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Melvindale skater makes US short track speedskating teamFriday, January 23, 2009 10:23 PM EST
By Jon MachotaAfter completely dominating a sport for more than a decade, an athlete may be determined to look for a new challenge.
For Melvindale’s Jessica Smith, that new challenge comes in the form of one of sports biggest stages – the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Smith, 25, is a world champion inline speed skater.
She has been involved in speed skating since she was nine months old. Starting her on quad skates, her parents believed it would help with her balance and coordination.
Twenty four years later and Smith has accomplished everything an inline skater can.
She has represented the United States in the World Championships, winning 12 Senior gold medals and 13 Junior gold medals; and in the 1997 Pan American Championships where she earned three additional gold medals.
Inline speed skating is not an Olympic sport, though.
To get a chance at winning an Olympic medal, Smith has had to transition from wheels and tracks to blades and ice.
For the past three years she has juggled competing on both surfaces, but during the last year has focused solely on the frozen variety of skating.
“Inlines have always been in my heart and I enjoy inlines,” Smith said. “Now I have to switch sports to obtain the Olympics and a dream of becoming an Olympic gold medalist.”
The most recent step toward making her dream a reality, happened on the weekend of Dec. 20.
Smith participated in the U.S. Short Track World Cup Speedskating Team tryouts in St. Louis, earning a bronze medal in the 1000 meters women’s race.
Her time solidified a spot on the women’s team that will participate in the World Short Track Speedskating Championships in Vienna, Austria on March 6-8, and the World Team Short Track Speedskating Championships March 14-15 in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
Perhaps the most important result of making the team is obtaining the extra competitions that will help her prepare for the Winter Olympics.
It also saved Christmas at the Smith household.
“She has wanted it so bad and she’s done nothing but train and work so hard,” Jessica’s mom, Reina Smith said. “I was so excited for her because this is what she needed.
“She needs that race experience on the ice.
“I just thought this is going to be a long Christmas if she doesn’t make that team.”
Smith tried long track speed skating on ice, but has moved to the short track because it better suits her skills from her time as an inline champion.
The short track style is raced in packs where as the long track is raced in individual lanes.
Traveling around the world can be an obstacle that is associated with the sport, but Smith said she enjoys the travel and has already been to 25 different countries.
At the age of 12 she was already visiting the world for inline competitions, balancing a checkbook and using a credit card. All while bringing homework on the road and maintaining high grades at Cabrini High School.
“As far as being disciplined, it was all her,” Jessica’s father Rick Smith said. “You didn’t have to tell her, ‘come on lets go to practice,’ she had the want to do it and everything it took. She made it happen.”
To be able to keep up with the rigorous challenges of fully competing on ice, Smith has moved to West Jordan, Utah so she can train.
Her regimen includes practicing six days a week for around eight hours a day. She also takes classes at the University of Utah and pays for her room and board by working in the hardware department of a local Home Depot.
Not exactly the celebrity life of a professional athlete.
One of the toughest parts for her family has been not having her around.
Reina Smith said at first she hated having her daughter live on the other side of the U.S.
Because Utah is so far away, the family only gets together a few times a year.
No matter how difficult the long-distance relationship is on her mom and dad, Smith’s younger brother Travis, 11, had the hardest time adjusting to not seeing his big sister.
“He’s used to it now, but at the beginning he never wanted her to go,” Reina Smith recalls. “I’ll never forget, he said, ‘who cares about the Olympics? Big deal. Sister’s not home.’”
Now that everyone has adjusted to Smith’s living situation, her parents are confident that the sky is the limit for their daughter.
After all, they should know best. They witnessed her dedication, work ethic and drive from a very young age.
Her father even vividly recalls Smith going so far as to riding her bike to skating practice as a youth for additional training and conditioning.
That desire doesn't seem to be disappearing. either.
With Olympic speed skaters competing into their early 30s, Smith doesn’t see her career ending in the near future.
“I don’t have any time set," she said. "I feel like I’ll know when I’m ready to be done. When I’m not ready to give it my all everyday at training then that’s when it’s time to call it quits.
"Right now I’m enthused to keep on training everyday and to get out there and try to become the best I can be and hopefully go out there and win an Olympic medal.
“After the Olympics I don’t even know what I plan to do, but there’s no sign of when I’ll quit.”