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Sliding to Gold
Journey to the top...
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We are well aware that our Olympic athletes dedicate every second, minute and hour of their lives for the chance to represent their country in the world's biggest athletic competition. We know it takes blood, sweat and tears for an athlete to even make it to the Olympic Games, let alone to win a medal. "We all have dreams," American track and field athlete Jesse Owens once said. "But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort." Gold medals don't just happen. It takes a combination of these personal traits, and maybe even a little luck, to become an Olympic medalist.
We know every Olympian and Olympic hopeful lives this story. We often don't hear about the hours they also spend working or studying in addition to training. We don't always know who the team behind the team is, or how an athlete copes with the highs and lows that naturally occur in every season. What inspires our athletes to dedicate every second, minute and hour to training for something that isn't a guarantee?
We've created a rotating athlete blog on our website so that our athletes, from the World Cup level to the development teams, can offer some insight to these questions. This blog offers us a window into their lives as they pour their passion and heart into training for the chance to wear the red, white and blue this February. Our athletes are more than the numbers reported next to their name as they descend icy slopes around the world; they are also parents, spouses, children, employees, students and friends. Check out some posts already published in the blog:
Be sure to bookmark the blog page and visit each week to learn more about your USA Bobsled & Skeleton athletes. You'll undoubtably feel inspired as our athletes show us that the impossible is possible. "Nothing is impossible," Audrey Hepburn said. "The word itself says 'I'm possible'!"  Amanda Bird Marketing and Communications Director USA Bobsled & Skeleton |
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From Track to Tractor
Skeleton athlete Katie Uhlaender spends her offseason herding cattle on her father's ranch.
BY Tommy Barone
It's early on a frost filled morning when USA Skeleton star Katie Uhlaender puts on her gloves, winter hat, and boots to head outside where she'll begin another busy, grueling day. She isn't taking her track walking spikes with her to cover her boots today - they're not needed when you're working on a ranch. There won't be any stretching, coaches, ice, sleds, or speed suits, and the only warm up she's getting is from a cup of coffee before she heads outside to hundreds of cows, and acres of land.
 It's the offseason for Uhlaender, and the two-time Olympian and world champion is spending some of that time on her father's ranch alongside her brother, and their neighbor Dave Frisbie.
"I do call it home. It's really where I feel closest to my father," explained Uhlaender, whose father passed away four years ago - sadly one year to the date prior to her marching into the stadium during opening ceremonies for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. "The land was there for us. I even invested in the cows with him."
These days she works alongside Dave who, besides herding cattle and keeping up with work on the ranch, has been showing her more of the business side of the operation. Uhlaender hopes to take over that facet and continue to provide all natural 95% choice beef nationwide. Besides learning from Dave, she's continuing her education at Colorado Mountain College with minors in anthropology and psychology, while taking other classes in a combined effort to achieve a platform for a future in agricultural writing.
Today however, Katie heads out on a cold morning for more dirty  work. She needs to wait for a cow to give birth any minute so she can bring the calf inside to prevent sickness or death due to the unseasonably low temperatures. Once the new birth is stabilized, it's off to another typical day of driving trucks, tractors, checking over 700 head, and bailing hay. Being this far removed from a skeleton track or Olympic training center doesn't absolve Uhlaender of staying in shape or being "game ready". She's outfitted her ranch with a weight room to continue her conditioning, and prepare for her sessions with strength coaches just weeks away.
For now, animals, nature, and the closest farm hand is all she needs to escape the media, cowbells, competition, and stresses of being an athlete. For Katie, here is the one true place where she can feel closest to her father. Three hours away from the closest airport, the ranch connects the two a few months out of the year, continuing the strong bond they always had - "We had a very close relationship. It's where my father wanted me to be."
Learn more about Katie Uhlaender and life on the ranch by reading her USOC Blog.
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Fan Zone: Meet Deborah Harrison
Deborah Harrison is a letter carrier in North Carolina, and just recently became a super fan of bobsled and skeleton after watching a Youtube video of one of our Team USA athletes.
