what I said about USSPEEDSKATING's so-called "Development Program," where all they need is a talent scout who reads the Fitness and Speed Skating Times to find the fastest inliners, convert them to ice, and there you go. The problem with that "strategy" is this: Inline skating is pretty much dead (at least, compared to where it used to be, when USS inherited skaters such as Boutiette, Parra, Cheek, Rodriguez, Hedrick...) , so where are you going to find your talent? Where are you going to find an organization that DEVELOPS THEIR SKATERS ON THEIR DIME, and THESE SKATERS BECOME CHAMPIONS FOR USSPEEDSKATING WITH NEGLIGIBLE INPUT FROM USSPEEDSKATING ITSELF.

On the surface, this "walk-on episode" just seems like an unfair situation. But if you go deeper, you see that it is representative of USSPEEDSKATING's attitude towards the development of the sport.

2006-05-11T13:15:00.000-06:00

Stupid team travel arrangements are one of USS's biggest wastes of money:

Did you know that when USSPEEDSKATING buys plane tickets for its athletes to fly overseas for competitions, they often pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars more than the fare that any individual could find online for the same flight? And it's not like their travel agent finds them flights that are convenient: The skaters are still getting up in the wee hours to catch a 5 AM flight, having long layovers, and transferring at out-of-the-way airports.

Why is this happening? I've heard this complaint from several people, but nothing has been done about it. USSPEEDSKATING has been making all its arrangements through the same travel agent -- Howard something or other, down in Florida, and he always does the same thing: Finds inconvenient flights at exorbitant, rip-off prices.

And, don't forget about all those officials who have to go to all the competitions and clinics, as well. It really ticks me off that you'd rather pay OUT OF YOUR OWN POCKET to send a bunch of administrators to Torino, than to LET THE USOC PAY for a couple of desperately needed alternates or team pursuit members for your women's team.

Wake up, USSPEEDSKATING. You're too poor to be careless with your travel arrangements.

2006-05-10T07:54:00.000-06:00

Justify Your Own Salary, Mr.Program Director, Before Asking the USOC for More Money:

A funny thing happened at the USSPEEDSKATING board meeting. The discussion of money came up, and USS was complaining about how their sponsors were withdrawing their support, and they were so low on funds that they were going to have to eliminate all of the regional development programs. At this point, Program Director Mike Crowe jumped in and said, "We'd be fine if only the USOC would give us more money."

(*NOTE:* I found out later that it wasn't Crowe who said this after all, but rather former USS President Bill Cushman.)

The USOC representative who came to the meeting apparently turned livid at this suggestion. He proceeded to point out how many millions of dollars the USOC had given USSPEEDSKATING over the past few Olympic cycles, and demanded to know exactly how that money was being spent.

Personally, I'd like to know whether people really believe Mike Crowe deserves to be paid for the job he has been doing as Program Director. What was his plan for the past 4 years? How did he do? Does he evaluate the performance of his coaches on a regular basis? Does he evaluate the performance of his athletes on a regular basis? Is he capable of interpreting his findings, and using them in a meaningful way? Does he give direction to the National Team programs? Does he try to get the best athletes to train together and help each other? Does he enter skaters in events they are capable of skating, or does he do stupid things like putting someone who can barely finish a 1500 meters into a 6-lap pursuit? Does he take the mission statement and goals of the federation and develop a plan to carry them out? How do his actions, decisions, and finally, results, reflect on his own performance as Program Director?

Many people like to say, "Crowe knows what is right, but he doesn't always say it." They think he has enough experience and knowledge, and all he has to do is stand there and observe. Is this enough for you? I would encourage you to actually ask him some questions, force him to give you a straight answer, and, once his jaw starts flapping, you will see what a genius he really is -- like the time he adamantly argued that a World Cup qualifier should not be able to see a trainer for evaluation of her back injury two weeks before an event.

You shouldn't tolerate any disconnection between "what you supposedly think he knows," and his actions and results (or lack thereof). You shouldn't tolerate any disconnection between his actions and decisions as Program Director and the goals of the federation, in terms of the performance of its athletes.

Do you think you are paying $70,000 a year for the "brain" of your operation? I think you're paying $70,000 a year for a sphincter on your elbow; an appendage that is both redundant and produces nothing but a whole lot of extra crap.

Do you know what I think? I think Crowe is absent too much of the time. I think he lives like a king up in Butte, Montana, takes an occasional trip with the team, and collects his salary for doing nothing but making life as difficult as possible for real, hardcore speedskaters with true potential. I think he is going to ride the USSPEEDSKATING gravy train for all it's worth, until and unless people realize what a waste he truly is.

But I believe his job is safe, and do you know why? Not because he has been a success. Not because he has been doing what he is supposed to be doing. His job is safe because not enough people care about speedskating in America, and so no one is going to hold him accountable for his performance.

If I were the person overseeing Crowe's position, the first thing I would do is to make him defend his salary. Considering his lack of leadership during and leading up to the 2006 Olympic Games, I think the burden of proof is on him. If he'd want to keep his job, I would want him to point out which, if any, of the positive outcomes that happened for USS happened because of his input, and which would have happened anyway. I would need him to prove that he has developed more than he has destroyed. Because I believe the only thing he succeeded in doing is "bringing his own taco to the Italian buffet."

If I somehow decided that Crowe deserved to keep his position, or was absolutely unable to find a replacement, I'd have someone take him by the hand and lead him to "Program Director Preschool." I'd make him re-learn the reality of what is expected of him in his position. Then, I'd make him write out a detailed plan for the USSPEEDSKATING Team for the next 4 years, through Vancouver. I'd make him rewrite it until he got it right. Then, once the training started, I'd make him write regular progress reports.

Yes, I hate Mike Crowe. Through the weeks following the 2006 Olympic Trials, I punched the palm of my left hand until it was black and blue, pretending it was his face. But not only did his decisions harm me, I also think they harmed the entire American women's contingent. And anyone who cares about how the U.S. women's speedskating team does in the future should give a serious thought to what I have said.

2006-05-08T14:15:00.000-06:00

Don't Waste Your Women's Team:

Now, we all know that the American women's speedskating team did not perform very well in Torino a few months ago, but I'm not going to talk about that right now. I'd like to focus on the future.

Look at the talented women we have in America: Catherine Raney, Maria Lamb, Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr., Maggie Crowley. These women should be training together. I believe, as do many others, that they can be every bit as strong as the Canadian women have become, if they only have a chance to work together.

But who is trying to make this happen? Is anyone in USSPEEDSKATING contacting these women, seeing if there is any interest in creating a strong training group, trying to figure out where they can train, who their coach will be, and trying to find them sponsorship?

This is Mike Crowe's job. And, now that his little "conflict of interest" has retired, there is no reason in hell why he shouldn't be doing it....*(Oh, wait, I spoke too soon....arrrrghhhh...No, that isn't the Great Salt Lake you're smelling...it's the Undead Speedskating Career of Amy Sannes!!! Guess who is still on the Category One list and has failed to submit an official retirement statement to US Antidoping? Yeah. The one who was so freaking stale she couldn't even step up to skate a race at the Olympics.)*

Right now, Catherine is looking for a training program. Maggie is attending classes at Northwestern University. And Nancy, so I've heard, is mowing lawns to try to raise some money.

Hey, USSPEEDSKATING, do you care enough about making this happen? Any of these women have more of a chance at medaling in Vancouver than some of the dead weight you've been dragging around. It's going to take a complete change in philosophy, though. USS will have to realize that it's better to make it their goal to have 3 women in the Top 10 on any given World Cup weekend, than to have one medalist and not care what happens to the rest. And, of course, the team that trains together will have to realize that they will be stronger if they work together and support each other.

Why do I have to write this up and post it online for the people in charge of USSPEEDSKATING? I'm sure this kind of thing isn't happening in China or the Netherlands right now. I mean, shouldn't it be obvious how to create a strong team of medal contenders? This is totally not what I expected from my national federation when I first started speedskating.

(11-13-06) I've been thinking a lot about women's sports over the past few months. From my own observations and from speaking with others, I've found that female athletic champions are less valued than male champions. This attitude is pretty pervasive around the world.

Within USSPEEDSKATING, I found that those administrators who took it upon themselves to decide who had potential and who did not, treated men differently from women. All that a male speedskater had to do was to show talent, but from a female speedskater, they wanted something else.

For the most part, USSPEEDSKATING has been run by men who are weak, cowardly, and stupid. This type of man needs his ego constantly fed by people who treat him like a big shot, even though he is incompetent and does not deserve to hold a position of authority. This is the type of man who needs any female over whom he has authority to be meek, subservient, and worshipful towards him. He needs this from his female athletes more than he needs them to perform on the ice. I can think of a few men who held positions of authority in USS, while I was competing, who fit this description.

I really do believe that between the years of 2002-2006, USSPEEDSKATING had the potential do develop a women's team of great depth. USS will tell you that the reason why our men did so well while our women did so poorly is that America had talented male skaters during this time but did not have talented female skaters. This is a big fat lie. The reason why USSPEEDSKATING's women's program failed is because of the administration's attitudes towards its female competitors and what it wanted from them.

Fortunately, things are looking a bit brighter for the future of the American women's team, at least in terms of the coaching situation. I trust both Ryan Shimabukuro and Chris Shelley because they both have shown a great deal of respect for female speedskaters, and for their actual accomplishments on the ice.

2006-05-07T20:07:00.000-06:00

An Unsolicited Evaluation of Tom Cushman's Performance as U.S. National Allround Team Coach:

I really wish I'd been able to attend the Long Track Committee meeting at the USSPEEDSKATING board meeting. Apparently, upon hearing that Tom Cushman would be returning to his position as National Allround coach, Catherine Raney stood up and said something like, "So if you don't get enough skaters who want to train with this coach, will you just eliminate that position?"

Later on in the weekend, a special meeting was called by Dan Jansen and a few current national-level skaters, to discuss the coaching situation. I hear that Dan tried to tell the USS administration, "Look, you can't re-hire Tom Cushman, because no one will train with him!" This is totally unexpected, and I would really like to thank Dan Jansen right now for standing up for today's top American speedskaters.

You know, I really thought that after what happened at the Olympics in Torino this past season, that there would be no doubt that Tom Cushman has used up all of his chances to fail as U.S. Allround coach. I thought the results spoke for themselves. I thought it was so obvious, but I guess I was wrong.

Sometimes, I hate to pick on Tom so much, because he really doesn't seem like a bad person. It's just that I am concerned for the next generation of speedskaters, and I feel that something needs to be said and done about the National Team coaching situation.

Though I hate to pick on Tom, I don't understand why he keeps coming back for more abuse! Personally, if I had failed at something as miserably as Tom has failed at coaching the American Allrounders, I would want to crawl into a hole and die. In fact, I'm shocked that Tom even wanted his job back this year! During the Olympics, someone I know got a phone call from Tom, during which he said he just wanted it all to be over and just wanted to go home.

I did not wish poor performances on any of the American skaters, but when Tom's whole training group started to underperform in Torino, I wanted him, as their coach, to feel every twinge of unpleasantness when his skaters failed to meet expectations. I wanted him to face the media's tough questions. And, most of all, by the time all of the results had come in, I was certain that there was no way USSPEEDSKATING would have him back. I was wrong.

In light of the re-hiring of Tom Cushman as Allround coach, I see that USSPEEDSKATING still does not understand the full extent of the harm this coach's performance has done to the federation's goals, individual athletes' careers, team unity, and potential sponsorship. So, even though a lot of what I'm going to say today is a re-hashing of things I have already discussed, I'm going to say it all again. Even though I often feel like I'm beating my own head against a wall, I'm going to say it again. I'm going to try to present this to you in terms that, I hope, are both very simple and very harsh.

When I decided to train with Cushman's Allround group in 2003-04, it was mainly for the free training, other benefits, and the fact that no matter how the coaching was, I'd have fast training partners. Our team was told that we'd have a group of scientific advisors looking over our training data to make sure we weren't getting overtrained. Still, 4 out of the 8 skaters on Tom's team "fell off the edge," got overtrained, and severely underperformed. I was one of those.

Now, this part is very important, because it has to do with something that was discussed at this year's Sports Science and Medicine committee meeting: Some skaters brought up the point that the USS coaches might not be too good at watching the skaters' training data and applying it to the training programs. Then, the counter-attack was made by the coaches, saying that it's up to the skaters to communicate with the coaches better, about how they feel in training. What I never remembered to say at this point was that after the year where half of Tom's team got overtrained, we were not told that we should have communicated better. No, we were told that THE COACHES AND SCIENTISTS COULD SEE THAT WE WERE GETTING OVERTRAINED, BUT THE DECISION WAS MADE TO CONTINUE TO PUSH US, IN THE INTEREST OF COLLECTING DATA FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS OF SKATERS.

When I told this story on The Protocol, I wrote that not only did I belive it was unethical for a coach to convince a group of National Team athletes that he was trying to help them skate faster, and then to use them in some sort of "overtraining experiment," I also wrote that I DID NOT BELIEVE TOM CUSHMAN HAD THE KNOWLEDGE OR EXPERIENCE THAT WOULD ALLOW HIM TO APPLY ANYTHING HE HAS LEARNED FROM SUCH EXPERIMENTS FOR THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE NATIONAL TEAM SKATERS.

How right or wrong was I?

Well, take a look at how Tom did last season. He was handed a couple of very talented junior skaters. One of them had gone under 1:50 in the 1500 the previous year and was looking to be a serious contender for the 2006 Olympic Team, if he continued in his rate of improvement. One year later, this kid is crawling across the finish line, WAAAAAAAAAAAY off his personal best, like so many skaters who have passed through Cushman's hands.

It's like another point that Catherine Raney made at the Sports Science and Medicine committee meeting -- that younger skaters aren't familiar enough with how hard to push their own bodies, and need more guidance from a coach. Has Tom learned anything from his "overtraining experiments?" Does he even know how to look at a skater in training, and tell when that person has had enough? Can he be trusted to monitor the progress of a talented, up-and-coming neo-senior? It sure doesn't look like it.

Next, take a look at the Olympic Games. Not only were Tom's long distance skaters underperforming relative to themselves, they were also, without exception, beaten out by American skaters from alternative training programs.

Probably the saddest story of all is that of 2005 Sprint Champion Jen Rodriguez. I'll never forget the voice of the announcer before she lined up for one of her races, saying that she HAD PUSHED TOO HARD IN TRAINING DURING THE FALL AND HER LEGS HAD NOT HAD A CHANCE TO RECOVER.

Mistakes happen in every line of work. Some are worse than others. It's possible to learn from one's mistakes, but one must be held accountable for failure, especially if it involves messing up the efforts of human beings who are sacrificing everything to achieve a goal.

If my work in the lab went like Tom's coaching, it would be like this: I'd come in and take a picture of the DNA fragment I was trying to make, it would come out blank, and I'd realize that I had forgotten to add the enzyme to the reaction. I'd paste the picture into my lab notebook and record what happened. Then, I'd come in the next day and do it again. A year later, I'd have 365 pages in my notebook of blank pictures with a note saying, "Oops! I forgot to add the enzyme!" But amazingly, somehow I'd still have my job. It blows your mind, if you think about it that way. It's just not the way the real world works. It's not the way anything should work!!!

Doesn't USSPEEDSKATING realize that when they hire a coach nobody wants to train with, then nobody will want to be a sponsor of USSPEEDSKATING? This is a real problem. This is not just "some disgruntled failure" talking about a coach with whom she had the worst season of her life. I'm not alone! In fact, YOUR TOP ALLROUND SKATERS DO NOT WANT TO TRAIN WITH THIS COACH! Shani Davis and Catherine Raney train in Calgary. Chad Hedrick has been training with Bart Schouten. I really believe that the root of most of your battles with athletes over sponsorship and unequal treatment BEGINS with the fact that YOUR ALLROUND NATIONAL TEAM PROGRAM REPELS THEM!!!

Now here's another problem I need to mention. There was an anonymous "Coach Evaluation" sent around to all the skaters, by one former skater who wanted all the others to know what he thought of the US coaches. In response to this skater's criticism of Tom Cushman, another of Tom's skaters came to Tom's defense, saying that Tom was put in the unfortunate position of having to work with skaters he didn't feel he could work with.

I'm sorry, but it is the responsibility of a National Team coach to be able to work with skaters of all different types of personalities. The person who is National Team coach is handed the fastest skaters in the nation, and there is no guarantee that they will all have personalities that are compatible with the coach's. But if the coach is unable to work with a variety of people, then that is not something for the coach to whine and complain about. THAT IS THE COACH'S PROFESSIONAL DEFECT, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Have you had enough yet, or should I go on? I guess the last thing I want to say is that USSPEEDSKATING has a responsibility to this country to serve THE FASTEST ATHLETES and to help them perform at their best. Unless I've missed something in USSPEEDSKATING's mission statement, it is not their mission "To Provide a Job for Tom Cushman, No Matter How Badly He Screws Up."

Recently, I communicated with someone involved in marketing for USS, who said that his only concern was to sell USSPEEDSKATING by making it look good from the outside -- not to know what goes on internally. But I'd say that keeping Tom Cushman as National Allround coach is a decision that does a lot of damage, not only to the athletes' and federation's performance goals, but also to the image of USSPEEDSKATING and to its potential for seeking sponsorship.

2006-05-05T08:39:00.000-06:00

A little late on those Coach Evaluations, aren't you?

A few days after the USS Sprring Board Meeting ended, I received an email that was sent out from Mike Crowe to all sprinters who had had any coach-athlete involvement with Ryan Shimabukuro in the past season, requesting an evaluation of Ryan's performance. I sent back a scathing reply to Crowe, asking him how he can go on pretending like what USSPEEDSKATING did to me last season was not the equivalent of "career genocide;" how he can just sit next to me in a meeting and keep me on his emailing list like nothing ever happened. I mean, come on! Do what you have to do, but at least call it what it is.

I did, however, give a few words of input on Ryan's coaching, repeating what I'd said on The Protocol several times about thinking that Ryan is an excellent technique coach. I also included a brief assessment of Tom Cushman's coaching performance, and referred Crowe to recent posts on The Protocol regarding who I believe is to blame for most of the failures of USSPEEDSKATING in Torino, especially in the men's and women's team pursuit and women's individual events.

Anyway, my main point in this post is to ask WHY CROWE WAITED UNTIL AFTER THE BOARD MEETING TO ASK THE ATHLETES FOR COACH EVALUATIONS. This is something that should have been done immediately after the season ended, so that plans could be made accordingly for the upcoming season. If the Board Meeting is held at the end of April, and teams officially start training together in the beginning of May, you can't wait until the board meeting to make a decision on a team coach -- much less just get started on evaluating coaching performance!!! What a shocking lapse of responsibility.

I'm saying this because I know that there was a major revolt among the athletes when they heard that Tom Cushman was re-hired as USSPEEDSKATING Allround National Team Coach. Cushman has made way too many mistakes, and should no longer have this position, and the fact that most athletes refuse to train with him should be a big indication that this is the wrong decision.

In fact, there was a big debate over this issue at the Board Meeting, and I'll talk about that in more detail in a later post. For the purpose of this post, I'd like to say that I know of several Allround skaters in Salt Lake City whose season plans are completely up in the air right now, in between not knowing who the National Team coach will be, and not having the FAST Program in existence at the Oval any more -- these skaters are waking up each morning and saying, "Well, what kind of training do I feel like doing today?"

Ladies and gentlemen, meet your illustrious US Speedskating Team, and their pathetic and disorganized leadership.

