Travis and Jordan Malone
Travis with Jordan and Ryan Bedford.
It's amusing that Travis is wearing a t-shirt for JP. ;D
Travis with Jordan and JP Kepka
(this article appears to have been posted before the move from Colorado Springs to Utah. But we can attest that he still does his pre-race ritual - in fact, I think he's added a few moves!) ;D
Athlete Spotlight: Speedskating's Travis Jayner by Danielle Appelman - U.S. Olympic Committee (719-866-2221)
When you grow up in Canada, it’s almost second nature to take up skating as a past time. But unlike most young Canadian children that turn to hockey, Travis Jayner picked up a different kind of sport on the ice: short track speedskating. Jayner, 24, was born in Midland, Mich., but calls New Brunswick, Canada home. Even though he has dual citizenship, three years ago, Jayner ultimately made the decision to skate for the United States and not Canada. So far, the decision is paying off. He’s already won a bronze medal as a member of the last year’s World Cup relay team, and most recently qualified for a spot on the World Cup team that will compete in China on Oct. 20-22. In this week’s Athlete Spotlight, Jayner discusses everything from his love of speedskating to his least favorite class taken in college, to most importantly, why he has such a dislike of Celine Dion.
1) How did you get started in speedskating?For as long as I can remember, I always skated, and I always speedskated. My father skated in the 1960s in New York, and from what I was told, he was pretty good. When my brother and I were kids, it was just natural for him to put us into skating because it was something he loved, so he thought maybe my sons will love it too. My brother has stopped since, but I’m still living the dream.
2) You have dual citizenship in both the U.S. and Canada, so why not compete for Canada? Because I could, I guess. I didn’t want to look back at my life in five or 10 years and think maybe I should have tried and skated for the United States. Because I had this opportunity, I felt like I wanted to take advantage of it. Looking at both countries and how both programs are run, I think things here in the U.S. in terms of funding Olympic athletes and the services they provide for them, is head and shoulders above anything Canada provides for its athletes. That might change in a few years because Canada will have the 2010 Games, but right now, my life is unbelievable. Where I live right now, there’s no reason for me to not succeed. I have access to anything, and if I don’t have access to something, someone will make sure that I can have it within a certain amount of time. I can be lazy—I don’t have to cook or really clean. And the chance to skate with the guys I get to skate with like J.P. [Kepka], Alex [Izkowski], Apolo [Ohno], Jordan [Malone], and Ryan [Bedford] is really great. These are great guys, and they push me as much as I push them. The Canadian environment that I was in was a little more selfish. So, I think the fact that we are a small group really brings us together. I thought it would work better for me here, and I think it has.
3) What is your favorite event in speedskating?I don’t think I really have a favorite distance. I like them all. I don’t think I really favor one over the other. I think I’m pretty well rounded and that I can sprint and that I have really good endurance. I guess I can say that I like the relay. I like the team aspect and the tactics.
4) What is your typical training day like?I get up at 7 a.m. Out of the cafeteria by 7:30; go to the rink, warming up by 8:15 a.m., skating for about two hours, then lunch—sometimes a lot of lunch. Ice workouts are insane. Usually, they are really intense. We skate six days a week. Sundays are off. Then afternoons between 2 and 6 or 3 or 5, depending on the day, we will have some type of dry land or weights workout, something to compliment what we did in the morning.
5) What has this year been like without a coach?This year has definitely been interesting. It’s an odd situation, and we have a lot more say in what we are during practice-wise, which is interesting and strange at the same time. So, most the time, we all will have ideas about what we want to do, and then we kind of fit a little bit of everything into practice.
6) What has been your favorite racing moment so far?I have so many favorites, so I’ll name two. Winning a medal in the World Cup in the relay last year for Olympic qualifiers was amazing. And qualifying for that team and to compete at that level was great. I finished second in the 1,500 meters, and I was super pumped because I knew I could do it, and I had kind of done it before, but never skated like I wanted to. And in that race, I finally did skate like I wanted to. I keep my medal in my room on my desk. I look at it probably once every couple of weeks.
7) What has been your favorite place that you’ve raced in?Probably Italy. We went into the mountains in Bormio, Italy, and it was beautiful. That way of life in Italy is amazing. Nap time all the time; guys take the afternoon off. It’s awesome. It was really nice.
8) What is the hardest part about speedskating?It’s so technical. You could be the strongest person on the ice, but if you are not efficient and you skate poorly, then you’re not going to win. It’s really tough, and that plays on your mind.
9) What is the best speedskating advice you have ever gotten?I guess my father told me to be specific in my training, to try and be sports specific. He said not to waste your energy trying to do stuff that isn’t speedskating related. Like why would you have to run 20 miles for speedskating? So I guess that has really stuck with me and helped with my training.
10) Do you have any pre-race rituals?On the ice before the race starts, I’ll touch my knees, my shins, and my skates. That’s something I’ve done forever. It’s sort of become my trademark. I started doing it because we used to have to wear knee pads on the outside of our skin suits, but now they are sewn into the suits. But I would always check to make sure I have my equipment in place because you can be disqualified for not having the proper equipment. So, I would check as a kid, and now I just do it out of habit.
11) Who is your sports hero?I think I have too many to name. I feel like I can’t answer because it won’t do justice to all of them. I like people who fight through things and succeed. I like knowing that hard work pays off. So, I think I tend to want to cheer or have heroes that work hard and end up winning anyway. I don’t know if I really have a hero. I think I have a lot of athletes I really respect like Apolo Ohno. Apolo works really hard--take last year’s Winter Olympic Games, having trained with him and having been on the team with him before the Games—seeing what he was going through with his poor performance in the first distance, then his mediocre performance in the second one, and then the fact that he some how fought through it even though I didn’t think he was skating as well as he usually had all year, and he won gold anyway. It was unbelievable. So, I think there’s a lot to be learned from him physically and mentally even though I want to beat him now. I’ve always wanted to beat him, but yeah, I’m coming for him now. So, I like guys like that who fight hard to win. Lance Armstrong fighting back from cancer is unbelievable and then doing something that no one else has done. I admire people like that.
12) You graduated from McGill University with a degree in urban planning, what was your favorite and least favorite class that you took?Least favorites—I was definitely really happy to be done with chemistry. I was forced to take it and barely made a C. I had to fight to make that C, and also, my linear algebra class was unbelievably hard. It took me forever to figure out what was going on and even then I had to again fight to get a C. I was definitely failing after the midterm. Favorite—I’d have to say my first geography of planning class. I was studying civil engineering, and I took this geography class that was about planning in the North American cities, and it made me realize I was more interested in these ideas about planning than I was interested in being a civil engineer and proofreading other people’s plans. So, that kind of pushed to where I am now.
13) Being from Canada, in your opinion, what is the more overrated Canadian treasure: Niagara Falls, hockey, or Celine Dion?Oh, Celine—she’s garbage. Absolute garbage. It’s unbelievable. She makes me so mad. I hate it that when everyone here in America thinks of Canadian music, they immediately think of Celine. She’s more American than a lot of Americans are. She’s terrible.
14) If you were president for the day, what would be your first order of business?I would maybe name a day after myself. It would be on my birthday, the ninth of May, and everyone would have a day off of work. Nobody would do anything all day. The country would probably go to shambles, but it would be fun.
15) Ten years from now, where do you see yourself?Hopefully, I’m done with school. I still want to get my master’s degree. I’d like to take some time off after skating and be a ski bum for a winter somewhere in Utah or Colorado. It would be fun to be a bum for a while and then get back to being serious.
Author:
Danielle Appelman
Organization:
U.S. Olympic Committee