Midland's Perry hoping to make World Cup team in short track speedskating By Dan Chalk | Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 10:30 am
Midland’s Brett Perry has had to adapt and move to a new location, but he’s still pursuing his dream of competing in speedskating at the Olympics.
Perry, 19, began training at the Pettit Center in West Allis, Wis., near Milwaukee, in July, after the speedskating training program at the U.S. Olympic Education Center in Marquette was suspended last spring. He had trained there for three years.
“It was a real letdown for me because my plan was to go to college (at Northern Michigan University) and skate,” Perry said Saturday in a phone interview from Salt Lake City, Utah, where he’s training for next weekend’s U.S. Single Distance Short Track Championships. “As it turns out, I got one year in (at NMU) and (the speedskating program) is not in existence anymore.”
So Perry, a 2011 Midland High graduate, decided to move to Wisconsin and continue to train with Tony Goskowicz, who had also been his coach at the USOEC.
“I had to make a big decision if I wanted to go to Salt Lake City or Milwaukee. Milwaukee is closer and it’s basically the same facility as Salt Lake. I felt like it was the better choice,” Perry said.
Perry now has hopes of making the U.S. Short Track World Cup team, which will consist of six men and six women who will start competitions in October.
To do that, he first needs to finish among the top 16 men in the time trials of the Single Distance Championships, which start Thursday at the Utah Olympic Oval, which was a venue for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
“I’m hoping to make the top 16 after the time trials. That would be a big accomplishment for me,” Perry said.
From there, those 16 men will compete for the rest of the weekend in the 500-meter, 1,000-meter and 1,500-meter races, which will narrow the field down to five. A coach’s pick will round out the six-man World Cup team.
“I’m very excited (about next weekend),” said Perry, who has competed in Salt Lake City two other times. “I feel pretty confident. As of right now, I’m ranked 16th. I feel like I have a pretty good chance.”
His long-term goal is to make the Olympic short track team either for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, or for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“We’ll see how things go,” said Perry, who also plans to enroll in college in Wisconsin next semester while he continues to train there.
Since last Monday, Perry has been training with the U.S. National Short Track Team, whose head coach, Jae Su Chun, was recently put on administrative leave by U.S. Speedskating pending an internal investigation into allegations of verbal and physical abuse by Chun brought by 14 current members of the National Team and five former skaters.
Perry said he was coached by Chun at a junior camp in Pittsburgh this past summer.
“It was tough. It was a hard camp,” Perry said, adding that he hasn’t witnessed any of the abuse allegedly commited by Chun.
Perry also said he’s looking forward to competing in the American Cup II Short Track meet to be held at the Midland Civic Arena next Feb. 2-3.
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