2006-05-04T19:03:00.000-06:00

More Board Meeting "Uglies:"

For a very interesting and well-rounded perspective on the USSPEEDSKATING Board Meeting, please check out Andrew Love's blog post on "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." But I'm going to share with you my experience of the one committee meeting that I was able to attend: The Sports Science and Medicine committee.

I wanted to attend this session because I could make a quick trip downtown on my lunch break from work. Also, there was a story that I wanted to make sure was covered, and it was. That was my story of being denied access to a trainer when I was injured 2 weeks before the Fall World Cups, for which I had qualified.

The first thing that shocked me at this meeting was that Mike Crowe took a seat right next to me at the table. But once the debate over physical therapy got started, it quickly became apparent that no amount of pretending could cover up the bad blood and resentment of the previous season.

TOSH trainer Kim Nelson presented a summary of TOSH's work for USSPEEDSKATING that year. TOSH, The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, sponsors USS by providing their services free of charge. In the beginning of the season, the TOSH trainers were given a list of 20 skaters for whom they were responsible. The problem arose when some of these athletes, who had been training with the USS National Teams, failed to qualify for World Cup competition, while athletes who trained outside USS qualified instead.

As a result, USSPEEDSKATING had to enforce the contract they signed with TOSH, making the trainers turn away injured athletes, such as myself, who had qualified for World Cups, but who did not train with USS programs.

How does one solve such a situation, without over-burdening the trainers, who cannot reasonably handle more than 10 athletes each? Do you drop the athletes who failed to qualify for international competition and replace them with those who did? Most people would argue that this is cruel. After all, the athletes who failed to make World Cups are probably those who are injured or overtrained, and would have the greatest need to see a trainer! But that's actually what happened to me when I was overtrained under Tom Cushman's Allround program during the 2003-04 season. Not only did I not get to see the trainers, but the coach stopped communicating with me entirely, not even sending me an email asking how I was doing, while on the World Cup circuit with the rest of his team.

But how can you deny treatment to an athlete who has qualified to represent this country in an international competition? When I told my story in the meeting, I argued, "You should be most concerned with those athletes whom you're actually going to be sending to the starting line."

And Crowe kept on repeating, "No, it's those 20 names that were chosen by the Board in the beginning of the season -- that's who gets the treatment." If you could be there to see how adamantly he was arguing this point; this excuse of his for why an athlete like me should not have access to a trainer, then you will understand why I can't stand Mike Crowe and believe he does not care about supporting those American athletes who skate the fastest, but only about his "Chosen Ones."

I also talked about the reason why some athletes choose to train with programs other than those offered by USSPEEDSKATING, even though they qualify for the National Team. I said, "It's all about your skating performance, and being able to choose the coach and training program that works for you. For me, this was literally the difference between being on the podium in the B Group (under High 5 Team coach Boris Leikin), and not making any World Cups at all (with Tom Cushman's USS Allround program)."

Catherine Raney brought up an excellent point, saying, "If TOSH is sponsoring USS by providing its services, shouldn't they be able to choose whom they want to treat? Do they get to see this list of 20 names, and to approve it?"

Craig Wing, who oversees the TOSH deal with USS, said that TOSH loves to have athletes like Chris Witty and Derek Parra (skaters who don't train with USS and who are denied treatment) coming into their clinic, because their other patients love to see these athletes and interact with them. Mr. Wing thinks it is a shame to have to deny such athletes access to trainers, just because USSPEEDSKATING says they have to.

"Frankly, the situation this year SUCKED," said Craig Wing.

He and Crowe planned to meet after the committee meeting to come to some sort of resolution to bring before the Executive Board, but I just wanted to say, "Don't you realize that Crowe is your problem???"

I wonder how this situation got resolved. Some people, like Athlete Rep Chris Needham, believe that this problelm will not present itself at least for a few years, because the total number of athletes in contention for spots in international competition will be smaller than it was this year. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

2006-05-03T17:41:00.000-06:00

A New ISU Rule on Uniforms:

Here is something I think everyone should know. USSPEEDSKATING is trying to get the ISU to pass a new rule requiring all members of a country's team to wear uniforms that match each other exactly, right down to the sponsor logos. The enforcement of this policy, as well as the decision on what the suit will look like, will be up to each national federation.

Do you know what this would mean? This means that any athlete who finds an individual sponsorship would not be allowed to wear that logo on their suit. This means that if an athlete suddenly finds himself out of money in the middle of a trip and wants to make a deal with Marnix Wieberdink to add a Kia or Yacht logo to his suit, he wouldn't be able to do that. This means that if a sponsor only wants their logo on an A-Group skater, but some of that country's skaters compete in the B Group, then that will cost all of the skaters on that team a potential sponsorship.

I'm thinking that not too many countries would want to go along with the passing of such a rule, but what bothers me is the fact that USSPEEDSKATING is trying to push it through. Of course, what they want is to be able to have an excuse to force their athletes to wear the logos of the federation's sponsors. They don't want something like the Qwest deal to ever happen again.

Doesn't USSPEEDSKATING realize that by going behind their athletes' backs to the ISU, they are making the athletes even more distrustful of the federation? Don't they realize that they are setting up an even more hostile situation, which will be more likely to scare away potential sponsors, than to attract them?

And why doesn't USSPEEDSKATING realize that any time one of their athletes finds an individual sponsor, they are SAVING THE FEDERATION MONEY. That's one less person they have to take care of. But they don't see it that way.

The athletes who are hurt the most by USSPEEDSKATING's recent policies on sponsorship are those who are climbing the ladder and trying to make a breakthrough. This topic came up in a discussion on OhnoZone, and I agree completely with the person who said that it's the athletes who are not yet at the top who suffer the most. These are the people who skate World Cups but are not in the Top 10, are forced to wear logos of sponsors despite getting next to nothing for it, and have no other choice because they don't have enough money to take the risk of having their World Cup travel funding taken away. This is the situation in which I found myself, and was unable to break through, and it was a big reason why I quit speedskating.

I would really like to know who, in USS, is behind this idea to put pressure on the ISU to pass this new uniform rule. The reason why I would like to know is that I had higher expectations of the newly elected Board of Directors, and this decision is a disappointment to me.

I would also like for someone to give a straight answer when I ask, "If you guys keep setting up obstacles to athletes getting sponsorships, then how, exactly, do you expect them to pay for their speedskating careers?" I'm not saying, "GIVE THEM MONEY." I'm saying, "JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!"

And, no, the answer is not, "Well, it's their dream, and if they want it badly enough, they'll find a way, no matter what obstacles we throw in their path." Open your eyes. Be reasonable. This is not exactly the most popular sport in America, so it's hard enough to find sponsors as it is. USSPEEDSKATING should be making it easier for their athletes to find sponsors, not harder.

For those who are not too familiar with the USSPEEDSKATING sponsorship battle, here is a simplified timeline of the main events that transpired over the last couple of seasons:

1. The left leg logo spot is open, and is available for athletes to "borrow," to sell to an individual sponsor. According to the Athlete Agreement, the skaters should be aware that this spot is borrowed, and that if USSPEEDSKATING sells it, then they have to give it back. Some athletes sell this spot to sponsors, most notably, Chad and Shani, to DSB.

2. The left leg logo spot is sold by USSPEEDSKATING to Qwest, without consulting the athletes to see if they think the sponsorship is a good deal for them. Basically, the athletes are made to feel like they were sold behind their backs like some kind of commodity. I called us the "Walking Billboards." Meanwhile, Qwest was misled into believing that the top US speedskaters will be wearing their logo. Qwest was especially interested in having Shani wearing their logo.

3. Some athletes break the Athlete Agreement, wearing the logos of their individual sponsors and refusing to wear Qwest. World Cup travel and other benefits are pulled from these skaters by USSPEEDSKATING.

4. Qwest gets upset at USSPEEDSKATING for misleading them, when they see that several top skaters are not wearing their logo.

5. USSPEEDSKATING announces they will sue the athletes who breach the Athlete Agreement, in order to cover up the mistake they made by signing the deal with Qwest without being able to guarantee the cooperation of their athletes. Andy Gabel's timing is impeccable, as this threatening email reaches us on race prep day before we start competing in the December 2005 World Cup in Torino.

6. Around the time of the Olympics, a major PR problem arises as Shani Davis appears on the cover of USA Today with DSB logos over the top of painted-over Qwest logos on his uniform.

7. Sponsorships and the Athlete Agreement are major issues at the 2006 USS Spring Board Meeting. Qwest threatens to sue USS, who in turn still want to sue their contract-breaking athletes. The USOC gives USS a deadline of June 1 to rewrite their athlete agreement, or else they will pull funding from the federation.

8. As part of the plan in continuing to back its athletes up against the wall, USSPEEDSKATING pressures the ISU to enforce a new rule on racing uniforms, saying that every skater from a country's team must wear an identical uniform, including identical logos. In effect, USSPEEDSKATING says to the ISU, "Give us an official excuse to screw our own athletes out of opportunities, to increase our own financial burden, and to scare sponsors away."

What is the point?

2006-05-03T08:28:00.000-06:00

"Fight for the Children, Eva!"

I feel the poking and prodding of the world of sports politics again. Right now, I'm not sure what I want out of all of this, and whether it's good for me, but I think I'm going to start posting again.

Before I begin, let me make one thing absolutely clear. I don't feel that I owe the sport of speedskating anything. Before I left graduate school to make my comeback, I was frustrated because people were literally telling me that it was my role and my duty to sacrifice my life to find cures for diseases, because I did not deserve a life of my own. I did not come back to speedskating to find the same kind of life waiting for me. I came back to speedskating because I wanted to find success and happiness doing something I loved. This did not happen.

At one point during the last few months of my skating career, I had a parent of a skater come up to me and tell me that my speedskating career was expendable because I was alone; because my entire family was not involved and had not made sacrifices so I could compete. For this reason, she felt, it was OK for me to stand up and speak out on behalf of all of the skaters, and if necessary, to face the consequences. And then she asked me how much longer I planned to skate a particular event, because her kid wanted to race it.

Words cannot describe how much I resent such an attitude.

And still, I feel that things need to be said, and I plan to take the time out of my busy life to say them. Why? Is it because other peoples' skating careers mattered, whereas mine never did? No, not really. It is because I have observed some of the things going on politically in the sport, and I see some very encouraging changes happening, and this makes me feel like people are finally starting to see the light -- and also starting to get brave enough to speak out and make change. But also, I've seen some abuses continuing to go on, and I've seen too many things getting swept under the rug.

Now that I've posted about how angry I've been about USSPEEDSKATING's treatment of me as an athlete, I feel that I can put that behind me. I realize it's important not to drag this sport through the mud, and that it's important to discuss the real issues. For me, the Protocol is the easiest way to do this, so whenever I can make the time, I plan to cover some of the isues that are most important to me.

2006-04-12T08:34:00.000-06:00

From the Olympic Trials to the War of Ideas:

There have been some whispers in the darkest corners of American speedskating, that the reason why Nancy and I were left off the Olympic Team is because I was next in line, and that USSPEEDSKATING didn't want to take me to the Olympics because I was "too subversive."

Is this true? Is this the real explanation for why USSPEEDSKATING did not send a full team of women to Torino?

The fact is, there is a limit to the number of possible explanations for not sending a full team of women, and all of them are the wrong answer. All of these possiblities represent a desecration of the purity of metric speedskating:

1. The next athlete in line was too subversive.

2. There is a double standard: One standard for the men, and another for the women.

3. USSPEEDSKATING believed Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. was not good enough to go to the Olympics.

With regard to how we finished at the Trials, and the fact that USSPEEDSKATING did not send enough competitors to fill all of their race entries at the Olympics, both Nancy and I are just as much Olympians as are Clay Mull and Charles Ryan Leveille.

USSPEEDSKATING, if you thought it was embarrassing to enter only 3 women in the Olympic 1500 meters, can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to admit that the reason why you didn't have enough female competitors is because you were afraid to take a so-called "subversive" athlete to the Olympic Games?

Congratulations, suckers! You have walked right into this trap. Oh, yes, USSPEEDSKATING, you had the biggest gun, and you had to point your great big gun right at me. And Nancy became the victim of the collateral damage of your own fear and stupidity. That's right, USSPEEDSKATING: Show the whole world what a great big gun you need in order to hunt vermin like me, because you can't trust the verdict of the electronic timing system to weed me out. And even through my own destruction, I'm laughing at you all, because I have forced your hand. I have brought forth the physical manifestation of the dark soul of USSPEEDSKATING. I have caught you with your pants down, taking a giant dump on the purity of a time trial sport.

Corrupt sports federations are a dime a dozen; everybody knows that. But USSPEEDSKATING was MY corrupt sports federation. And by going out of their way to leave two women off the Olympic Team, they have proven to the whole world that metric speedskating in America is not about beating the clock, but about the decisions of a committee of sniveling cowards who meet behind closed doors and are accountable to no one.

Game over, USSPEEDSKATING. I win.

2006-04-11T17:42:00.000-06:00

"...But she's the only one who knows all the ISU protocols!"

Is this what's keeping you from getting rid of your Executive Director? Because it doesn't sound like a good enough reason to me.

Even though I've never personally had a problem with Katie Marquard, it has become apparent to me that, of all the people responsible for setting up and maintaining the culture within USSPEEDSKATING that I hate so much, I believe most of the responsibility falls on her.

As a product of the Cushman side of the Minnesota Mafia (as opposed to the Sandvig side; I only recently became aware that even the MM is split) I have learned that Katie is a proponent of the Athete Development Model of a sports federation, as opposed to a Business Development Model. The Athlete Development Model is where a small group of athletes is selected, early in their development, and most of the resources of the federation are spent on them.

The Business Development model of a sport, on the other hand, supports getting the word out about the sport, getting large numbers of people interested in participating, and building a larger base. An example of this would be the learn-to-skate program that Pat Seltsam and Mark Greenwald have set up in Calgary, that introduces about 50,000 new kids to speedskating every year, starting with an introduction to inline skating.

It is my opinion that the basic philosophy of supporting the Athlete Development Model of the sport has led to the problems of favoritism and discrimination that I and other athletes have experienced.

As a result of this core philosophy, it seems that every time USSPEEDSKATING has an opportunity to promote, instead, they go out of their way to deny. They go out of their way to deny Wheaton, Illinois, a hometown Olympian; to deny Category One status to a financially struggling short track skater based on some obscure technicality buried deep in the bowels of the Ice Chips; to deny a 50-year-old Master's skater a chance to skate the 3000 meters at Olympic Trials because she missed the cut-off time by a few tenths of a second. (Hey, it's not like you people have thousands of skaters banging down your doors to skate the trials!) And, as in the case of my retirement immediately after my last race at the Olympic Trials - I had become so familiar with their "policy of denial" that I removed myself from the situation, and within a few days, I was proven absolutely correct, when they denied the athlete who finished immediately behind me the chance to go to Torino as an alternate or Team Pursuit member, despite the fact that a couple of their Olympians were suffering from chronic injuries and they could have added two more women to the team.

I really do believe that the policy of denial, and this spirit of stinginess and elitism rather than friendly generosity, originates with Katie. I won't give specific instances, but I know many USSPEEDSKATING members have experienced this.

A few more specific problems some fellow USSPEEDSKATING members have reported having with the Executive Director are:

1. Not getting prompt responses, or quite often, any response at all, to questions submitted to the National Office, or to requests for paperwork.

2. A high rate of employee turnover in the National Office.

3. Firing people for having "too radical" ideas, or not letting them use their full set of skills and talents to promote and develop the sport.

4. Unfriendliness. (Again, I haven't had a personal problem with Katie, but I've heard this so many times that it is worth mentioning.)

In my opinion, the main problem with our current Executive Director is that she maintains a culture of USSPEEDSKATING that is unwelcoming and not conducive to the growth and development of the sport. I believe that when she has talented people working for her, she prevents them from using their full abilities to promote the sport, and either they get frustrated and quit, or compromise their own performance, or get fired for "being too radical."

I would like to see someone in that position who promotes a spirit of generosity, prosperity, and competence. I would like to see someone in that position who is not afraid to work with talented people; someone who does not want to keep this sport in the Dark Ages, but wants it to move forward.

2006-04-11T17:40:00.000-06:00

Two Birds with One Stone:

Hey, USSPEEDSKATING, here's your chance to solve two problems at once! I hear that Bart Schouten is no longer employed at the Utah Olympic Oval. So, why don't you hire him to replace your Allround coach (you know you want to), and let DSB buy out the Qwest and ADT contracts, so Chad and Shani can skate for you?

2006-04-09T18:17:00.000-06:00

The Extraordinary Failures of Mike Crowe:

It is time for The Protocol to throw down the verdict on the USSPEEDSKATING Program Director. Here is my idea of Mike Crowe's Top 10 Failures:

1. Cushman's overtraining "experiments," and failure to learn from them, leading to the underperformance or outright career ending of several athletes.
2. Failure to develop a women's sprint team.
3. Poor team atmosphere.
4. Blatant favoritism, leading eventually to Olympic failure.
5. Failure to integrate alternative-program athletes (and misrepresenting this to the media as well).
6. Failure to intervene in the bad-mouthing of Shani Davis by teammates and administrators.
7. Underperformance of the 2006 Long Track Olympic Team, relative to expectations stated by at least one board member.
8. Failure to fill all spots in the Women's 1500 meters at the Olympics.
9. Failure of the men's Olympic pursuit team.
10. Failure of the women's Olympic pursuit team.

My personal feeling and experience is that Crowe lacked both the integrity and the planning ability that was needed to lead this team throughout the past Olympic cycle. Through the things I've heard him say to the media and to the athletes, he seemed to lose track of the fact that WORDS HAVE A MEANING, and that ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

Some athletes have had good experiences working with Mike Crowe. I think he does just fine working as a coach with a small group of male skaters. But the job of Program Director was way over his head. Not only that: In my opinion, no female speedskater should ever be within Crowe's sphere of influence in any way, be it coaching, team selection, or anything else. I can't imagine that it would be a good thing, whether you're the favorite or the unfavorite.

Even if USSPEEDSKATING could see the magnitude of Mike Crowe's crap-tastic leadership the way I see it, where would they find a replacement? What person having the credentials necessary for such a position would be willing to work with USSPEEDSKATING as it is right now?

Still, I had to say these things. The reason why I resent Mike Crowe is that it always seemed that he was laughing at me for banging my head against the wall in this sport. The fact that I cared so much, and was willing to take so much pain -- it just felt like this was some sort of colossal joke to him.

But when I told one of my friends of this perception, that Crowe was "the jester in the corner," my friend replied, "No way. He's just a country bumpkin. He's not even smart enough to be the jester."

So here it is, like you won't get it anywhere else: A brutally honest assessment of the USSPEEDSKATING Program Director's failures in the 2002-2006 Olympic Cycle. I should get some sort of award for not using unprintable language on this one.

2006-04-09T17:30:00.000-06:00

Let's Talk About Failure:

We can talk about my failure to make the Olympic team, but we can also talk about USSPEEDSKATING's own failures throughout this past 4-year Olympic cycle.

I know that a lot of people are saying that through my failure to qualify for the 2006 Olympic Team, I failed to "back up my words." This has been used both by USSPEEDSKATING representatives to convince themselves that I'm really not a good speedskater, and also by a few well-meaning but misguided friends who thought that my fear of not backing up my words would be a good motivator before the Trials.

The way I see it, it is my FAILURE that backs up my words even more than my success would have! My own failure, combined with the failure of the US Women's Long Track team in Torino, both provided evidence of the same thing, and that is the rottenness of the USSPEEDSKATING system.

