Juniors….Seniors….It’s Championship Time!
Juniors….Seniors….It’s Championship Time!
By Skating Fan
Speedskaters are familiar with the elusive term “personal best.” It is odd to think of a personal best as elusive in the real world, because it is something each and every person can call upon every day. In sport, a personal best is setting a new “fastest lap” or a finishing time in a particular distance. Years can pass between these moments, since personal bests in a race only happen when all the variables are in alignment.
US Senior/Junior Long Track Championships started January 9th and heading into the US Short Track Junior Championships this weekend, it appears personal bests are a weekly thing, and track records fell like raindrops. One might think these records could only be caused by a planetary alignment that strikes once every 5,000 years, or that a superhero is on the way to stop the apocalypse. But, this is not the case here at the US Championships. At ASE, what caused over 100 personal best (and counting), plus 14 podiums at US championships was months of planned, intentional, hard work.
That is the beauty and heart break of sport, the months and years of work put on stage in what seems to be an effortless flash. Ask any skater, it is the insatiable hunger for improvement that drives this pursuit. In the moments following a new “personal best” the hunger grows again for another, which drives skaters and coaches to fine tune their process every inch along the way.
EVERY ASE skater who raced has set a new personal best since January 9th. Congratulations to them all. ASE coaches, Katherine Reutter and Eric Cepuran have been named junior world coaches this season from their performance as coaches and of the team.
Two-sport athlete, Sarah Warren and comeback kid, Jackie Bernico qualified for the junior world team and will be competing in Poland in February. Nathan Miller overcame a broken bone and a concussion early this season to crush his personal bests and he became an alternate for the junior world team. Hannah Bosman flew around the track to set the qualifying time for junior worlds and earned the alternate position with years of junior status ahead. Junior C was a battle of the future with Ethan Cepuran, Austin Kleba, and Ian Bahn raising the bar each time out on the ice with new personal bests.
On the Short Track side, the UTAH WINTER BLAST that took place simultaneously during US Short Track Senior trials had all the ASE athletes set new personal bests in their races. Betsy Richards and Danielle Amos dropped the hammer in the 1000m to set the senior time standard! Gunnar Olsen came out swinging with a new personal best in the 500m, making the three musketeers of ASE poised to take it up another notch this Saturday in Utah. The stories go on and there will surely be more to come.