 I started following bobsled and skeleton in ernest after watching Katie Uhlaender in a weightlifting video on YouTube. Strange way to start right? I watched all of her videos including her skeleton races! I had seen bobsled races before, but I never really paid a lot of attention to skeleton. Seeing Katie lifting weights put a face on her other sport. I followed her on Twitter and Facebook and that is when I became familiar with Olympic gold medalist Steven Holcomb, and I followed him on Twitter. He thanked me and followed me back. Whoa! An Olympic gold medalist followed me and thanked me! I was hooked! Bobsled and skeleton athletes are different. They appreciate their fans and they let us know it. If I tweet to any of Team USA letting them know I saw their race and they were great, I will get a response that says, "Thank you for being a fan, your support means a lot!" That draws you in and makes you love the sport even more. The USA Bobsled & Skeleton athletes understand public relations, but most of all they are friendly and kind and just who they are.
So as the season started in 2012 I watched every live streamed race  that I could. When they went to Europe I would watch the races, even though I get up every day at 5:50 a.m. to get ready for work. I watched every week Team USA raced! As a fan I like to let the athletes know I am watching and cheering them on. I tweet my support during the races. I read their blogs. If they have a book I buy it and read it, and if they sell tee shirts I will buy one or two! I am going to go on the Lake Placid bobsled experience next year. I want to know what it feels like to slide down the ice in a bobsled. Skeleton athlete Lauren Salter suggests I should try skeleton; I think she's biased! I love helping a sport that I have come to love as much as UNC basketball.
With the help of social media I have found my voice, and something that I am really passionate about. I have not had the pleasure of attending a bobsled and skeleton event, but I hope to change that this upcoming season. The hopes and dreams of most fans of a sport is to meet their favorite athlete, but I would like to meet all of the bobsled and skeleton athletes.
I am a letter carrier in Rocky Mount, N.C. that is a big fan of Team USA bobsled and skeleton. I consider myself a cheerleader of some amazing athletes. They are strong and talented with a dash of fearlessness! I wondered for awhile what motivates a person to get involved in a sport that does not have the glamour of football, basketball, baseball and soccer. Then I read Steven Holcomb's book "But Now I See," and he wrote something that summed it up perfectly. He was losing his sight and he said for the average person the answer was easy. Have surgery, save your sight, but give up being in the Olympics. He wrote: "...that person cannot possibly understand what it's like to be so singularly focused on a goal, so consumed by dreams you've had since childhood and the countless hours you have devoted to reaching a certain point that you can't imagine existing any other way." Athletes that dedicated deserve to know there are fans that believe in them and cheer them on with words of encouragement and donations. I am so proud to have these men and women representing the USA in Sochi, Russia at the Winter Olympics in 2014!
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Athlete Highlight: Lauren Salter
 Idyllwild, California native Lauren Salter began the sport of skeleton in November 2010 after one of her throwing teammates from her college track team suggested she consider bobsledding.
"He knew bobsled pilots recruited sprinters to push for them," Salter said. "I did, and I was told I was too small for bobsled. They pushed me into skeleton instead, and here I am!"
Salter said she really likes the technicality of skeleton because "there's always something to change, something to do a little better."
As a high school athlete, Salter was a four-year letterwinner and all-league in track and field and a three-year letterwinner in soccer. Salter was a sprinter during her freshman and sophomore years at Northern Arizona University before switching to throwing javelin during her senior year. Salter hopes to earn a spot on the national team next season and is aiming for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
 Follow Salter on Twitter!
Fun Facts:
- Salter is a self proclaimed cinephile. "I like a lot of films," she said. Her go-to is "A League of Their Own," but she also ranks "Casablanca" as one of her favorites.
- Her favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird, thanks to her high school Honor's English teacher.
- Salter's favorite track is Whistler because it's "crazy fast."
- Salter's favorite quote is from Walt Disney: "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
- Salter has a "not so secret" passion for soccer and says she's a "total dork about it."
Competition Highlights:
- BRONZE at 2013 U.S. National Championships (March 2013)
- Four top-six finishes during the 2012-2013 North American Cup series
- BRONZE in Lake Placid North American Cup (April 2012)
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Questions? Comments?
Do you have a question or comment for a USA Bobsled & Skeleton athlete, coach, board or staff member? If so, send an email to [email protected] and find the answer to your question in the next newsletter! |
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Follow us on Facebook and Twitter now!
 Lake Placid Olympic Sports Venues @LP_Sliding
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Visit our YouTube Page by clicking below for more video clips of what USBSF athletes are doing whether gliding down the icy tracks around the world at the speed of lightening, training in the weight room, contributing to the community or just pranking each other.
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