Most psychologists would agree that the hell USSPEEDSKATING made out of my speedskating career was not exactly conducive to excellence: Finding out I'd been used as a guinea pig, being denied access to a physical therapist two weeks before a World Cup event for which I'd qualified, and finding out that I was in fact entitled to the catered "National Team" meals (paid for by the USOC) but that I'd have to take USSPEEDSKATING to court in order to be allowed to eat them.

It was a constant fight, and I never understood it. I was an American speedskater too! And the whole time I was trying to compete for this country to the best of my ability, USSPEEDSKATING was trying to take everything possible away from me.

If I have failed because I barely missed qualifying for the 2006 Olympic Team, then TO WHOM should I justify my failure? To those responsible for producing the 2006 Olympic women's long track speedskating team? Look what YOU have produced, USSPEEDSKATING, and then ask yourselves if the thought, "Let's see if Rodansky can back up her words," has ever crossed your mind. Do you see how wrong that is? Do you see how it's all a part of the same failure and destruction?

Do you bastards comprehend that, in order for me to "back up my words," there came a point where I would have had to swim across the Atlantic Ocean with my speedskates in a waterproof bag strapped to my back, in order to be in Torino when your gutless little Princess Amy finked out of the Olympic 1500 meters?!?!

In my next few posts on The Protocol, I am going to talk about the origins of USSPEEDSKATING's failures, and the origins of the hateful toxicity with which they run this sport.

Through my own observations, and communication with others, I have found that there seems to be a small group at the top of the federation who protect each other despite their individual failures, so that despite the fact that each one has made repeated, glaring mistakes, they maintain power. It seems they cannot be knocked off this pedestal of power by the general membership of USSPEEDSKATING, because the members do not have a good means of communicating with each other (such as an online forum, or database of members' email addresses). Instead, the illusion of a democratic system is maintained through "allowing" us to vote for athlete reps, and other positions that, in my opinion, have not really had that much impact on the goals and direction of the federation.

I believe that if Mike Crowe, Katie Marquard, and Andy Gabel were employed by a company whose goal was to make a profit, then these three would no longer be employed by this company if they performed as they have in USSPEEDSKATING leadership roles.

Since we're on the topic of failure, and the topic of "failed" former athletes who become administrators keeps coming up, I'd like to say a few things about this. I feel that people who haven't had succes as athletes -- however they define it-- still have a chance to have a positive impact on their sport as coaches or administrators, but only if they consciously decide to do so.

I can't comment on Andy Gabel's speedskating career, other than to say that he's an Olympic medalist, which is pretty impressive if you ask me. But I can comment on his failures as USSPEEDSKATING President.

I can't comment on Katie Marquard's speedskating career, other than to say that she's been an Olympian, which is more than I can say for myself. But I can comment on her failures as USSPEEDSKATING Executive Director.

About Andy: I've been told that when some people in USS justified voting Andy in as president, they said this: "We knew Andy was an idiot, but we believed that because he had such a huge ego, he wouldn't let the federation fail." No, here's the truth about what happens when an idiot with an ego is in charge. It's not that he WILL NOT let things fail, but rather WHEN they fail, he will be unwilling to admit that he made a mistake, and will point his finger at other people and blame them for his own mistakes. Also, because this idiot has such a huge ego, he will be unwilling to ask other people for their ideas and for their help, even though others may be more knowledgeable and may actually be willing to help.

Andy Gabel has done a horrible job as USSPEEDSKATING president. He has spent frivolously, driving the federation severely into debt. Not only did he lie to sponsors and sign misleading contracts with them, but he had no idea of what to do to keep sponsors happy in the first place. He utterly torched his relationship with the athletes, most notably by grossly inflating the amount of money USS spends on each of its World Cup-level competitors and allowing this figure to get out to the media and to the sponsors. If most of us were honest about how this made us feel, it would have been something like this: "Andy, you fucker, I can't even feed myself and pay rent, and you're telling the world that USS is spending $75,000 a year on me, and that I'm going out and buying video games for myself."

Some people might ask me why I'm still involved in this sports politics battle. Of course, I'd like to make sure that the next generation of speedskaters has a better, more supportive environment in which to train, and if this happens as a result of the things I write, then that will make me happy. However, the main reason why I'm still doing this is a purely selfish desire TO MAKE USSPEEDSKATING PAY for making my speedskating career a living nightmare.

It breaks my heart that I cannot be a full-time speedskater. It breaks my heart that they sent girls to the Olympics who refused to race. I'd really like for some USS administrator with a conscience to stand up and say, in front of the entire assembly, "What you people did to that girl is deplorable." But what are the chances that somebody is going to do that?

My mom even said, "What they did to you -- it makes one want to go and thank them for their daughter's experience in speedskating." After my first week of work at the University of Utah, she told me, "I'm so proud of you. Any weaker person would have ended up institutionalized after what you've been through in speedskating."

But I know that the only one who can make USSPEEDSKATING pay for what they did to me, is me. The failures of the USSPEEDSKATING administration are real. So, what I'm going to do is to throw their own failures in their faces in front of the international speedskating community, until they realize once and for all that they have fucked with the wrong speedskater.

2006-04-08T14:34:00.000-06:00

Thank You for Following the Protocol.

I'm told that USSPEEDSKATING has fixed the link on their website to the Short Track World Championships. That's a good start.

This is my new hobby. Speedskating Anarchy: An online spectator sport!

2006-04-07T14:54:00.000-06:00

Where does the Buck Stop for Bad Public Relations?

So, I'm still ranting about USSPEEDSKATING's public relations and media failures, and I've gotten some input from some of my unnamed co-conspirators. On the topic of bad PR, we would like the USSPEEDSKATING Board of Directors to ask some tough questions.

Where does the buck stop for bad promotion and PR at an event? If PR Director Melissa Scott is competent and has the desire to do a good job, then why can't she? Who gives her the priorities? Who sets the tone for her messages? Who edits her copy? Who evaluates her performance and therefore sets the true incentives on what to do in her job? Who gives her the training and education about the sport to go with her PR background so she can do a great job?

Do these people (USS) understand what the media, the athletes, the members, the event organizers need and want from USS and its PR function in the 21st century? Do they listen to Melissa's assessments and requests and take her advice in her area of professional expertise, or has she been "trained" in the ways of "Don't make waves, and we'll let you keep your job?"

I have some thoughts on this aspect. Not long after Melissa started working for USSPEEDSKATING, she contacted me with a request to do an athlete blog for USSPEEDSKATING, because she thought I'd be an interesting athlete to follow, and that I'd have something to say. I had to warn her in two separate emails that I probably wasn't the one to be writing such a blog, because I had too many controversial things to say. The first time, she replied by saying not to worry - that I could be as sarcastic and funny as I wanted.

I remember thinking, "Oh, boy, is she in for a surprise." She's gonna find out how the federation really treats its athletes, what the athletes really think of the federation, how the idea of what her job was going to be will conflict with the reality of what Katie Marquard and Andy Gabel want from her, and how much she will have to compromise in order to keep her job.

Do Katie, Andy, and all the others really want someone with Melissa's expertise to do her best to make the organization and the athletes shine? Is USS realistic in what they expect of her, or do they give her extra tasks to do, like cater to VIP's from the USS board and ISU officials so that Katie and Andy can look good and keep their jobs/committee positions? Do these extra duties make it tough for Melissa to do her stated job of USSPEEDSKATING PR director?

OK, if USS management and policy makers aren't at fault for this debacle because of how they handled the operation of PR, then did they screw up before that? You must ask: If Melissa is not the right person for this job, is it her fault, or is it the people who hired her? What did they do wrong/right in designing the PR job description? In matching the expectations and skills desired with adequate pay to attract qualified people? Did they go out and recruit a large pool of applicants? What has USSPEEDSKATING done to keep itself from becoming a place where competent PR people (and coaches and other staffers) with competitive offers from other potential employers avoid even applying for the job because of the reputation of the organization, its Executive Director and Board?

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SETTING UP THE CONDITION OF MAKING ANY COMPETENT PERSON NOT WANT TO WORK FOR USSPEEDSKATING?

Who is responsible for the interview process? The hiring decision? If Melissa is not the person for the job (which I'm inclined to think is not the case) then who picked her for the spot in the first place?

It's kind of late at this point to blame Melissa, isn't it? Doesn't the path take you to either the President (Andy Gabel) or the Executive Director (Katie Marquard)?
But at this point, these USS leaders pass the buck, perhaps blaming the local event organizing committee (a group of hardcore volunteers from clubs in the area) or the venue hosting the event. I have heard horror stories of how the "USS Blazer Crew" treats local organizing committees - after these volunteers have knocked themselves out to provide a first-rate event, all the "fat cats" can do is complain about how the appetizers in the hospitality room are cold, or the flags are hung the wrong way at the awards ceremony.

To me, it's actually incredible how often it's brought up that Andy and Katie seem to be frustrated former skaters whose dissatisfaction with their own careers might be affecting their ability to run USS. One of my friends says, "So Andy and Katie, if only back in the day you could pass other skaters as well as you pass the buck, you would be Olympic medalists too (OK Andy, relays count, you are an Olympic medalist, but you should make mention in your bio and everywhere else that this was a team medal instead of always trying to pass it off as an individual one! If you really believed in your heart team medals were as prestigious as individual ones then you would have no problem making your own medal's origins well known, yes?"

But even if he could be honest about this one little detail, then we'd still have this problem of poor performance with no accountability to the higher ups. What are the answers to the questions above? Do you continue to pass the buck, or do you accept responsibility?

Or do you just whitewash everything and pretend it was all great and say, "What's the problem? There's nothing wrong here - the PR and the event were GREAT!"

Do you fix the problem? This question goes out to this year's newly elected Board of Directors: DO YOU HAVE THE GUTS TO ASK THE TOUGH QUESTIONS? Do you have the guts to find the answers? Do you have the guts to actually FIX the problems that have plagued this federation?

2006-04-07T12:30:00.000-06:00

Say Yes to OhnoZone for your Short Track Fix:

A few days ago, I went to OhnoZone for the first time, just to check it out. I'd heard that Noelle did an excellent job posting photos and updates from the Short Track World Championships, and I wanted to see for myself. What a great site! USSPEEDSKATING could learn a lot from it.

Even though Apolo wasn't skating, Noelle went to the Worlds and covered this competition in detail. In fact, I heard that she did all of her posts from the Worlds even though her computer charger wasn't working and she had to borrow one from someone else. Now, that's dedication.

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on PR and media failures on the part of USSPEEDSKATING. Andrew Love recently posted about being disappointed that the short track Olympic Trials were not televised. A surprising number of readers left comments on this post.

Throughout the past week, I've heard more and more complaints about the lack of promotion of the World Championships. Some of my friends have found that if you go to USSPEEDSKATING's web site and try to click on the link to the Worlds, the page doesn't load. A few of my friends who usually follow short track even more closely than I do had no idea that the World Championships were even going on!

A few people complained that Apolo wasn't competing. But I say that Apolo has earned the right to go out there and capitalize on his speedskating success. No other speedskater has come close to Apolo's status as a star athlete in America. He absolutely should be doing things like appearing on the Kids' Choice Awards and the NCAA Final Four.

Apolo has raised the bar, and now it's time for USSPEEDSKATING to step it up. Some skaters and fans have suggested holding major short track competitions in major sports venues, such as Madison Square Garden. Others say that the most important thing is to make sure that short track gains a television audience, by holding the competition in a venue that is suited for TV, and by giving away the rights to televise the competitions - if necessary - until a TV audience is established.

Maybe, at least, USSPEEDSKATING could start by improving their internet-based communication with their own membership.

2006-04-03T17:43:00.000-06:00

Do It Yourself when your Federation Fails You:

Nichole Dirkse's emailed reports from the Short Track World Championships provided Michigan speedskating fans what USSPEEDSKATING Public and Media Relations Director Melissa Scott could not. So writes my first speedskating coach, Mark Jastrzembski, of the West Michigan Speedskating Club:

"Many thought Nichole was someone from USSPEEDSKATING sending back reports. That is supposed to be Melissa Scott's job but I could tell from Melissa's tardy and scattered reports that she was not even at the competition."

OK, so my sources who were actually at the competition tell me that Melissa WAS actually there! in that case, can someone tell me WHY she was there, if her reports on the meet itself were so crappy? That makes things even worse! It means she got a free ride to Minneapolis to party with the Minnesota Mafia and NOT promote the World Championships of short track. How typical! What the hell are you people thinking?

Once again, people who "got themselves there" did a better job than USS. Nichole Dirkse is a new skater from Michigan who, as Mark Jastrzembski was quick to point out, is already making a significant contribution to Michigan Speedskating with her insightful reports on the Short Track Worlds. In fact, it seems she has done a better job of observing and reporting on the competition than some of the people who are paid by USSPEEDSKATING to do so!

As I am still on the WMSC emailing list, I was able to read Nichole's reports myself. I'm impressed that she covered the World Championships with the enthusiasm of a true short track speedskating fan, honoring the achievements of skaters from all over the world, rather than taking the narrow, "USA! Rah, rah, rah!!! (Fake)-boom-bah!" approach so typical of the USSPEEDSKATING spin doctors.

So, where was Melissa? I must admit, I haven't read any of her reports on the short track competition, since I took myself off the USSPEEDSKATING mailing list after her post-Olympic spin started making me dizzy. But I'd trust Mark Jastrzembski with my life, so why shouldn't I trust him on his assessment of Melissa's reports? OK, so she was at the competition, but she sure didn't do her job while she was there. "Present?" Yes. "Tardy and scattered?" Also true, though an incorrect conclusion was drawn from an interpretation of her reports.

If it's true that USSPEEDSKATING's public relations department dropped the ball on this competition, then what we have here is another missed opportunity. After the Olympics, this World Championship short track competition was the second most important meet of the season for the short trackers. Don't give me any pathetic excuses about Americans not liking speedskating! Even we Americans can get into short track, with its high-speed crashes and controversy! And we just had the World Championships on American soil, and the USSPEEDSKATING reports that came out of it sound like the PR director wasn't even there.

Who is surprised by this latest example of incompetence? After all, USSPEEDSKATING is the federation represented by Olympians who are afraid to race, program directors who lack direction, coaches who learn nothing from their own unethical experiments, and now, apparently, public relations directors who don't relate anything.

But I'm comforted by the fact that at least when USSPEEDSKATING sends Katie Marquard to a competition, she is there for a reason: To make sure that Bart Schouten doesn't get a pair of warmup pants because his skaters didn't sign the contract!!! Where would we be without our WARMUP PANTS NAZI? "No pants for YOU!!!"

But I digress.

All I really wanted to say is that skaters and speedskating fans like Nichole Dirkse represent the kind of future for speedskating that a "terrorist" like myself dreams of. (Please don't blacklist her just because she's Protocol-approved!)

...and now with the failure of USSPEEDSKATING to properly promote and publicize the World Short Track Championships, this federation's glaring incompetence is becoming more and more evident. I think now that even those skaters and fans who would rather "focus on the soul of speedskating" are coming to realize that if they don't DO SOMETHING, then the "SOUL" of this sport will be swallowed up by the Evil Dead!

If you care about this sport, its soul, and its future, you can no longer put your fingers in your ears and sing, "La-la-la-la-la, we are a pure sport! We do what's best for the athletes!"

(Can you say, "BRAINWASHING"???)

I prefer to say this: "I WILL NOT DELIVER THE CHILDREN INSPIRED TO SPEEDSKATE BY THE 2006 OLYMPICS INTO THE HANDS OF THE MINNESOTA MAFIA."

If you truly want to change this sport, this spring, at the board meeting in Salt Lake City; if you don't want a federation run by "yes" men (and women) who don't do the jobs they are supposed to do; if you want them to STOP sending women to the Olympics for the purpose of going out to dinner with the program director and to START sending women to the Olympics FOR THE PURPOSE OF COMPETING; if you want to see this sport thrive in a welcoming atmosphere instead of choked off by country club elitism that really protects the mediocrity of a chosen few; then you must go directly to the source of the problem:

If you want the Minnesota Mafia thugs out of your way, then you must get rid of Katie Marquard.

2006-03-24T05:50:00.000-07:00

On a mission to destroy my federation
You may think that you have won.

Your rejection has brought on my introspection
I won't skate I'll only run.

(Do you like my song? It sounds like, "Never Gonna Find Me.")

Honestly, I don't know why people are still reading this blog, but it's very cool that you are. I think that some people who follow skating would like to think that I know what's going to happen next. I'd like to tell you all that "the 500-pound gorilla is going to fall through the ice," but I don't know that for sure. I've done my part to make sure that all of the organizations who want to come after USSPEEDSKATING will crack down on them, but it's up to those people now to make it happen.

I love how some of my friends write "USSPEEDSKATING" all in capital letters and smooshed together like that; it makes them sound so much more evil! So I'm going to write it like that on The Protocol from now on.

I wasn't going to keep posting on the blog once I started working, but I had to write about Dexter's marathon; having been surrounded by such absolute bullshit in my sport these past few years, it's been so important to me to have had a source of inspiration who never let me down. Yeah, it's punk to joke about eating a taco before a race, but at least he finished it, after hitting a wall with 10 miles to go. So, if Dexter wants to eat a taco before running a marathon, I say, "Somebody get him a guacamole-flavored Clif Shot to go with it!" He knew it was going to hurt, but he did it anyway, and I admire that. It makes him more worthy than at least one Olympian I can think of.

For me, the most anger I feel towards USSPEEDSKATING and its favorites still has to do with the women's 1500 meters in Torino: how nobody stepped up to take Chris Witty's place after she declined her spot in that event. Sure, one of the next skaters in line was injured, but for the other one, there was no excuse.

Bitch, it must be nice to be such good friends with the program director that he'll actually KEEP PEOPLE OFF THE TEAM just for you; to have the Long Track Olympic Team Selection Committee stacked 3 to 2 in the favor of you and your fellow national team skaters. Don't tell me that after more than a decade of special treatment you're "Not prepared to race." And then you can just say, "No, I don't want to skate this event;" and that's OK with them too!

USSPEEDSKATING, I hope you've learned that you can drag dead weight around, but you can't make it go to the starting line.

After a friend told me to look online at the pairings for the women's 1500 the day before that race, and to see that USSPEEDSKATING had only entered 3 women when they could have entered 4, I felt I could have come out of retirement, jumped on a plane, and flown through the night to take my place on that starting line, because unlike people who have had everything handed to them throughout their athletic careers, I UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF AN OLYMPIC RACE. But by that time, it was too late because they had already drawn the pairs.

---

Yes, sometimes I still get angry about this, but I am doing other things now. My work in a lab at the University of Utah is going great; I've helped to work out the genotyping of our mice and am now working on determining levels of proteins and RNA in different tissues. Oh yeah - and my contribution is actually appreciated, which is nice...and I just got my first paycheck. So long, $150-per month World Cup athlete stipends!!!

I'll be waiting to see what happens at the USSPEEDSKATING board meeting next month at the Hilton Hotel (No, wait, it's at the Mariott! Even though Hilton is a USS sponsor, the SLC Hilton must not have been good enough for them...) in downtown Salt Lake City; hopefully, some heads will roll. I'm thinking it might be fun to dig my swiftsuit out of storage, put it on, and go panhandling outside the hotel that weekend: "Please Feed the Starving American Speedskater!" But I'm not a starving American speedskater any more. I'm a well-paid scientist, and I can take care of myself.

2006-03-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

The Offspring Nation Marathon Protocol:

It wasn't a very good season for the Offspring Nation Olympic Team. Last Sunday, Dexter Holland ran the L.A. Marathon in just over 5 hours...and 3 days later, I'm still walking around shaking my head saying, "Dexter had a bad race," and wondering if I'm just making it all up.

Even though he won't see this, it makes me feel better to write it: If you wanna beat Oprah, Dexter, then here's what you have to do:

I know you love to eat tacos all the time, but you're right - you absolutely shouldn't eat tacos before your race. You have to play mind games with yourself. Picture a giant taco waiting for you on the finish line. But Oprah wants the taco too! You can't let her get to it before you do, or else SHE'LL EAT IT ALL, and it's the last taco on earth!

I could probably have made the 2006 Olympic Team if I'd imagined something I wanted waiting for me on the finish line, but unfortunately, all I could see ahead was traveling to Torino with a bunch of two-faced bastards, watching out for the knife they wanted to shove in my back! If only I had stepped up to the starting line thinking, "If I go under 1:17 in the 1000 meters, then the program director's face will melt off like that Nazi guy on Raiders of the Lost Ark!" Then I would have made the team.

I can beat Oprah in the marathon, by the way. In 1997, I ran the Detroit marathon in 3:38.

Live high, train low....

Come out and play!

2006-02-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

Wounds Healed, Lessons Learned, and a Memento Mori for Personal Ambition:

"Surrender your inner novel and set your sights
on a couple of really searing letters to the editor."

-Dennis Hinkamp, from "Popular Advice - Updated"

My own innner Olympic novel was supposed to have a slightly twisted but still Disney-ish ending: Skate a victory lap to a song called "Defy You," and then nail my gold medal to somebody's bathroom wall. But just because it didn't end the way I wish it would have doesn't mean it was all for nothing. Or was it?

I'd like to think I made the speedskating world a better place. But the reality may be that my anger flashed for a brief moment and burned itself out, and while my speedskating dreams died and faded away, the "Good Old Big Shots" will continue to roam the earth in their Team USA parkas, terrorizing the good people of the sport and molding the federation into whatever form they want it to take.

Maybe the most I can hope for is not to bring about change, but merely to warn the next generation of young skaters.

But even if my comeback to this sport, and the writing that has come out of it, have been only for me, then it has still been worth the time and effort. I have managed to heal my own wounds.

The last time I quit speedskating -- after being blackballed at age 17 - my psychic wounds from this sport were like scabs that could be and were ripped open again and again. That would be a fairly good description of my 6 years of college and grad school.

This time, there are no fresh wounds. Only a scar remains: It no longer hurts, but it will always be there.

It doesn't even feel like five years have passed. In sloughing off the dead skin of a burned-out amateur athlete, I feel like I'm opening my eyes after a one-night bout with food poisoning. Yes, unfortunately, "the entire pie has been tainted." I can't even skate recreationally any more.

For some reason, I am at peace with the way things turned out. Speedskating is no longer a cause to hate myself. I have fully internalized, not just with my mind but with every fiber of my being, that my self-worth is not tied up with my performance in this sport. I am no longer "possessed to skate."

Ironically, the thing that made me so much at peace was finding out just how truly evil U.S. Speedskating is; how few people within the sport I could actually trust; and finally - with the results of the 2006 Olympics - HOW DEAD WRONG THEY WERE ABOUT EVERYTHING.

No, I don't hate myself. I hate U.S. Speedskating, and no one who knows my story can blame me for hating them. I truly believe that I have not left this sport because I am too bad for it, but because I am too good. It is U.S. Speedskating that should not suffer such fools as gladly as it does, and it is U.S. Speedskating that should be sorry to lose someone like me.

2006-02-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

The Last Race:

Before I leave speedskating, I'm going to skate one more weekend time trial at the Utah Olympic Oval. I'm signed up for the 1500 meters this Saturday.

I'm in no shape to race - not because I haven't been working out, but because I've been working out too much; using exercise as anger management therapy. I've been trying to "get it out of my system" before starting work next week.

Also, I must admit I've been enjoying skating at the Oval while the Olympic Team has been away! In fact, that's the main reason why I'm going to race this weekend: Because it's my last chance to race while they're gone.

Though I came back to speedskating on a recreational level after failing to make the Olympic Team back in December, I won't be able to skate any more after this weekend. Because of all that has transpired between that time and the women's 1500 meter event in Torino, my anger towards some of those coaches and administrators is so strong that I feel the need to remove myself from the speedskating environment.

2006-02-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

Woe is Me; I'm Sponsor-Free!

My mom tells me that when I was 16 years old and missed making my first Junior Category 1 team by 0.038 of a samalog point over 4 races, I said, "I'd give a piece of my own skin for one of those USA skins!"

And, when I made my first World Cup Team in 2001 and got a HUGE box of free Nike clothes, I felt like Christmas had come a couple of months early!

Now, I'm just happy to be able to wear and/or promote whatever I want. So, here are some of my choices:

Running shoes: SAUCONY

Cell phone service: T-MOBILE

High-Speed Internet: COMCAST

Winter parka: COLUMBIA

Favorite T-Shirt: "NITRO RECORDS"

2006-02-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

A Final Message to the Nameless Ones:

This goes out to all the good people of the sport of speedskating who are afraid to speak out against the federation. What you need to do is to find a way to find common ground, gather together, and speak out. Find strength in numbers.

Many of you think that the only way to protect your children is to stay on the good side of those who tyrannize you; to maintain their trust. Have you ever thought of completely restructuring the system? Look at the mess that has been made of the women's Olympic Long Track Team this year. How much longer will you allow this to go on?

I have stuck my neck out repeatedly to tell the truth, because I am not capable of living a lie. I can't kiss the asses of people I hate. In my speedskating career, I have lived according to my own rules, where the only things that mattered were the electronic timing system and my middle finger in their face.

I had hoped I could be a catalyst for change within the sport of speedskating. But I have found that every time I turned around, there was no one behind me! Now you are on your own.

Next week, I'm starting a new full-time job and will be leaving the life of an athlete behind. In the extremely unlikely case that I would ever compete seriously in speedskating again, I would compete for another country. U.S. Speedskating will no longer be relevant to my life.

I will leave you with The Protocol's List of Things That Must Go: If you can identify the following people by the screw-ups they have made, then you are on your way.

1. This person is a pawn of the Minnesota Mafia, with a backwards vision for the future of the sport.

2. The only thing that future generations of speedskaters learned from this person's "experiments" is that they don't want him as a coach.

3. It is said that "He knows what's right, but won't say anything." If somebody's dog took a dump in this person's living room, he would pretend it wasn't there, and would hope that the smell would go away on its own.

4. This person is a "wanna-be Big Shot" with no substance behind his arrogance. Botching the Qwest sponsorship deal was his biggest mistake.

2006-02-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

Final Questions and Suggestions for U.S. Speedskating:

I know you won't take it from me, and you won't take it from The Protocol. You don't want to admit you're wrong, even in consideration of your performance at the 2006 Olympics. But here are my final suggestions for how to improve this sport.

1. Do you really want to grow the sport? Do you really want to attract more skaters? Because I don't think you do. Why don't you re-think your attitude toward new skaters? Do you see them as "outsiders" and "intruders"? You should also adjust your attitude toward your star athletes, so that they will want to help recruit new kids to the sport. The first thing that comes to a champion athlete's mind should not be how much they hate and resent their federation, but rather how grateful they are for their federation's help and support.

2. A speedskating federation should be DEMOCRATIC, not TOTALITARIAN. All board positions should be subject to review and voting. Hold administrators and coaches accountable for their performance. Hold the federation accountable for representing the best interest of its members, and for staying true to its own mission statements! Make sure all selection committees are impartial, free from conflicts of interest, and accountable to SOMEONE for their decisions.

3. Do you, U.S. Speedskating, realize how many of your former athletes hate you? Do you understand the consequences of this animosity? Does this bother you? Do you realize how much of it is YOUR FAULT for being arbitrary, vicious, and unfair?

4. Do you mislead your sponsors and the USOC about how you spend the money they give you? Do you mislead your sponsors about WHAT THEY WILL GET for the money they give you?

5. Realize that the main obstacle for almost all elite speedskaters is financial. Either give them the freedom to find their own sponsors, or find sponsors as a federation that will give them what they need. DO NOT EXPECT THEM TO BE WALKING BILLBOARDS FOR YOUR SPONSORS, WHILE GETTING NOTHING IN RETURN. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

6. Please realize that calling in special favors for certain individual athletes damages the credibility of the federation.

7. Examine your personal motives for being a sports administrator.

2006-02-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

Not Sending a Full Team: Another Reason Why it was the Wrong Decision

As I've discussed previously, U.S. Speedskating only sent 8 women to the Olympics in long track when they could have sent up to 10. I've already talked about 2 reasons why this was wrong:

1. At least one of the potential additions was a stronger pursuit skater than Amy Sannes.

2. For the first time in history, an American Olympic speedskating race entry went unused, because the U.S. could only find 3 women to enter into the 1500 meters, when they were supposed to enter 4.

In addition, RECENT INFORMATION HAS COME OUT THAT SEVERAL U.S. WOMEN'S TEAM MEMBERS WERE SUFFERING FROM CHRONIC INJURIES AND WERE BARELY HOLDING THEIR COMPETITION SEASON TOGETHER. In the context of this knowledge, THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOT SENDING A FULL TEAM OF 10 WOMEN WHEN THE OPTION WAS AVAILABLE.

2006-02-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

Shall We Declare a National Holiday?

Tom Cushman stated that he takes full responsibility for Jen Rodriguez's underperformance at the 2006 Olympics. That's a first.

It never became real UNTIL IT HAPPENED TO JEN. Too bad- this was a lesson he should have learned 3 seasons ago.

Let's not forget: The fact that Maria Lamb and Clay Mull failed to qualify for the Olympics in the 3K and 5K, respectively, is appalling. And the fact that Paul Dyrud didn't even approach his personal bests is totally unacceptable.

2006-02-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

Ray C. Rodent Has the Last Laugh:

This is all I'm going to say about the women's 1500 meters today. To the so-called "Brain Trust" of U.S. Speedskating, I hope you are enjoying living the nightmare.

2006-02-22T07:55:00.000-07:00

Conspiring Around a Conspiracy: From the Olympic Team Selection Criteria to the Team Selection Committee Meeting

I'm going to share with you now the way I planned my 2005-06 competition season, in consideration of the Olympic Team selection criteria. I'm also going to talk about how U.S. Speedskating shot themselves in the foot with the decisions that went down at the final team selection meetings.

Not long after the Olympic Team selection criteria became available, I made a post about how they were so long, detailed, and involved that they were "scarier than an organic chemistry exam." But upon reviewing them on my way to the Fall World Cup Qualifier, I found that they boiled down to this idea:

"The Olympic team will be nominated by a selection committee, taking into account both the results at the Olympic Trials and results at the Fall World Cups."

I realized from reading the selection criteria that U.S. Speedskating was trying to make it sound like the Trials were the most important. But I also knew that Fall World Cups could be used as leverage against someone they didn't want on the team. I knew that I would have to both beat their favorites at the Fall World Cups and at the Olympic Trials in order to stand a chance against the selection committee.

My plan was to reduce my training load only slightly in the fall, and hope it would be good enough to compete decently at the Fall World Cups, and then throw in a major taper before the Trials. By the end of the World Cups, I was ahead of Sannes in points in the 1000 meters, which was good; even though I was disappointed in my skating, overall. Ochowicz was still ahead of me, but her performance was falling off towards the end of the trip, and I felt if I came out ahead of her at the trials, then this could be argued in my favor.

My pre-Olympic Trials taper did not give me as great results as I'd hoped, and though I didn't qualify for the team, I was in the first alternate position for the 500 meters, and also was the next in line to get added to the Team Pursuit.

Now, this is very important, because it is where I decided to end my career. I had prepared my official retirement notice, but the actual decision to retire came when I handed that notice in to Andy Gabel after my last 1000-meter race at the Trials, when I knew exactly where I stood.

I realized at that point that I still had a chance to be added to the Olympic Team. After all, there were additional spots available for the Team Pursuit, and there was also the chance that someone might give up their spot in the 500 (like what happened in 2002.) But I didn't want that! First of all, I posted before about not wanting to participate in the Team Pursuit. Secondly, I didn't want to make the team on anyone's "charity." Third, I DIDN'T WANT TO SUBJECT MYSELF TO CORRUPT POLITCAL DECISIONS, such as what ended up happening in the choice not to take extra women for the Team Pursuit. I will go into that.

The only way I wanted to make the Olympic Team was the way that didn't happen for me, and that is to have an awesome race at the Trials, blow everybody away, fair and square, and put myself beyond the reach of the people who want to screw me over. That didn't happen, and I was willing to accept THIS KIND OF DEFEAT -- the true defeat of pushing your body to its limit, knowing you tried your best, and falling short of your goal. I wanted to skate 1:15.5 at the Trials. I thought about it all year long, and it didn't happen for me. Tough.

After the Long Track Olympic Team selection committee met and decided to add 2 men to the Team Pursuit, making the men's team a full 10 skaters, and decided NOT to add 2 additional women, leaving the women's team at 8 skaters when they could have taken 10, I heard that some of the people on the Yahoo Skatelist were puzzled about this decision. So, I posted my interpretation, saying that the next women in line were "politically unacceptable choices." But I also said that I thought they should have added Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. Now, in consideration that the U.S. neglected to enter its quota of 4 skaters in the women's 1500, entering only three, I see that this decision not to add at least one additional skater has hurt them.

One thing that I didn't want to talk about before, but that I WILL bring up now because it turned out to be a real issue, is the "necessity" of entering Amy Sannes in the Team Pursuit. Ever since the first meeting where USS set up Pursuit practice back in September, I believed from the way they were setting up the teams that what Crowe was hoping to get out of all of this was "an easy medal for his favorite girl." And I wanted no part of that!!!

Sure enough, his strategy was to put Sannes into one of the early-round races, hope she muddled through, and that the "good skaters" would be able to handle the later rounds well enough to medal, and that after all the investment that Crowe and USS had made in Sannes, she'd finally get to hang some hardware around her neck.

What I want to know is, TO WHOM IS THE OLYMPIC TEAM SELECTION COMMITTEE ACCOUNTABLE? This seems like such a totalitarian system! Who makes sure it is fair? Also, why is it that this committee of 5 people includes three who have a conflict of interest: Tom Cushman, Ryan Shimabukuro, and Mike Crowe all have their own skaters and agendas to promote. The selection committee should be comprised of impartial voters, rather than being made up of a majority with a vested interest in U.S. Speedskating National Team skaters.

By the way, at this point I'd like to thank Ryan for holding the lap board and the turn cable for me, and also to say that I know he was fighting against me in the pairings at the Olympic Trials, by arguing that the top 4 women (Jen, Chris, Elli, and Amy) should be in their own, separate grouping for the draw. The coach who fought for me (and Erin Porter) in that situation was Andrei Zhuikov, the man who rightfully takes the credit for bringing Maria Lamb up to the level of international competition.

Ryan, I know you were only doing your job, and that you'd be in fear of losing your job if you stood up for me in such a situation. What I hope is that eventually U.S. Speedskating will change to the point where you won't have to think twice about doing what's right, and won't have to do things behind a skater's back in order to keep your job. Once again, I don't blame you, I only blame the system. But this is the system, and the whole world must know about it.

So, here's what ended up happening at the Olympic Games: The women's pursuit was an organizational disaster, even though they could have medaled with the people they sent, if the USS staff had planned properly.

And, USS ended up without enough women to enter the 1500 meters, which I hope turns out to be a major humiliation for U.S. Speedskating. Certainly, by now, this horribly corrupt and incompetent sports federation has reached critical mass for a major shake-up.

2006-02-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Pardon my Tourette's Syndrome!

This time, you motherfuckers have gone too far. For the first time in history, U.S. Speedskating has declined a spot at the Olympic Games. Despite having qualified 4 women for the 1500 meters, THEY HAVE ONLY ENTERED THREE. Check the pairings on the Torino2006 web site!

You're telling me that when Chris Witty declined her spot because she has not been skating well, there was no one to take her place? Why didn't one of the next women in line step up?

U.S. Speedskating could have sent a full team of 10 women, but they chose to only send eight. Now, there is a spot in the 1500 meters that will go unused.

Crowe, Cushman, and everyone else: WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!! THIS IS THE BIG SHOW!!! THIS IS YOUR ONE AND ONLY GOAL, AND YOU ARE BLOWING IT BIG TIME!!! Something has to give. HEADS SHOULD ROLL FOR THIS ATROCITY!!!

Can you believe how far these incompetent idiots have gone? Do you see how they are cutting off their nose to spite their face? Do you see that this happened initially because they wanted to prevent someone named Eva Rodansky from being able to call herself an Olympian? Do you see that this is completely fucking retarded, because I was already retired by that point? Couldn't they have added Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. to the team?

This is more of a humiliation for the U.S. Speedskating Team than I could possibly imagine. Those girls don't want to race the 1500 because they're tired of hearing how badly the American women have been sucking, and they don't want to embarrass themselves. THEY ARE SCARED!! They're already Olympians. Why should they have to race? That's not the point, right? They've gotten what they wanted out of it - now it's time to party.

2006-02-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

No Medals for U.S. Speedskating Today!

Do you like how I put that? I didn't say, "No medals for American speedskaters in the men's 1500," because that would be a lie. But neither silver medalist Shani Davis nor bronze medalist Chad Hedrick can rightfully be claimed by U.S. Speedskating, who had nothing to do with their success.

Don't get me wrong - by the time the Spring Board Meeting comes around, U.S. Speedskating is going to be milking all of the American medalists for all they're worth, claiming them as their own and saying what a great Olympics it was.

So far, alternative training programs have produced twice as many medals as the U.S. Speedskating National Team program!! The National Team has produced only one skater, who has won two medals, and that is Joey Cheek, from Ryan Shimabukuro's sprint team. Tom Cushman's Allround program has yet to win a medal in the Torino Games, as do any of the American women.

2006-02-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

Team Pursuit News, Worth Mentioning:

Unforgiveable disorganization and lack of leadership on the part of U.S. Speedskating staff probably cost the American women a medal in the team pursuit. You bastards know exactly what I'm talking about, and you have proven once again that you do not even deserve your own athletes.

2006-02-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

WHOSE BACK IS AGAINST THE WALL NOW, U.S. SPEEDSKATING???

These are the American women's results from the 1000 meters today:

10th: Jen Rodriguez
25th: Amy Sannes
27th: Chris Witty
32nd: Elli Ochowicz

No medals.

For anyone who has been wondering whether my gripes about problems within USS are just "sour grapes," here is your answer. Barring a miracle, Tom Cushman's USS Allround team will go home without a single Olympic medal. Barring a miracle, the entire U.S. women's long track speedskating contingent will go home without a medal.

For the longest time, U.S. Speedskating has managed to hide behind its medalists. Sometimes, they can get away with hiding a lot of crap on the back end of the team, as long as someone is holding up the front end and getting on the podium. But what happens when their one and only medal hopeful isn't skating well, and they have no depth in their team because they have failed to develop it?

Tell me now that the USS administrators and coaches know how to determine who has talent and who doesn't. Tell me they made good decisions. Tell me they know whom to protect and which way to throw their support.

I'm so glad I'm not one of the American female middle distance skaters competing in the Olympics right now, and I'll tell you why. It has to do with a phenomenon that I'll call "Skating for the Enemy:" (I wonder if Shani knows what I mean?)

Ever since I came back to this sport, U.S. Speedskating has been trying to weed me out. At various times, they saw me as an experimental guinea pig, a waste of resources, a threat to their favorites, and a no-talent. Some people say that metric speedskating is an absolute, and that things people say, think, or believe about you do not influence the final result. I'm sorry, but that just isn't the case. It makes a concrete difference whether I'm working 30 hours a week because I only get paid for the hours I'm punched in on the clock, while a "teammate" of mine gets a paycheck whether she works or not. It makes a difference, mentally, when it's hammered into you by your own federation that you are a worthless piece of shit.

Peter Mueller and Boris Vasilkovsky thought I had the talent to take this sport as far as I wanted, but I had to deal instead with the reality of having my potential rejected by the likes of Mike Crowe, Tom Cushman, and Andy Gabel. Their rejection had real consequences on the sustainability of my speedskating career.

Now, in terms of how the American women are doing, you can't convince me that these people are capable of building a strong women's team. They have failed utterly and miserably, and I hope they will be held accountable for their failure.

When you rig the fight between skaters within a country, you end up with some people who get undeserved favors, and others who keep getting backstabbed and stomped on. Eventually, it no longer matters who ends up going to an international competition -- whether it's the undeserving favorite or the backstabbed "whipping girl," NEITHER ONE WILL BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND THE REST OF THE WORLD.

I'm glad I'm not in Torino right now. I WOULD HAVE SUCKED THERE MYSELF!!! I'm not sitting here wishing I were racing. I'm not raring to go. I feel worn out, defeated, and FED UP!!! If I had somehow squeaked by and gone 0.09 faster in the 1000 meter at the Olympic Trials, U.S. Speedskating would have wrapped me up in the latest Nike spandex, and I would have gone to the starting line feeling like I had a knife in my back and a lingering voice in my mind saying,

"I will not perform for my own destroyers.
I will not perform for my own destroyers."

Let other people answer the media's questions about why the American women aren't winning. Let Sannes answer why she is competing in her 3rd Olympics and placing ELEVEN spots lower than she did in her 2nd Olympics, and why U.S. Speedskating went so far out of their way to make it so damn easy for her to stick around for the last four years.

You people think you're fighting ME, when all of a sudden you're broadsided by the likes of Marianne Timmer, Cindy Klassen, Anni Freisinger, Irene Wust....and you stand there looking shocked, saying, "Where did that come from???"

Open wide, U.S. Speedskating, and take a giant gulp of your own rotten medicine.

2006-02-19T01:15:00.000-07:00

Shani's victory is his alone.

I haven't been watching too much Olympic TV coverage, but I did watch the men's 1000 meters tonight. I saw that the media people were wondering about Shani's refusal to give interviews before the event, and the very short answers he gave following his victory. "Shani, are you angry?" asked the perky blonde reporter. He said no; he was fine.

How can these people even begin to understand what Shani must be going through? Sure, it's great to win an Olympic gold medal, but the meaning of what Shani has done will be twisted in several different ways to fit several different agendas.

As I said in my previous post, U.S. Speedskating will try to take credit for Shani's victory. They have done nothing to help this athlete win, and in fact, have done everything possible to make things more difficult for him. How do you think Shani feels about "winning the gold for U.S. Speedskating?"

The Olympic media love to say, "How does it feel to win this medal for your country?" Well, in truth, the USA only cares about speedskating for 2 weeks every 4 years. And, besides that, most of the American people aren't aware of how horribly the federation known as U.S. Speedskating discriminates against some of its athletes. The American people do not hold U.S. Speedskating accountable for what they've done to athletes like Shani, or like me. So, how do you think Shani must feel about the view that he's "bringing the gold home to the USA?"

Shani is the first African-American to win a medal in an individual Winter Olympic event. But all his life, Shani has faced ridicule from fellow African-Americans for participating in such a "white person's sport" as speedskating. How do you think Shani feels about his breakthrough role in the sport?

It's all very conflicting and complicated. The whole situation is not easy to explain. It certainly cannot be neatly packaged into a typical "feel-good victory interview."

I just hope it gets more people interested in the problems within U.S. Speedskating.

2006-02-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

The Olympic Progress Report Continues:

Who is that guy who won the men's 1000 meter long track race today? That's Shani Davis. That's the guy who had to sue his own federation this past season to be allowed into a national team training camp that was funded by the USOC.

Why do people criticize Shani for deciding not to skate the team pursuit because he was focusing on his own events? Excuse me, but Shani does not owe U.S. Speedskating JACK SHIT. Besides, they were trying to keep him out of training camps in the first place, so when would he have had a time to practice with the rest of the pursuit team?

It's bad enough that U.S.S. is going to try to take credit for Shani's gold medal. The only shred of credit that U.S. Speedskating can take for Shani's success is in that part of him that was motivated by his anger against them. This is a federation that has only been trying to hold Shani back and take things away from him.

Joey Cheek took the silver; good for him! It is becoming apparent that Joey is going to be the only male Olympic long track medalist prepared by a U.S. National Team program for the Torino Games.

So far, the medal count per program looks like this:

U.S. Speedskating/ Ryan Shimabukuro: 1 gold, 1 silver (both won by Joey Cheek)

Utah Oval FAST Program: 1 gold (Chad Hedrick)

Calgary: 1 gold (Shani Davis)

2006-02-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

Life Takes a 180-Degree Turn:

I've gone on a couple of interviews at local research labs, and it looks like I'll have a job very soon. I am really looking forward to starting my new life in the real world of the gainfully employed, and leaving the illogical world of amateur athletics far behind.

It's amazing how different things are outside the country club atmosphere of U.S. Speedskating. When I went on my interviews, there was talk of how my C.V. stood out; how my experience and skills would fit into the lab's projects; which person would show me around the lab and get me started so that I could start contributing to the goals of the lab.

Funding for science is hard to come by these days, mostly due to Dubya's "extracurricular activities." If a lab wants to hire a technician, they're going to do everything they can to make sure that person succeeds, because the techincian's motivation to make experiments work and to have their name on a published paper is in line with the goals of the lab.

Such a lab is not going to do the equivalent of sending an injured athlete to the starting line at an international competition. And the lab boss certainly wouldn't think of going around behind the technician's back, switching the labels on reagent bottles, "just to see what happens" when the person sets up an experiment the next day. But this is what life was like for me in U.S. Speedskating.

My life as a speedskater was like treading water in a rough sea, wearing ankle weights, trying to scale a slippery wall of rock while some people standing on the ledge up above were throwing bricks at my head, and others were standing there watching me drown, just for fun. Now that I've left that oppressive environment, I have people telling me that I should be applying for the Lab Specialist positions, because with all the skills I have, I don't need to be starting as an entry-level Lab Tech after all.

It is true that, in speedskating, I was only able to handle about three times the adversity as the Chosen Ones, but not ten times the adversity. If anyone wants to say that I'm weak or that I'm a loser because I could only overcome three times the adversity but not ten, then they are welcome to do so. This is no longer my problem.

But considering the results of U.S.S.'s programs so far this season, they may have to think about whether their clannishness, their unwelcoming attitudes, aversion to development of the sport, and their treatment of some skaters as "intruders" are truly serving them in the achievement of their own goals and mission statement.

2006-02-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

Medals Per Program:

Chad's gold medal on the first day of competition gave me an idea for another statistic worth keeping. I'll update this post as more results come in. So far, the FAST Program has one gold, and U.S. Speedskating has zero.

(After all, since the U.S. Speedskating administrators were the first ones to insist on this separation, why don't we just keep it going?)

By the end of the Games, we'll be able to calculate exactly how many medals were won by athletes who'd have gotten their hands smacked if they reached into the tubs of Clif Bars and Accelerade that were so prominently on display throughout the high performance sessions at the Utah Olympic Oval all season long!

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2/12/06: Day 2 has come and gone, and so far, Cushman's long distance program is getting an "F" for "Failure." Both days, his skaters finished last among the Americans; in each case, they were outdone by athletes from the dreaded "alternative programs." I'm just sorry that this had to happen to K.C. Boutiette and Kristine Holzer. Neither of them skated up to their potential, and a lot of that has to come down to season planning and when to taper.

When I wrote about how angry I was that when I trained with the U.S. Allround program, half our team's seasons were trashed "for the purpose of data collection on overtraining," one thing I said was that I didn't believe that the coach had the ability to analyze that data and put it to use. Now, my friends are not skating well in Torino, and I barely have the heart to say, "I told you so."

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2/13/06: Congratulations to Joey Cheek on winning the gold in the 500 meters today! Score one gold medal for U.S. Speedskating's sprint team. Good for Joey, good for his coach, Ryan Shimabukuro, and good for that whole team of guys who worked so well together for the past two seasons.

Joey's victory shows that a skater from an Allround background can be trained not just to be a decent sprinter, but to actually win an Olympic gold medal in the shortest event. As the 2006 World Sprint Champion, Joey also shows that you don't have to treat the World Sprints as a write-off in order to perform well a few weeks later at the Olympic Games.

And, in the unlikely case that Harvard didn't want to accept Joey before, they'll surely want him now that he's an Olympic gold medalist!

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2/14/06: "INDIFFERENCE" is the word of the day. I don't think anybody really cares what I have to say right now, but I'm going to say it anyway. I also don't think anybody cares that the USA hasn't had a women's 500 meter skater since Bonnie Blair.

It's just too easy to say, "Well, the 500 isn't Jen's best event, anyway." It's true, but why does it have to be up to Jen? Jen is a strong medal contender in the 1000 and 1500. But that is not the reason why we don't have a women's sprint team.

We don't have a women's sprint team because of the toxic, team-wrecking friendship between the program director and one of his athletes.

Oh, yes, my friends; the results of my "Not Worth Protecting" experiment are coming in. With a 17th-place finish in today's 500 meter event, Amy Sannes has proven that despite all of the special favors and attention paid to her by U.S. Speedskating over the years, she has never risen above middle-of-the-pack mediocrity. According to the criteria I posted on February 8th, Sannes finds herself well within the range of NWP, or "Not Worth Protecting."

After all the years of sticking her nose in the air about being so much better than everybody else; of not wanting to skate in a group with anyone other than Jen and Witty; the result of this 2006 Olympic 500 meter race is just a speck in a huge body of "NWP" data collected over the years.

Don't take my word for it, if you think I'm just a sore loser. Skaters have been leaving Crowe's team since the late 1990's because of favoritism towards Sannes. Ask those who have been around since that time.

I'm not saying that I or another skater could have done better at these Olympics! All I'm saying is that for the effort and expense involved, 17th place wasn't worth it. Creating such animosity in the team dynamic was not worth it. But, again, I don't think anybody cares! U.S. Speedskating doesn't care. I don't think the USOC cares. I don't think the American people care. I don't even think the people at the Home Depot OJOB program care that they paid somebody $20,000 to mix a few cans of paint between attending 6 weeks' worth of out-of-town training camps, working volunteer hours at a veterinary clinic, and, finally, skating like this.

The funniest thing about favoritism is that by wielding his power to give Sannes so much protection, Crowe was admitting that he didn't believe she would be able to make it on her own.

The saddest thing about favoritism is that it destroyed any possibility of building a strong women's sprint team. And the reason why we don't have a women's sprint team has just gone out there and proven that all of their destruction has gone in pursuit of failure.

2006-02-11T16:25:00.000-07:00

The story of West Michigan short track skater Derek Gray reminds us of the consequences of not being seen as a serious contender by one's own federation.

One of my friends from Muskegon, Michigan, read me a newspaper article about my former WMSC teammate, Derek Gray, who had a near-miss himself at the short track Olympic Trials in December. Though it will be hard for Derek to watch the Games on TV, he says he will still be cheering his friends on, as he continues his own training in hopes of making the Olympic Team in 2010.

Throughout his 8 years of training with the U.S. short track team, Derek has been frustrated by the politics involved in the sport. I can only imagine how much greater an impact politics can have on short track than on long track, and in long track it's bad enough! Derek has seen a lot of questionable calls by referees, and says that the National Team coaches tend to give almost all of their time to Apolo, because he is the star of the team, to the exclusion of other athletes.

After last season, Derek had seen enough, and decided to train in Canada with other coaches. He says that for the first time in years, he has a coach who actually pays attention to his skating, and even travels with him to competitions. With this new training situation in place, he is looking forward to making great improvements in the next 4 years.

When you join a national team, as I have learned, you can't just assume that the goal of the coaches and of the organization is to help YOU skate fast. It would seem logical that the coaches would want to help all of the skaters improve as much as they can, in order to improve the level of the entire team. But both Derek and I had to learn the hard way that this is not always the case.

Just as I was used for the purpose of data collection when I trained with the U.S. national allround team in 2003-04, Derek says that he was used only as a training partner for Apolo, without any concern for how he himself would perform in competition. That's not exactly what he and his family had in mind, throughout all the years of pain and sacrifice that they put into the sport of speedskating.

I have known Derek since he was less than two years old. He had to be the youngest kid ever to skate Mark Jastrzembski's Sunday Night Family Skate at the Walker Arena. Derek entered his first speedskating race at age 5, and since that time he has been skating his guts out, with his mom cheering him on from the sidelines!

I always hoped Derek would skate well. He's a guy who never gives less than his best. I would seriously throttle anyone who would suggest that Derek didn't make the Olympic Team because he didn't "want it" badly enough!!! Sometimes, it just doesn't work out.

It's hard when you are one of the "other national team skaters" and the stars (or those who aren't even stars but for some reason are favorites) are getting extra attention or special treatment. It's hard because if you are a highly motivated and driven athlete, you're trying your hardest every day to become the best skater you can possibly be. And, perhaps naively, you expect your coaches to support you in your effort to be the best.

Just because a skater isn't one of the "chosen ones" of his or her own country's national team program does not mean that person lacks talent. I've talked about the foreign coaches who thought I had a great deal of potential as a speedskater. I've talked about Norwegian skaters who feel frustrated at the methods used in their team selection process. And Derek Gray says he had to leave the country to find a training program that worked for him, and a coach who cared about his performance.

Good for Derek! Time is on his side, and his family continues to support him as he trains for the 2010 Olympics. I hope that his "fire within" continues to burn.

The path of the "un-favorites" is not an easy one. It takes extra commitment and an extra financial burden. Looking back on my own career, if I could have changed anything, and if I could have afforded it, I would have stayed with the FAST Program after the 2002-03 season, instead of going with the U.S. Allround program. But there was no way of knowing that the U.S. National Team did not care about all of its athletes skating fast, without experiencing this for myself. I hope that stories like mine and Derek's will be a warning to all young athletes.

2006-02-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

Good Luck to All My American Speedskating Friends:

Change does not come easy within an organization like U.S. Speedskating. In fact, I often hear people say that "The only time U.S. Speedskating ever makes changes is after they've had a crappy Olympics." But even if you've been promoting change and hoping desperately for it, how can you wish "a crappy Olympics" on people whom you've gotten to know and like?

The attitude that U.S. Speedskating likes to take is, "Why should we change? We're winning medals, right?" I wish I could explain why the Americans have won so many medals in speedskating, despite having such a small base of athletes to choose from; despite promoting such an unwelcoming atmosphere; despite expecting athletes to take care of so much on their own; despite seemingly going out of their way to hold certain athletes down. I can't come up with the answer. It doesn't make sense.

So it doesn't matter to USS that they spread so much hate and cause people to become disloyal to the organization; that when so many of their former competitors leave the sport, they want nothing further to do with it. I find it unfortunate that the federation itself is so often "rewarded" at the Olympics by the performance of athletes who have done it more DESPITE USS, not THANKS TO.

Are you surprised that I have good things to say about my former teammates? Maybe you have a right to be surprised, from the things I've posted over the last year or so. The truth is, in my writings on U.S. Speedskating and "how evil they are," I did not intend to include the vast majority of these people. In the end, I've come to the conclusion that besides a few "wanna-be big shot administrators," the only people I can't stand are the program director and his favorite girl.

At this time last year, when we were traveling on the World Cups, I really thought Crowe was trying to be nice to everyone, even to me. But throughout the year that followed, when I heard some of the things he said to the press and compared them to his actual decisions about alternative-program athletes; when I started to feel like I had to make a run for the showers or hold my head over the toilet every time he wished me "good luck" before my races; I completely wrote him off for his two-facedness...

...and his favorite girl was just an unpleasant and selfish teammate!

I'm not going to allow my views on these two people to influence my thoughts on the rest of the team. So, here they are:

Shani and Chad: What I like about these two guys is the combination of their talent and strength, with the fact that THEY DON'T TRAIN WITH U.S. SPEEDSKATING PROGRAMS. These guys have the most potential to win medals for the USA. Also, U.S. Speedskating has not treated the two of them very well, and I don't think either one is afraid to admit it.

When I'm disappointed in the way my own speedskating career ended, I start to think, "What U.S. Speedskating really deserved is for me to have been as dominant as Eric Heiden, AND THEN to kick dirt in their faces." Then I realize that even if it wasn't meant to be for me to play this role, then maybe I can count on Chad and Shani to do it instead.

I also hope that Ryan Shimabukuro's sprinter guys do well. They're a good group of guys and let me skate with them after I qualified for the World Cups. Some of them wanted me to make the Olympic Team so much that my friends overheard them talking about one of the other girls on the team, saying, "I hope Eva kicks her ass." It didn't happen, but it was a nice thought.

Ryan deserves success as well; I really think he is a good coach and I'm sorry that in my writing against U.S. Speedskating, there were times when he felt like he was collateral damage in the "dirty bombs" I've been slinging against the federation.

Jen Rodriguez and K.C. Boutiette were great teammates, and I wish them all the success in the world.

I hope Catherine Raney does well, because she has been such a great example of how a skater who has been around for a long time can still make huge improvements; also because she trains outside of USS.

Kristine Holzer has been my friend throughout the years, and I'm so glad she has this chance to experience the Olympics before she gets on with the rest of her life.

Maria Lamb is a very tough young skater, and I'm sure she will do great.

Best of luck to Maggie Crowley, who (along with her family, her coach Nancy Swider-Peltz and her training partner Nancy Jr.) has come so far with so little help from U.S. Speedskating. I'm sure her awesome skating has shocked a lot of people this year.

Chris Witty is definitely a "big event skater." I hope she pulls out some great races in Torino. Some day, I'd like to ask her why she made that unexpected decision to leave U.S. Speedskating and train with the FAST Program this year.

I hope all the American skaters know that anything they achieve at the Olympic Games is THEIR OWN. I hope they realize how little credit the "big shot team-parka-wearing administrators" of U.S. Speedskating can actually claim for the success of their athletes. I hope that the rest of the world will come to see this as well.

2006-02-09T07:26:00.000-07:00

What it Meant to be the "Lightning Rod" of U.S. Speedskating:

When I first started this blog, I thought it would be funny to give myself the "jock name" of Lightning Rod (from the first 3 letters of my last name and because, to me, it represented "getting struck" more than it represented going fast.) In the end, this image of the lightning rod turned out to be even more appropriate than I could ever have imagined.

It's funny because the highest level I ever reached in this sport was B-Group champion at the World Cup Final, making me only "sort-of lightning fast." But I continued to be "struck" by U.S. Speedskating right up until the very end.

The interesting thing was that I began to see the term "lightning rod" used in the media, to describe a politician or an athlete who was a controversial figure. I saw that the person who was called a "lightning rod" was someone who was willing to bring attention to difficult issues or problems, possibly at the expense of their own career, or at least at the risk of damaging the way they are perceived by others.

As I prepare to re-enter the real world of working people (I had my first interview at the Human Genetics Institute yesterday) I've been thinking about my leave of absence from graduate school and what I've accomplished throughout the last 5 years of devoting myself to competing internationally in speedskating...especially in terms of my eventual failure to make an Olympic Team before calling it quits.

As I talk to people I meet, I realize that it will be impossible to explain to most people what happened to me in speedskating. Even some of my closest friends in the sport can't seem to understand why I don't want to watch the Olympics!!! The only thing I can say to explain to people why I left the sport on such negative terms is, "It's complicated."

Even though I didn't make the Olympic Team, I still don't think the last 5 years have been a total waste, either in my enjoyment of what I was doing, or in what I've accomplished.

When I was in graduate school at a cancer research institute, all of my time was devoted to research and studying. Though I liked my career direction better than any other I could have chosen, I kind of resented the idea that I had to sacrifice my entire life to it, because I was "trying to cure cancer and save other people's lives."

To make matters worse, I was a total "endorphin junkie," and needed a great deal of physical exercise to stay sane. For example, I'd set up a polymerase chain reaction, and while it was running, I'd go skate laps around the parking lot on my inlines. Then I was told, "You know, you could be reading the literature while your PCR is running."

As I look back on my decision to come back to speedskating, I'd be satisfied to see the Olympics as nothing more than an excuse for working out 4-6 hours a day; something I could hold out to society as an acceptable goal that made it OK for me to leave cancer research for a while. It's not like I didn't have a chance in hell of making the team. I only missed it by 0.08 in the 1000 meters, after all.

I've mentioned before that having positive role models who defied society's expectations made it easier for me to pursue the life I wanted. What I haven't yet talked about is the person whose negative assessment of me turned out to be the final straw that sealed my decision to go on leave of absence to pursue speedskating.

When I was feeling depressed in grad school, I was referred to a psychologist through the school's health plan. I told this lady that I was depressed with my life and sad that I couldn't pursue speedskating because I had been blackballed. But, from somewhere way out in left field, she pulled her own interpretation of what was going on in my head. She told me, "Girls like you belong in the lab, because no man would ever want you."

I started to laugh, thinking she was telling a joke because I couldn't believe anyone would be serious about something like that. But then she went on, saying, "And if there ever was a panel of women scientists on TV, they wouldn't choose you, because no little girl would ever want to be like you, either."

After that appointment, I called to cancel any further sessions, telling her I was "cured" and didn't need her help any more. The bitch was so proud of herself.

That interaction made me very angry, but in the end it turned out to be exactly what I needed to finalize my decision to leave the lab for a while. I thought, "What she just put into words was this society's view of People Like Me. So, screw everybody else -- I'm going to go do WHAT I WANT for a while!"

Within a few months, I was training in Salt Lake City.

From the beginning of my comeback to the sport, I knew that U.S. Speedskating was a small world that had been hostile to me before. But in my first few years back, I acted as though my goals lined up with what supposedly were their goals: To help people skate fast and to send the best possible team to competitions.

As the years went on and I had some really bad experiences with the federation, I realized that it would not be possible for me to maintain the illusion that this sport was pure. My goals in the sport split in two: Either I would succeed despite every obstacle they intentionally put in my path, or I would tell the whole world the truth about how U.S. Speedskating operates. Or, of course, some combination of the two.

I began to study the culture of U.S. Speedskating as if it were a culture of bacteria in a Petri dish. The problem is that I got too involved with my subject matter. Even as I healed some of my old wounds in this sport, I made new ones along the way. I bought into the illusion of the Olympic Dream. I have to admit that the only time in my life that I've been truly happy is when I lived as if I believed it were possible for me to be a speedskating champion.

Even though I often resented my role as the "Lightning Rod;" the one who brings up the tough issues; the one who stirs up discontent; the one who tries hard and fails; I believe that my writing has done some good. I think I've put some ideas into people's heads, and some words into their mouths; words that were needed to describe problems that were either too vague or too disturbing for people to want to face.

In the world of medicine, anti-cancer chemotherapy drugs kill some healthy cells along with the malignant ones. From my perspective, the "immune system" of U.S. Speedskating has broken down, and as a result, the organization has become riddled with malignancies. If change is to come about, then the whole body has to feel a little bit sick in the process. The cure doesn't come easy, but there comes a point where the tumors can no longer be ignored.

As I return to the world of REAL cancer research, I don't think I'll want to be involved in sports politics at all. Other people can do it better - you know, the ones who don't feel so much hatred towards people who've destroyed their favorite dream! But maybe someday, (from a distance, of course) I'll hear that the first cancer I helped to cure was the cancer within U.S. Speedskating.

2006-02-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

The "Not Worth Protecting" Experiment:

Unlike U.S. Speedskating, I don't need to use "post hoc analysis" in analyzing the data I collect. I'm not going to wait until the results come in, AND THEN once I know who finished where, tell you what selection criteria I'm using. No, I'm going to lay everything out in The Protocol before the last experiment even starts.

Since the most important criteria by which U.S. Speedskating measures how it's doing is its team's performance at the Olympic Games, then these results are also the criteria I'm going to use. What I would like to determine from this study is whether certain athletes who have been the recipients of favoritism were worth protecting. If I were to use a 3-letter acronym (similar to DSQ, DNS, or DNF for Disqualified, Did Not Skate, or Did Not Finish) I might use NWP, or "Not Worth Protecting."

In this experiment, I'm not trying to make comparisons between athletes. All I'm doing is determining how well a particular athlete's results at the Games met U.S. Speedskating's mission statement, in consideration of the favors that person received.

Because "winning Olympic medals" is the most important goal in the mission statement of U.S. Speedskating, I would say that the only way that a recipient of favoritism would be definitely worth protecting would be if that person won an Olympic medal. This doesn't mean that it was right, fair, or ethical to give that person special treatment, only that it helped USS meet their goals.

If that person finished without a medal but still in the Top 10, then there is a gray area; maybe that person deserved protection and maybe they didn't. At least they proved they were at the level where they had a shot at a medal.

If an athlete who has been the recipient of undeserved favors from U.S. Speedskating and either did not finish in the Top 10 or performed worse in these Olympics than they did in the previous Olympics, then The Protocol concludes that the athlete is NWP, or "Not Worth Protecting."

These are my criteria, clearly laid out in black and white. Though they may sound cruel and harsh, at least I won't be changing them once the results come in.

2006-02-07T12:57:00.000-07:00

All is Quiet at the Utah Olympic Oval:

The Olympics are coming and the team is away,
It's time for the outcasts to come in and play.

Absence makes me more aware
Of the hypocrites who pretended to care,
The box of Clif Bars they refused to share,
The icicles forming in the air.

Olympic glory still lives on:
Soon they'll set up a JumboTron
So all the fans can cheer the team on
But I'm just grateful that they're gone!

2006-02-06T12:04:00.000-07:00

Not right to look up to the Norwegian Team?

Some readers say that maybe I shouldn't admire the Norwegian team. It is true that I do not know anything about their system, and so I can see where the frustration would come in; I've also heard the rumors that Pete Mueller hand-picks some of his athletes.

I was speaking more from the experience of one of my friends, who got to visit Norway and saw Pete in his interactions with the team of skaters he works with. I also got to hang out with Pete in the spring, and talk to him a little about skating.

It might be wrong of me, but I got the idea that he would have "picked" me. After I'd been basically treated like garbage by my own federation, he said that he thought I skated well, and that if he were my coach he'd make me "fucking win."

All of this is just an example of what an important role a coach or program director's decision on an athlete's talent or potential can play in that person's career. I was lucky enough to be able to get an objective point of view on my speedskating potential from someone outside of US Speedskating. I am very sorry for offending any of the skaters who have ended up on the wrong side of Norwegian speedskating politics! I'm sure it happens in Norway just as much as it happens here; it's just that I'm not there to see it.

2006-02-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Almost-Olympian's Guide to Surviving the Games:

Hello, my name is Eva, and I am a two-time Almost-Olympian. I'm here to share my reasons for not buying into the propaganda of the Olympic Games.

Consider the following statements from a 2002 Olympic Gold Medalist:

"To athletes, I say dream big. There's not a dream that you can't obtain, it's all about putting in the work."

"It's important to play fair because, if you play fair then I think the right things will happen. Once you start cheating, everything starts to go down. If you play fair you can only have the best outcome."

-from an interview with bobsledder Vonetta Flowers

How many times have you heard the empty cliches about the hardest workers being rewarded for their effort? About a person's success in sport being about the goodness of their character? About the athletes who "have the tremendous ability to suffer," and apparently win because they can take the most pain (as if we can really measure that)?

Life doesn't always fit into a neat little box. Not everyone can be inspired by successful Olympians, and the ideas they promote. Who is hurt by such ideas? It isn't the kids who are young enough to still have a chance in their sport, or the athletes who follow this example and it actually works for them, or the people who admit that they lack the guts to even try. No, the ones who are hurt are those of us who try really hard and fail.

The Olympic Games are hardest on someone like the figure skater whose parents ran out of money, or the moguls skier whose career ended in a doctor's office when he found out his knees were worn out, or the speedskater who spent years fighting a losing battle against her own federation.

Throughout the two upcoming weeks of the Olympic Games, you are going to be bombarded by the stories of people who have lived according to the equation of "EFFORT = REWARD," and it just so happens that their own life experiences have proven them right. But there is no reason why you have to swallow this "narrow slice of pie" and internalize it as The Meaning of Life. Remember: The Olympics are nothing more than the world's largest corporate-sponsored party, and "they" have to market it somehow.

Through my experiences in speedskating, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes people don't get what they seem to deserve, either in terms of effort, or in terms of character and playing fair. What I have found is that even in sports like speedskating, a lot of people - not just a few - have the "ability to suffer."

The Master's skater doing a 1500 at the age group Nationals has the ability to suffer. The woman on schedule to skate a personal best in the 5K, holding 34-35 second laps for the first time ever, suffers every bit as much as the champion who skates the race holding her typical 30-31 second laps. Many can suffer. What the rare few have is the genetics and the resources to develop their natural talent.

As we humans get closer and closer to our maximum physical potential, genetic differences between individuals become more significant. The good old days, when differences in performance were determined primarily by differences in athletes' motivation and willingness to suffer pain, passed a long time ago.

In sports like speedskating, our performance is measured by time, not by a "Pain-O-Meter." So, consider that before you let people tell you that you failed because you didn't try hard enough; before you start beating yourself up over believing that you just couldn't take the pain.

(As a side note, I don't believe it was my genetic limitations that prevented me from achieving success in this sport. Rather, it was my unreasonable fight for my rights as an athlete, and the unpleasantness that resulted. It wasn't my lack of talent, but the inability to sustain my anger-driven motivation over five years of training and competition. I burned out long before I had a chance to reach my full potential. In fact, several foreign coaches told me I had the physical potential to take this sport all the way to the top.)

Do you believe that your "character" and your "sense of fair play" has anything to do with your success in sports? Trust me: There are a lot of A-holes out there who are very successful in sports. I believe that the only way your character can make a difference in your athletic performance is in how your own feelings about your character affect your brain chemistry before and during competition.

As much as I believe in science, I was naive enough to use the concept of "reward and punishment" to motivate myself before the Olympic Trials. I honestly believed that, in the end, favoritism would not triumph over what I had worked to accomplish on my own. In consequence, once the results of the women's 500 meters came in on the first day of competition, the view of life and of metric speedskating that I had constructed for myself came crashing down, and I was so demoralized that I could hardly skate in my 1000 meter race the next day.

There are a lot of good people out there who tried hard and failed to achieve in sports, for whatever reason. But you won't be seeing any of them in the next two weeks. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the narrow, one-sided view of sports presented by the Olympics, you must find a way of silencing those voices.

To get through the Games, I might recommend trying to avoid Olympic TV coverage and occupying your mind with other things. Another helpful suggestion would be to balance out the Olympic stories by reading books about the other side of sports; on topics such as the Salt Lake bribery scandal, the figure skating judging scandal, doping in sports, or sports and genetics.

I've found that learning about some of the injustices and atrocities happening around the world can put things into perspective. Read about what's happening in the Middle East, and then see if you can convince yourself that God really doesn't care about the outcome of somebody's ice skating race.

In the end, even though the Olympics are going to be "in your face" for the next two weeks, they really aren't that important.

2006-02-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

Smells Like Team Spirit: From the "Extraordinary" Pep Talk to the "Viking Raiders"...

As I was pondering the existence of a cohesive plan for the US Speedskating Team over the past 4 years of this Olympic cycle, this story came back into my mind.

It was February of 2003, and we were in Inzell, preparing for the last few World Cups of the first post-Olympic season. After dinner one night, program director Mike Crowe called a meeting in the hallway outside his room. As we gathered around, Crowe presented his vision for the next four years.

The basic message of the speech was, "These are the people you're most likely going to be traveling and competing with, through the next Olympics in Torino. So, be good to your teammates." After that, he went off on some long and convoluted tangent that kept coming back around to "being ordinary people doing extraordinary things." It kind of left us shaking our heads, but I think the main point was that we were supposed to be cooperative, supportive, and respectful towards each other, in order to help us feel happy and comfortable and perform well at the Games.

Since that night, what became of this message of team unity? How well did we follow through? Were relationships between teammates ever again held as sacred as they were for the 20-minute duration of that speech? Were people held accountable for their actions?

Team leadership starts from the top. It is not about a once-every-four-years lecture. It is about inspiration. It is about connecting with people. It is about being there, and about becoming one with your team, like Peter Mueller has done with the Norwegians. It is about making people come together like a family; about forming a group of people who wish each other well, rather than seeing their own teammates as "worse competition" than the Dutch!

I want to know how favoritism and unequal treatment were supposed to make us like each other. I want to know how discrimination against athletes who came from other training programs was supposed to make us feel like we're part of the team.

Did anyone ever discuss the fact that one of my teammates once left me without a ride to a competition, hopping on the last seat of another team's bus at the last minute, after we had planned to ride together? Did anyone ever try to stop the mentally destructive verbal abuse of Chris Callis, when the whole group ganged up on him on one Fall World Cup trip? These are just a few examples.

Over the course of the last four years, as the watchful eye of the program director turned away, toxic attitudes and malignancies crept unnoticed into the system. And no one was there to keep the group focused on the goal.

Those of us who trained with alternative programs always felt excluded. In fact, throughout my years of international-level competition, I never felt comfortable even thinking of myself as a "member of the U.S. Speedskating Team." I bet that if you asked each member of the board of directors, "What is the definition of the US Speedskating Team?" each one would come up with a different answer.

Personally, I lost my confidence in the team leadership a long time ago. When you hear some of them actually bad-mouthing their own athletes behind their backs, or when there's no way you can be sure they are on your side, even though you wear the USA uniform and race for them, you can't trust them. And how can you be inspired by someone you don't even trust?

Instead of building a strong and supportive team, the leadership of US Speedskating only managed to set up a "culture of enemies." Back when Tom Cushman accused the Norwegians of "stealing American intellectual property" - supposedly including our cooperative team training atmosphere -- maybe what he meant to say was, "So, that's where it went. The Norwegians took it!"

2006-01-31T12:22:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-01-31T09:14:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-01-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-01-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

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?

2006-01-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-01-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-01-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-01-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-01-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-11-14T20:38:00.000-07:00

Closing Out The Protocol:

"Your back's to the wall
That's the protocol
It's sequestering your spirit
Misleading us all.."

(from Dexter Holland's rejected entry into a "Bad Religion song writing contest")

I think it's finally time for me to stop posting on The Protocol. Why? Well, I won't be allowed to post on a blog from Torino, anyway, so I might as well stop right now.

I guess what I'm looking for, as the World Cup season begins, is the feeling of a weight dropping from my shoulders. I feel like there is something that I'd like to bring to and end, and since I can't just quit skating right now, I think I'm going to quit The Protocol instead.

Over the past few weeks, I've realized that there are no new issues left to bring up; that the same old abuses of power will continue to happen again and again, only in slightly different forms. And I'm just going to waste what's left of my energy on getting worked up over it.

Tonight, I have taken a few hours to post the last of my writing: Everything that was left, and that I felt was important to cover. From now until the end of the season, I intend to focus on my skating. Besides, I have to "save something for the book," right?

As I put The Protocol aside, I think about what this blog has been for me over the past year. It was not a "reflection in the ice," but rather "the truth beneath the ice." It was a sort of psychotherapy session, which US Speedskating deserved to see - and to participate in - before the entire speedskating community. I hope it was an eye-opening experience that showed some sports administrators the damage that their decisions and actions can inflict on the athletes in their charge.

I hope that The Protocol has been a story with which ex-idealists, ex-Olympics fans, and any frustrated former athletes can identify. I've tried to make it a presentation of logical arguments in the form of a punk-inspired rant against authority.

Most of all, it has been a record of my rage against all those people out there who have wrecked the Olympics for me, and have tried their best to wreck for me the sport of speedskating. I say "tried," because they have failed. When this season is over, I still see myself skating Oval Club training sessions after work, just for fun.

Could The Protocol be my contribution to sports reform? Maybe. I know there are a lot of people out there who secretly agree with most of what I've said about US Speedskating. But I don't see myself being seriously involved in sports politics after this season. I feel pretty exhausted and disgusted right now.

I've learned all that I came here to learn. Now let me finish this one last battle. Real life is calling my name!

---

I'd like to dedicate this blog to all my family and friends, to all my sources of inspiration, and to all the kids out there whose Olympic fairy tale has had an unhappy ending. I'll leave you all with one final bit of advice:

DON'T FOLLOW ANYONE'S PROTOCOL.

WRITE YOUR OWN!

2005-11-14T20:06:00.000-07:00

How I Really Feel About the Olympics:

Making an Olympic team, or winning an Olympic medal, is the main goal for just about every speedskater. With my last shot at the Olympics approaching, how do I feel about the Games, at this point in my career?

I've come to the conclusion that the "O" word is merely an excuse I use to justify my lifestyle to my society. In order to leave cancer research behind- if only temporarily - I had to:
1. Be training for the Olympics, and
2. Have a reasonable shot at actually making the team.

There was a time in my life when the prospect of never making an Olympic team was devastating. But now, that's not the case at all. I find that there are a lot of other aspects of speedskating that make me much more motivated and excited.

If I'd had enough time to do my career over again, the World Allround Championships would have been the ultimate goal. Hands-down, no-contest: This competition truly determines the best speedskater in the world.

Another one of my dreams would have been to set a world record in some obscure weekend time trial!

One of the coolest things in this sport has been seeing my name on "all-time best" statistics lists. Setting a new personal best time is always fun, too.

I really feel that I don't need to go to the Olympics to be satisfied with my speedskating career. Not only have I accomplished more in my comeback than I ever thought possible, but I also have learned so many things about what really goes on in this sport. I've heard stories about the circumstances under which some people have been able to attach the title of "Olympian" to their names; dirty little stories about committee decisions, voting conspiracies, and court battles.
I know I'm not a "worse speedskater" than someone who has gotten to go to the Games because of such things.

Will I be sad if I don't get to go to the world's largest corporate sponsored party? I won't cry too much. As far as huge, festive gatherings go, I can always go to the Warped Tour. I've also enjoyed scientific conferences. But, honestly, the prospect of going to the Olympics is something I'd look forward to with a certain amount of apprehension. It's not really my scene. You have to wear only the clothes you're given! And you're not allowed to write on blogs!

Still, there are reasons why I might like to go to the Olympics. It would be a learning experience. The Olympics are presented to us as one of those ultimate goals of youth. I'd love to experience the Games first-hand, to be able to make a final comparison of image and reality.

The Olympics must also contain lessons to learn about human nature, and about myself. How would I respond to an environment that seems to reek of conformity and totalitarian control? And, as far as race performance goes, would I be able to deal with the pressure and the distractions?

For me, achieving peak performance at the Olympic Trials in December is an intellectual challenge. Though I do not think I will fail at this task, I also do not see the Trials as a life-or-death situation. If there's anything intimidating about me as an athlete, it should be my own cavalier and disingenuous attitude towards the Games. I'm not taking the 2006 Olympics too seriously because I know that no matter what happens in the coming weeks, I'll be leaving this sport stronger and better off than I came into it in 2001.

2005-11-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

Why Eric Heiden is Still a Hero for the Cynical Ex-Olympics Fan:

When I think of the greatest accomplishment in Olympic speedskating, I think of Eric Heiden winning the gold in all 5 events in 1980. But I can't admire an athlete for his accomplishments alone. I need to know something about his motivation. I need to know why he won. Did he do more than just "win the genetic lottery?"

Those of us who have traveled with the US Speedskating Team in the past few years have had the good fortune to spend some time with Dr. Eric Heiden. He sometimes travels with us as our team physician.

But it was only recently that I became interested in finding out more about his skating career. From the articles I found online, the thing that struck me the most was that Heiden was the perfect example of someone who didn't believe it was necessary to turn off his mind in order to be a great athlete.

I found out that the media didn't like him all that much; that he had a hard time compromising; and that people said that his attitude towards his 5-gold-medal performance was "cavalier, cynical, and disingenuous." I learned that he liked being "obscure in an obscure sport," and that he liked speedskating best when he was still a "nobody."

And then there was the controversy over the carrying of the torch in Salt Lake City...

Many people criticized Heiden for insisting that he be the last torch bearer -- the person who lights the actual Olympic cauldron. When that honor was instead bestowed upon the 1980 USA hockey team, he said he was "busy" and couldn't be one of the "other" torch bearers.

But some bloggers came to Heiden's defense. I found the following message posted on adequacy.org back on February 15, 2002:

"I despise the Olympics. I despise the lie that is "the Olympic spirit." I despise NBC (the US TV network that provides coverage for us USians).

I like Eric Heiden."

The author, who gives his name only as "doofus," goes on to defend Heiden's refusal to compromise on his position in the torch relay.

Doofus's brother answers his message with the following:

"I like Eric Heiden, too. He is such an exceptional person; Olympic multi-gold medalist and record holder, excellent bike racer and also an MD. He is a cool guy because he isn't a dumb jock or a spoiled brat prima donna.

He should be a good symbol to light the torch because of his accomplishments; those hockey players got lucky ONCE and never did shit with their lives afterwards, but since they beat the fucking Russkies 22 years ago in a Cold War Olympics and because we are now in a hot war on terrorism with an "Axis of Evil" then they win the honors."

I agree. Eric Heiden is a symbol of true Olympism; an individual whose achievements can inspire a person anywhere in the world. USA Hockey, on the other hand, seemed to represent a victory that indicated that God's favor rested with this particular superpower known as the USA. That was just what "Dubya" was looking for, if you ask me.

USA Hockey's victory over the Russians in 1980 may have been a "miracle," but Eric Heiden's 5 gold medals in speedskating demonstrated one man's tremendous determination and strength of will. It may be possible for a person who has brought himself to a certain level to win one race on "a charged atmosphere," such as that which seemed to carry the hockey team to victory. But it's not possible to win 5 races in the same Olympics in this way.

Am I surprised that the Salt Lake Organizing Committee did not choose Eric Heiden to light the Olympic cauldron? No, I am not. Do I consider him arrogant for turning down their consolation offer? No way!!! In fact, as a "Bribery Scandal Victim," I felt a surge of triumph when he shot them down for relegating him to the ranks of "also-ran."

In and of itself, the selection of the 1980 hockey team over Heiden for the lighting of the Olympic cauldron represents the victory of both politics and commercialism over the true meaning of the Olympics --( whatever that is, and whether it ever existed outside the minds of pre-teenaged children is another question.)

Back in 1980, after his victories, Eric Heiden dismissed the Olympics as "overrated." Were people right to call his attitude cavalier and disingenuous? I'd say that Heiden was an athlete who went into the Olympics with his eyes wide open, and without turning off his mind. I'd say his perspective on the Games was very mature for a 21-year-old.

I still don't know if Eric Heiden would be flattered or offended or merely annoyed that someone like me admires him. But I, too, aspire to be the kind of athlete who'd be admired by people who despise the Olympic Games.

2005-11-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

Who Knows Eva's Real Hometown?

Every time I do well in a major competition and there's a press release that mentions my name, I am assigned a different hometown. For a few years, I listed my hometown as Woodhaven, Michigan, which is where my parents live. Then, I started giving my hometown as Kearns, Utah, because that is where I've lived for 5 years, and that is where I own a home. After this year's Fall World Cup Qualifier, US Speedskating gave my hometown as Naperville, Illinois, which is my place of birth.

As long as I've been watching the Olympics, I've sensed that an athlete's hometown is very important to that person's story. I have never felt that I have a "hometown," for example, in the sense that Bonnie Blair had a hometown. On the other hand, I feel that my almost nomadic lifestyle is truly representative of the lives of many of my fellow Americans.

What is the place that you should call your "hometown?" Is it your place of birth? Is it the place where your family lived the longest while you were growing up, or is it where your parents live now? Maybe it has nothing to do with where your parents choose to live. Maybe your hometown is the place where YOU have chosen to live. Maybe it is the place where you have formed most of your own personal and professional connections.

My brother Mark and I were both born in Naperville, IL - a suburb of Chicago. Since then, our family has lived in Kokomo, IN; Muskegon, MI; Mason City, IA; and Woodhaven, MI. Dad was a general practice physician who worked at various urgent care clinics; Mark and I used to joke that "Dad must have worked in every urgent care center along the I-94 corridor between Detroit and Chicago."

After graduating from the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 1999, I went to grad school in Duarte, California. From there, I took a leave of absence in 2001 to come back to competitive speedskating in Salt Lake City.

As far as speedskating goes, I got started in the sport while my family lived in Muskegon. I still have many friends in the West Michigan Speedskating Club who follow my skating career.

I don't feel too much of a connection to Woodhaven, Michigan, even though my parents live there. I feel more like I belong to the places where I have chosen to live and to work, which have been Southern California and Salt Lake City.

I'm not anyone's "Hometown Girl," which can be taken as either a good thing or a bad thing. I think it's good; all the more evidence that everything I have done in this sport, I have done on my own. But even though I belong to nobody, my story belongs to everybody.

2005-11-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

A Swedish Garage Band: Another thing you can't have in a Hilton hotel room

Right now, at Mama Eva's Boarding House, we have a Swedish garage band. Last week, 7 Swedes and their coach arrived in Salt Lake City for a training camp. A couple of the skaters also happen to be great guitar players.

Upon arrival, the guys assembled my drum set, which hadn't been used for months. Then they took my invincible Ibanez and amplifier down into the garage and started playing. Soon, their coach, Andreas, joined them (playing the bicycle pump) and I brought in one of my clap skates.

If we can borrow a few more real instruments, maybe we can play some songs for the World Cup banquet. If not, then we'll just have fun making noise in the garage.

The reason why I've had to help these Swedish skaters find housing is that no other options are available. This group of skaters, who normally train in Gothenburg, came to Salt Lake City for a three-week camp and needed a cheap place to crash. One of the skaters, Joel Eriksson, had trained here before, and asked me to help his team find places to stay.

Though I've been busy getting ready for the World Cups, I managed to find rooms for all of them. I would like to thank local LDS (Mormon) Bishop Vance and Bishop Soto
for helping me to find host families for the skaters. I'd also like to thank David Graham, and Todd and Lisa Ruitman, for hosting several of the Swedish skaters for these three weeks. Thanks also to the Utah Olympic Oval for the use of your 15-passenger van to pick the skaters up from the airport.

I've also heard that Boris Leikin is hosting several members of the Russian speedskating team. This is the kind of thing that has to happen when there is no official athlete housing close to a major competition and training venue.

2005-11-14T09:10:00.000-07:00

Paranoia Doesn't Pay:

I really need to stop worrying about all the "crap." It's not helping me. I shouldn't have gotten all upset that I didn't get to skate the 1500 in Calgary; I know that it's the policy to let someone who is already there skate the race if the person who owns the spot chooses not to skate.

What I need to do is to focus on my own skating; to worry about my own results and not on other people's decisions. I've been skating well, so what's my problem?

I should know better than to keep trying to find examples of how US Speedskating is out to get me. It's not just me, after all. I believe they have a deeply ingrained attitude of exclusion towards outsiders in general.

As far as the results from Calgary go, here's how I really feel about Maggie Crowley's performance: What an awesome 3K! A 4:05 will most likely earn her a spot on the Olympic team. The coolest thing about her performance is that it's an example of the victory of training right over pseudoscientific BS.

I wonder how USS feels, after having spent an estimated $50,000 on each of its athletes (numbers are from a newspaper article on Shani Davis and sponsorship) to have such a fast 3K time posted by someone who, as far as I know, still commutes from a suburb of Chicago to skate at the Pettit; someone who has no access to high altitude chambers or any of that other stuff on which USS spends so much of its money.

Really! It's OK to spend $50,000 per athlete on negligible (if any) results! Right???

These Fall World Cups are the Olympic Trials for the distance skaters. Now is the time for them to post some impressive times. I know that the results from these World Cups will definitely "shake up the fishbowl" around here. Just a week ago, there was a bunch of gossip going around about me supposedly peaking early. In response, I started thinking, "How could they think I'm being so stupid about my training?" Now, apparently, there's a lot more for "them" to worry about than some sprinter going 4:16 in the 3K while under a training load.

2005-11-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

A Simple Exercise in Ranking and Team Selection

I'd like everyone to check the results from the World Cup Qualifier in Milwaukee last month. Pay close attention to the women's 1500 meters. Tell me where Eva Rodansky placed. Then tell me where Margaret Crowley placed. Now please tell me why Margaret Crowley skated the 1500 meters at the World Cup in Calgary this weekend. Not that she skated poorly, mind you. But that doesn't make it right.

Somebody is going to hell for this...

OH WAIT. She was already there for another event, so I suppose this was USS's prerogative.

Whatever.

2005-11-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Oval Corporate Events: An Antidote to "Toxic Mafia Atmosphere"

Here at the Utah Olympic Oval, companies or various other groups can rent out the facility to host parties. Usually, the group comes in the evening for a nice dinner, followed by all kinds of fun activities, such as hockey, curling, and skating. Sometimes, a few of us speedskaters are invited to give a demonstration of our sport.

A few months ago, I was asked to participate in an event put on for Workforce Services on October 25th. I love to do these kinds of events because it's so much fun to demonstrate speedskating to people who have never seen the sport. The best part is getting to meet the people and to answer their questions.

Even though the Workforce Services party was to take place a couple of nights after my return from the Fall World Cup Trials, I decided to do it. We don't always get paid for our participation, but this time, the orgainzers were going to make sure that the three of us (me, National Team member Clay Mull, and bobsled/skeleton/speedskater Jeremy White) would be well-compensated for our time.

Upon my return from the Milwaukee trials, as anyone who has followed my blog knows, I was feeling a bit down about the speedskating environment. How can I explain this in terms that are easily understood? Well, if you've seen my friend Andrew Love's post on the 3-letter acronyms that could be used to describe various aspects of the sport, especially when it comes to excuses for poor performance, then you'll get this. I've come up with my number-one favorite acronym for my speedskating experience: I must have been suffering from TMA, or "Toxic Mafia Atmosphere."

After skating my afternoon workout on the 25th, I wondered about my attitude as I prepared for a night of playing the Olympic hopeful. Would I be able to pull it off, or would my cynicism show through?

As it turned out, there was nothing to worry about. In fact, skating for the Workforce Services party was the best thing that could have happened to me at that time. The people were absolutely wonderful. They had never experienced speedskating up close before, and had never had the chance to actually meet athletes who had a chance to make the Olympics. The one thing I kept hearing over and over again was, "I never knew this was so cool!"

The first thing that Clay, Jeremy, and I did for the group after they arrived was to give a speedskating demonstration. We went out on the ice all decked out in our racing gear and showed them drafting and lane changing, followed by a couple of exhibition races. Jeremy and Clay skated a 500 together, and I did 1000 meters on my own.

Following the skating demonstration, we handed out bobble-head speedskater pins to each person in attendance. Getting to meet all of these people, who had come from all over the country to attend this event, was an amazing experience. They wanted their pictures taken with us. They wanted to shake our hands and wish us the best of luck. They were so excited to be able to make a connection with Olympic hopefuls.

They even asked us if we had anything they could buy in order to help support us in our training. Jeremy was the only one who came prepared for this -- he had had T-shirts made up with his picture on them, saying, "Prepare for the next ice age!"

When our new fans found out that Clay and I had nothing to sell, many of them simply opened their wallets and started to make donations to us. At first I did not know whether I should accept their donations, because I was not used to being treated in this way, but then I realized that it would be insulting not to accept their help. Their generosity was totally unexpected; it almost brought tears to my eyes. By the time we had met all of the people at the party, Clay and I had literally stuffed a wad of bills into our skinsuits.

At last it was time for dinner. We got into the buffet line, loaded up our plates, and each of us was immediately invited to sit at a different table. It was weird to eat dinner wearing a swiftsuit and warmup jacket, but nobody paid attention to that. Our new fans had so many questions for us. They wanted to know whether we had a special diet, how many hours a day we trained, what types of workouts we did, and how we supported ourselves financially. I love the appalled looks I got when I told people that World Cup skaters are expected to survive on stipends of $150 a month. A lot of people were surprised by my education, and by the fact that I had worked in science while competing on the World Cup circuit.

That night, I learned a lot about myself and about the people I'd like to represent as an American Olympic hopeful. I learned that, despite all of the negative experiences I've had in this sport, I'm not cynical towards either the sport itself or towards our would-be fans. Nothing about that night was fake; neither the support of the people, nor my love for the sport, nor my interactions with the fans.

Participating in that corporate event was so much more than just an opportunity for me to make a good amount of money in a couple of hours. It was an antidote to the "Toxic Mafia Atmosphere" that I had felt in Milwaukee at the trials. For those two short hours, I felt like I had started with a clean slate in the sport of speedskating. These people weren't looking at me like a troublemaker whose name had been dragged through the mud for the purpose of someone else's agenda. No, they saw me as the kind of person whom they expect to see in this sport: A nice, wholesome, hard-working Midwestern girl. And why did I feel so much at ease in this role? BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE I STARTED. This is what I always expected to be. This is what I was before I experienced the ugliness of sports politics.

It also became apparent to me that US Speedskating is dropping the ball when it comes to making a connection with the public. If these people were so excited to meet me, and I'm just a lowly World Cup competitor as of today, imagine how much they'd love to meet skaters who have actually won Olympic medals. If these people were so willing to come up and open up their wallets to give me a donation, then there are financial resources out there that are not being tapped by USS, for whatever reason.

But what I'd really like to do in this post is to thank Vince Iturbe and everyone involved in setting up the Workforce Services event at the Utah Olympic Oval. Thanks also to Jeremy White for inviting me to participate. Thanks to all of the people who showed us so much support that night. Sometimes I need to be reminded that some people believe I have value, as an American and as a speedskater.

2005-11-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

A Club Worth Joining:

The Protocol would like to welcome two-time short track Olympian Erin Porter to the "Under-40-second 500 Meter Club," as she continues in her successful transition to long track.

A speedskater's first time under 40 seconds in the 500 meters is an achievement worth celebrating. Lots of skaters train for years without ever reaching this milestone.

I remember my first time under 40 seconds at the World Cup in Calgary last January. It was one of the most exciting moments of my speedskating career.

Having watched Erin train, I can tell you that she deserves to be skating this well. Her work ethic really sets her apart. So, way to go, Erin, and welcome to the under-40-second club: A club where membership is granted only to those who achieve, not to those who are "chosen."

2005-11-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

Time Trials, November 5, 2005:

500 meters in 39:47
3000 meters in 4:16.75

Some days, it seems that every molecule in this universe that craves justice wants to line up in my favor.

Thank God for electronic timing. Everything else is bullshit.

2005-11-05T17:05:00.000-07:00

Ray C. Rodent Speaks on the Synergy of Knowledge and Power:

Today's guest on The Protocol is the legend of Novice Skater Development, Ray C. Rodent! Ray C., who has made several appearances on pamphlets of the now-defunct Amateur Speedskating Union, is here today to share his experiences training and competing on the elite level, which some of you may be fortunate enough to reach some day. Please welcome Ray C. Rodent:

Hi, kids! My name is Ray C. Rodent, and I'd like to speak to you about the practical application of doing blind research studies on unsuspecting athletes, for the benefit of future generations of speedskaters. I, myself, have participated in such a study.

When I first found out that the worst season of my speedskating career had been the result of an experiment done on me without my consent, I was pretty disturbed, but as time went on and the results of this study were implemented, I began to see the light and the purpose of it all.

I mean, sure, it wasn't fun at the time it was happening to me; I remember something like skating 40 seconds off my personal best in the 3K, then going home, having a couple of shots of Jagermeister on an empty stomach and crying myself to sleep listening to "Race Against Myself," asking the eternal question, "Why do I skate like shit?"

But recently I've found that all of my efforts have not been in vain. In fact, it has been brought to my attention that the training data collected on me has been used for the greater good. This information has apparently been used to develop an invincible protocol for producing optimal performance in national level allround skaters! I'm so proud of my role in the development of this protocol that I will share it with you now:

1. Recruit a talented team by taking advantage of the federation's threats to withhold benefits from skaters who choose other training programs.

2. Carry out your normal training plan.

3. Look puzzled as several skaters' performance declines.

4. A week before the Fall World Cup Trials, a talented new skater materializes out of nowhere. Drop your team - which is failing to perform as a result of your program, and give all of your attention to the new talent.

5. Help the new guy make the team at the expense of your own skaters.

6. Justify your actions to the team you abandoned.
---

So, kids, don't get the idea that Ray C. Rodent feels any resentment towards the "next generation of speedskaters," who were supposed to benefit from data collected on him. On the contrary, his heart aches for them and for their dreams.

2005-11-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

Injured Athlete in Limbo: He wanted to help me, but his hands were tied...

Let me tell you about my experience with U.S. Speedskating's screwed-up system for physical therapy.

I've been experiencing some tightness in my back ever since the Fall World Cup Qualifier, and have been trying to rehab it by stretching and icing the area as much as possible. This morning, I awoke with a pretty bad spasm on the right side of my back. It must have been hurting quite a bit; as I was out walking my dog, my palms started to sweat from the pain. "That's not good," I thought. "I'm supposed to race a 500 and a 3K this weekend; maybe I'll scratch from the 500."

Before coming to the oval for the race prep session, I tried to massage the spasm out of my back, followed by ice treatment. Then I put an Icy Hot patch on the area and went down to the oval to skate.

I had hoped to ask one of the trainers if he could hook me up to the "stim" machine, which runs an electric current through a muscle that is in spasm and helps it to relax. Stim treatment had always helped my injuries heal much faster. However, I was not looking forward to asking for help and being denied because I was not training with the National Team. I was pretty sure that this would happen, despite the fact that I had qualified to skate in the World Cups, while several members of the National Team had not.

Sure enough, this was the case. The trainer felt bad that he could not help me; in fact, he said that he had seen this problem coming, and had been emailing US Speedskating about this issue for several weeks already. His problem with the current system is that he wants to work with "the athletes who are winning," not with the ones who chose to train with a particular team.

I told him that I totally understood, and that I didn't blame him at all, just that I think that US Speedskating is totally f--ed up.

Next, I went up to the TOSH clinic upstairs, half-afraid that they would deny me a bag of crushed ice, but my fears were for nothing: The nice lady at the reception desk showed me where the ice machine and plastic bags were located and told me to help myself.

Since I don't have access to the team locker room, I took my bag of ice into the hallway outside the weight room. At least it was nice and quiet there. When I finished my ice treatment, I saw that the catering van was parked outside the oval, and that yet another meal to which I was not entitled had been provided for the Chosen Ones.

What more can I say? "Up your nose with a rubber hose, US Speedskating!!" I'm going to Taqueria El Rey De Oros and getting myself a burrito.

2005-10-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

The Halloween Episode: Live and Uncut

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."
- Harry S Truman

This post is about what scares people in my world. Halloween in Protocol World is fun because it's a day when I can pull out all the stops on the colorful and exaggerated metaphors for life in the world of speedskating!

Let's start with a few Protocol-themed Halloween costumes, inspired by my life in American speedskating. Two of these ideas also happen to be inspired by Japanese horror films.

The first costume idea is "Rodan the Flying Monster," as in, Rodan vs. Godzilla. Rodan is a supersonic flying beast, kind of like a pterodactyl, that makes an appearance in the old Godzilla movies. He also happens to have the first 5 letters of my last name.

Picture the following scene: It's late winter, on one of the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota; the exact lake is of no consequence. The weather has been warming up, so the ice on the lake is getting thin. The giant reptile Godzilla, wearing a US Speedskating sweatshirt, is standing in the middle of the lake, picking up skaters and separating them into piles labeled, "Wanted" and "Unwanted." Meanwhile, Rodan circles overhead, waiting for a chance to swoop down and peck at the thin ice beneath Godzilla's feet.

So how would you go about dressing up as Rodan the Flying Monster for Halloween? It's simple: Go to the Party America store and buy the Flight Attendant costume for $29.99. Sound incongruous? Check your premises: Play the role of the cute, rosy-cheeked flight attendant who does her job with cheerful efficiency, and this is what MOST of the world will see. However, I can guarantee that if US Speedskating wants to see a horrid, supersonic flying beast with radioactive breath, then this is what they will see.

Costume idea #2 is Samara, from The Ring. Samara is a little girl who gets thrown into a well by her adopted mother. The problem is, she won't stay dead, and she won't stay down there! She enters peoples' lives through a video tape that tells her story and leaves them seven days to live after they watch it.

The metaphor here refers to the rejection and discarding of a talented athlete by her own federation. The other day, I watched a video of recent time trials in Salt Lake City. "Who is that girl?" I thought, "She looks strong. Is this someone new I have to worry about at the trials?" It took me some time before I realized the person I was watching was me.

Every year, I feel like US Speedskating keeps on throwing me down into that well. Every season it seems like such a fight to struggle towards the light; climbing the wet, slippery walls on my way to the surface, only to have the people on top look down at me in disgust and stomp on my knuckles when my hands reach the final layer of stone.

I can think of at least one person who despises me because rather than making a tremendous breakthrough from the outside of USS, I keep grasping onto that last remaining spot on every World Cup team. A person like this should be reminded that every year I have to climb out of that same stinking well in order to claim that spot on the team.

To dress as Samara this Halloween, simply take your hair out of that wholesome pony tail and brush it down in front of your face.

The third Halloween costume idea comes directly from Qwest's "Spirit of Service in Action," right here in good old Salt Lake City. Now, you too can dress up like the infamous DEX Phone Book!

Dex is scary because Dex Knows All. When asked a question, Dex can neither lie nor hide information, and as such, he is the ideal mascot for the sport of metric speedskating.

For your Dex Phone Book costume, you will need a large cardboard box. Cut the box into a single long sheet that you can fold in half. Cut out a hole for your head in the center of the fold, so that the sheet rests on your shoulders and falls on either side. Use yellow, blue and black paint to replicate the design of the Qwest Dex phone directory.

Of course, if you're one of those Salt Lake City long track skaters who lives under the viaduct, then you know that those big cardboard boxes are hard to come by. In that case, be sure to use your neighbor's house for your costume, rather than your own.

And now, I will end my scary Halloween post with a special transmission from Lake Wobegone for the Minnesota Mafia and all like-minded "Thugs-In-Spirit:"

"A Curse:
May your soul be forever tormented by fire and your bones be dug up by dogs and dragged through the streets of Minneapolis."
-Garrison Keillor

2005-10-23T13:24:00.000-06:00

Get In, Get Done, Get Out:

Fall World Cup Trials are what you make of them, and I definitely made this one a business trip. From the time I started planning my itinerary a month ago, I was determined to spend as little time and money on the whole ordeal as possible, while still accomplishing my objective of qualifying for the fall world cups.

What bothered me the most about the trials this year is the fact that the national team skaters got the whole trip paid for, because the trials "happened to" fit into one of their low altitude training camps. Thus, their air fare to Milwaukee, a place to stay, and food were all covered by USS for the duration of the trials. My trip, on the other hand, cost me a little over $600, which made a significant dent in my savings.

Back when I was with the national team in 2003, I asked if our trip to the qualifier would be covered by US Speedskating, and the person I asked replied, "No, because it wouldn't be fair to cover anyone's expenses to a QUALIFYING competition, while other skaters have to pay their own way." How convenient to simply fit it into a "training camp."

(Speaking of training camps, whatever happened to the good old days, when all skaters who qualified based on their performance at the nationals were invited to national team training camps throughout the following season, regardless of their regular coach or training program?)

It was thoughts like these that I was trying to prevent from creeping into my head over the past weekend; thoughts like, "Shouldn't your best potential Olympic season be an exciting experience, where all of the people important to your success try their hardest to make it easier for you to perform at your best?"

Or, "I wonder what it would be like to compete for a federation that DID care about me?" Or just thinking about what it might be like to have someone by my side at races who cared about me but also respected me and wasn't overbearing. Is that too much to ask???

Of course, all of this is too much for me to ask; at least it has been for me in my experience of speedskating. So I knew that what I needed to do was to convince myself that none of these details actually matter.

I managed to do this, and as a result, I turned in two days of solid but thoroughly uninspired racing. Looking back, I see that I could have done things better if I had paid more attention to taking care of the details myself, rather than trying to ignore the advantages that others had over me. One example? Maybe I shouldn't have waited until the last minute to try to find someone to give me lap times for the 1500.

As soon as my races ended on Saturday, I signed my declaration of intent form, indicating which world cups I will skate. Then I left town, driving to Chicago to spend the rest of the weekend with my brother. Why not? After all, I paid for this trip myself, didn't I?

2005-10-18T15:22:00.000-06:00

Scarier than an Organic Chemistry Exam:

I am currently working on obtaining a copy of the U.S. Long Track Olympic Team selection criteria. Unfortunately, the printer in the Utah Oval's athlete lounge hasn't been working for several weeks now, and it is apparently not working today.

But don't worry, U.S. Speedskating. I intend to bring this document on the plane with me to Milwaukee tomorrow, so I can pore over it with my magnifying glass and my highliter. Nothing is going to get by me.

From the brief glance I took at the criteria just now, I can see that I'll probably have to skate the European world cups, through Torino in mid-December, and then have about two weeks to recover before the Olympic trials.

Whatever my studying turns up, I should be ready to solidify my world cup plans (if I should make the team this weekend, of course) by the time I need to sign my name to anything.

2005-10-17T19:57:00.000-06:00

Life in the Carnivorous Fishbowl:

In Zen and the Art of Speedskating's interview with Jen Rodriguez, Andrew Love says that the world of speedskating can sometimes be a "carnivorous fishbowl." Right away, this seemed to strike me as something I might say. But when I thought about it some more, I was surprised to find that my actual view of this speedskating world as a whole is a bit more balanced than this phrase might imply.

It's true that we athletes can feel like we live in a fishbowl. This will become even more true as the Olympics approach, and more people start watching us.

As speedskaters, we assume that most of us have gotten over our initial inhibitions against wearing spandex in public! Still, going out there in front of a Heerenveen World Cup A-Group crowd of 10,000-plus spectators can be disconcerting. Of course, now, with all the sharing of photos on the internet, there's always the chance that you'll end up on somebody's "camel toe" web site! And there's always a photographer waiting to capture a priceless shot of the horrible face you're making as you enter the final turn of the 1500.

You know you're in a fishbowl when you're having a bad race in public. No, not just any old bad race- the kind where maybe you hoped you'd finish on the podium but you came in 7th, or something- I'm talking about the kind of complete and utter humiliation of trying and trying to push, but your legs just won't go, and when you finally crawl across the finish line and look up at your time, you just want to crawl into a hole and die!

It takes guts to step out there onto the ice in front of a crowd, knowing that you'll be showing people what happens when YOU approach your physical limits. Part of the fascination of the sport of speedskating, especially when it comes to the middle and long distances, is watching to see who cracks under the pain and the pressure.

Yes, speedskating can definitely feel like a little world in a fishbowl. Yet, for the most part, it doesn't feel carnivorous. I don't feel that "dog-eat-dog" attitude from most of my fellow skaters. It seems to me that many other U.S. skaters feel that I speak up for them, especially on this blog. I feel that people are curious to see how I do without a coach, and without a lot of the other advantages given to members of the National Team. I feel that a lot of people secretly wish me well.

Of course, there will always be times when some intruder marches right up to your little fishbowl and tries to shake it up, just to see what will happen. Last December, at the U.S. Nationals, I stopped my pre-race jog before the first 500 meters in order to say "Hi" to one of the old-timers I knew. I had raced the 1500 two days before and absolutely bombed it (my legs blew up after the 300-meter opener, and I just felt like I couldn't move) and this guy felt that 20 minutes before my next race was just the time to let me have it. He got about 5 inches away from my face and started yelling insults: "That 1500 of yours was terrible! It's obvious you haven't changed a thing about your training program. If you care this little about your speedskating career, then you should just quit right now and get married!"

As an elite athlete, you have to be prepared for this sort of thing. You have to shake it off and focus on your race, as I was able to do on that day, with a solid performance in the 500, and in the 1000 that followed.

I'm sure some people wonder if I make my life in the speedskating fishbowl more difficult for myself by making so many people hate me. It's true that I make some people hate me. Mostly, people who hate me do so because I won't let them get away with faking the reality of how they are running this supposedly pure, objective sport. I won't let them pretend that the playing field is level, when it is not.

I know there are people out there who (at the risk of quoting a Bad Religion song) would want me to "accelerate into oblivion." But I also know that there isn't much they can do, within the limits of the rules, to take an active, "carnivorous" role in the process.

I realize the extent to which some people dislike me. My friend Bill, who drives out to skate at the Pettit on some weekends, recently told me a funny story. He asked one of the US Speedskating people to "Say hi to my friend Eva Rodansky for me, when you see her." The look on the guy's face, said Bill, was "like he was out in a boat on the ocean and couldn't take the waves."

Seriously, though; I'm willing to pay a certain price for "cleaning the fishbowl." Metric speedskating ought to be as pure, clean and simple as a fishbowl, where everything is unashamedly on display for all the world to see. In my speedskating fishbowl, we have a lot of fun toys for the fishies to swim through. We have seaweed, brightly colored rocks, and even a little toy castle. And when I reach into the fishbowl to pick up the castle, I want everyone to see the little man who sits in the corner, pulling all the strings.

2005-10-12T09:25:00.000-06:00

Keepin' it Real at the Hotel Derelicte: Mama Eva's Boarding House for Wayward Speedskaters offers only the finest mattresses made by homeless people for the D.I Thrift Store!

I usually avoid reading the USS News emails, as I tend to find them rather untherapeutic to my mental well-being, but one of my skating friends from Southern California insisted I take a look at the one about the remodeling of the short trackers' housing in Colorado Springs. "There's got to be a good blog post in there, somewhere!" he said.

The subject heading of the above-mentioned email was this: "Ohno, USS Athletes Get a Room Makeover: NASA and Hilton Work Together to Give USS Stars a Good Night's Sleep." Apparently, Hilton Hotels will modify 160 athlete rooms at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, using the expertise of former NASA scientist Dr. Mark Rosekind, who has developed methods of combating fatigue in pilots and astronauts.

Dr. Rosekind says, "Sleep is so important and so basic that it could make the difference between winning the gold or the silver at the Olympic Games. The proper amount of sleep can boost an athlete's performance as much as 30 percent."

Apolo Ohno agrees that "Rest and relaxation is a critical component to competing at your best."

To help the athletes achieve optimal rest, the "Hilton Competitive Advantage Program" will incorporate elements including enhanced bed size and bedding (a plush-top mattress to reduce tossing and turning and to improve circulation during sleep), a usable work area and an effective wake-up mechanism (a radio alarm clock that automatically adjusts for daylight savings time and includes a connector for MP3 and CD players).

The rooms will also feature new 6-setting shower heads, curved rods and curtains, and "large, thick terry towels and washcloths" provided by Hampton Hotels.

"Other room enhancements include sensory changes involving temperature, lighting, and visual stimuli." However, several details are still being kept top-secret. (I'm assuming that we are trying to prevent the Norwegian team from gaining the same advantages for their athletes!)

Dr. Rosekind emphasizes the importance of sleep to an elite athlete: "For an athlete, two hours less sleep than needed is the same as having a blood alcohol level of 0.05 when it comes to the effect on performance."

Ha-ha-ha. I know of at least a few speedskaters for whom, in order to prevent feeling like they have a BAC of 0.05, the ideal bed would feature the following: An industrial-strength bedpost, complete with handcuffs, to prevent the skater from going out to actually search for booze!

As an an internationally competitive US Long Track speedskater who resides in the Salt Lake Valley -- supposedly the home base of the US Long Track program, since it is where our training facility, the Utah Olympic Oval, is located -- how am I supposed to feel about reading such an email? How am I supposed to react, knowing that every American long track skater who has limiting factors that prevent them from living up in the USS high altitude housing in Park City, has always been ON THEIR OWN when it comes to housing?

I remember sitting in on a teleconference of skaters with USS board representatives a couple of seasons ago. We were discussing controversial issues regarding sponsorships and the distribution of athlete funding and benefits. The topic of housing was brought up. We talked about the unfairness experienced by certain skaters who were qualified for the free housing up in Park City but couldn't live there because their hematocrit would be too high if they lived at high altitude. As a result, they were forced to live down in the Salt Lake Valley and had to pay for their own housing.

And what about the people who drive shitty cars that won't make it up and down Parley's Canyon? What about those who can't afford the gas?

I brought up the point that, regardless of whether people were able to take advantage of the "Live High-Train Low" philosophy, US Speedskating, the USOC, and the Utah Olympic Oval should be concerned about THE LACK OF HOUSING AVAILABLE IN PROXIMITY TO THE UTAH OLYMPIC OVAL.

There is a great need for housing close to the UOO. First of all, most American speedskaters don't have much money and are looking for ways to save. We'd love to be able to walk or bike to the Oval. A residence facility for athletes would be a great thing to build nearby. Besides, why shouldn't we long trackers have access to free housing, just like the short trackers?

I believe that the lack of nearby housing is a major reason why speedskaters from all over the world choose to train in Calgary rather than Salt Lake City. The hotels here are just too far away for the skaters to walk or bike to the facility. As a result, the speedskating sessions in Calgary are overcrowded, while the Utah Oval wastes away like an empty warehouse for much of the time.

In the athlete teleconference, when I brought up the need for housing close to the Oval, I was told by one of the athlete reps, "If you bring up the need for housing in Salt Lake with the program director, he will laugh in your face." WHY? I never got a straight answer.

So, I bet you're wondering when I will get to the point of this post. My point is this: Why bother to optimize housing conditions for the short trackers, when the long trackers have never had anything at all? Why care if some short trackers toss and turn and lose two hours' worth of sleep, while the long trackers might as well live in cardboard boxes under the I-15 overpass, eating spaghetti-O's from the dumpster?

I, for one, have recognized the need for affordable athlete housing close to the Oval. In fact, by purchasing a house within a 10-minute walk of the Oval, I have managed to create for myself an opportunity out of an obstacle. I rent rooms to speedskaters who come here to train.

I would have loved to be able to stay in a training center for free, but since there was nothing available, I had to hunt for my own housing options just like every other American long tracker. I've done it all: rented a room from someone else, rented my own apartment, and shared the rental of a house with a group of other skaters. Finally, I decided to buy a house near the Oval, knowing that I could keep most of the rooms occupied with skaters for most of the year -- thus having other people pay my mortgage for me. Back when I was still a "well-paid scientist," I was able to obtain a mortgage.

Here at Mama Eva's Boarding House for Wayward Speedskaters, we "Live High, and Train Low" on the West Side. (Hey, there has to be at least a 20-meter elevation gain as you walk up the hill from the Oval to my street!) Rent is on the low side, even compared to the rest of Kearns, and you can easily walk or bike to the Oval in 10 minutes or less. Though the living conditions are not those of the laboratory-controlled perfection that ought to be provided for future Olympians, they are acceptable.

Unlike the new dorm rooms at the USOTC in Colorado Springs, my room does not always present me with the "ideal sensory stimuli." My lights are either on, or they're off. Sometimes I'm awakened in the middle of the night by the putrescence of the Great Salt Lake blowing in on the northwest wind of an approaching cold front. On occasion, my radio alarm clock wakes me up with a Motley Crue song. And, yes, it is true: I sleep on a mattress that was made, not by Hilton on recommendation of a NASA scientist, but by homeless people for the Deseret Industries Thrift Store.

Even though being a home owner gives me a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and renting rooms to speedskaters has enabled me to make friends from all over the world, it still bothers me that US Speedskating ignores the fact that we long trackers need housing every bit as much as the short trackers do.

I know it's not USS's fault that Hilton and NASA chose to overhaul the OTC in Colorado Springs. But why gloat over the fact that the short trackers will have ideal conditions? Why publicize the knowledge that proper rest and relaxation is critically important for athletic performance, while expecting athletes like me to continue to suffer for your contradictions and hypocrisy; your continued assertion that athletes like me don't matter, and that your "walking billboards" don't even need food and shelter?

US Speedskating has always been about image, the expediency of the moment, and piddly-fucking little pseudo-scientific details, while losing sight of The Big Picture. Oh, yes. Your long track skaters suffer. We bear the burden of excessive working hours. We bear the burden of not eating properly in order to save money. We bear the burden of the guilt of adults who accept our parents' help, because we represent this country on an international level of competition, but we can't take care of our basic needs.

It's not like I'm going to sit here and cry over how good a speedskater I could have been if I'd had access to everything I needed for optimal training and recovery over the past 5 years. I'm just going to go out there and do my best anyway, and see what happens.

No matter what random favors happen to fall to random people on someone's standard-free whim, I realize that my own ability and strength are not THEIRS to give, take, assign, or deny. I will continue to fight this unreasonable battle because I love the sport of speedskating and want to skate well. I know that everyone who follows this blog and my race results realizes that everything I've accomplished in this sport has happened because I have triumphed over impossible odds, and not because my federation has provided me with everything I need in order to train and recover at my best. That is what The Protocol is all about: destroying false images of the lives of Olympic hopefuls.