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Post by Laura (Lori) on Jul 24, 2009 16:59:41 GMT -8
The teaser says:
Allison Baver is the US‘s preeminent female short track speed skater. She competed in both the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and won the US National Championship in 2007. A nasty collision in an international race earlier this year left her with a shattered leg and surging doubts about her competitive career. But she has tackled her leg rehabilitation like a true champion, and has made an incredible recovery. She is currently training fulltime to prepare for the 2010 Olympic Trials. In between 8-hour workouts, Baver finds time to prove that you can be a queen on the ice but still be smoking hot. Check out her sexy photo shoot in the January issue of Muscle&Fitness. You‘ll agree that it deserves a gold medal.
It'll be on newsstands November 9~
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2009 20:51:42 GMT -8
Good for her. Looks like everyone is ramping up their face-time as well as their training as we head to the Olympics. WOO HOO
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Post by mtnme on Aug 11, 2009 13:59:06 GMT -8
Happy Birthday Allison, have a great day and a wonderful year!
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Aug 11, 2009 16:17:10 GMT -8
From Sarah on the Guest Board:
"Happy Birthday Allison!"
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Sept 6, 2009 9:37:58 GMT -8
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Sept 7, 2009 20:43:35 GMT -8
Baver battles back from broken leg with Vancouver in mind Mon Sep 07, 2009 By John Meyer / Special to Universal Sports Allison Baver seemed like a good bet to make her third Olympic team in short track speed skating last February when she left Salt Lake City for what she thought would be a quick trip to Europe for a pair of World Cup races.
But after suffering a broken leg in a nasty crash five days later during a race in Sofia, Bulgaria, Baver couldn't be sure she'd ever walk normally again, let alone be competitive in time for the Olympic Trials only seven months later. Four months would pass before she could return to Salt Lake City for national team training, four months living out of the one suitcase she packed in February.
Baver had surgery Feb. 19 in Philadelphia, moved to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs April 5 for rehabilitation and was on crutches until April 28. Even with an accelerated program at the OTC that included the use of a bone-stimulating machine to help the fracture heal faster, she didn't skate until May 23 and didn't resume training with the national team until June 15 -- less than three months before this week's Olympic Trials in Marquette, Mich.
"I'm trying to get my conditioning back with the limited time I have," Baver said. "It's been really tough -- but I'm doing it."
Baver, 29, needs to finish in the top five at the trials (Sept. 8-12) to make the Olympic Team as a relay racer, and in the top three to compete in individual events. Katherine Reutter, 21, is considered the woman to beat at the trials and Kimberly Derrick, 24, is another to watch. In the 1,500m last season Reutter was ranked fifth in the world with three silver medals in World Cup competition. Baver (three bronze) ranked sixth and Derrick seventh.
"Right now all of our girls are skating really strong," Baver said. "All of the other girls are skating the best I've ever seen them."
It should be noted that Baver's teammate Lana Gehring dealt with a bout of mononucleosis over the summer and is, according to US Speedskating's Peri Kinder, "up to speed" for this week's meet.
If not for her broken leg, Baver wouldn’t be so worried about her chances of making the Olympic team.
"She proved she was top three in the world in the 1,500," said Laurent Daignault, a U.S. speed skating coach. "She's been on the podium several times the past two years."
Daignault acknowledges the enormity of Baver's challenge but admires her determination.
"Her comeback is almost a miracle, the way she's skating right now with the short amount of time she had to recover," Daignault said. "I feel like she's on the right track. She probably won't be at 100 percent but very close, maybe 90. That might be enough for her to qualify -- hopefully."
Considering that a trauma doctor in Philadelphia told her she'd be lucky to walk normally after the surgery and it could be three to five years before she could skate again, Baver is lucky to have come back as far as she has. It is difficult to watch the video of her crash, which occurred after Reutter collided with her and Baver flew feet first into the boards.
Baver suffered a pilon spiral fracture of her right tibia, her ankle bone hammering into her lower leg bone, along with a fractured fibula and cartilage damage. She screamed in agony moments later when a misguided Bulgarian trainer decided what she needed was "traction" and started pulling on her foot.
"They had a board they wanted to put me on, one of those old-school spinal boards," Baver recalled. "They wanted to walk me across the ice [laying] on this board. I said, 'No way, what if you were to fall? I'm not going on that thing, my leg's broken.' I stood up and my leg was like hanging there. As I'm going off the ice, you can see it on the video, my leg like bangs against the thing. Oh my gosh, it was so painful."
The hospital in Sofia didn't have gowns or crutches. A team trainer had to buy crutches at a consignment shop. Two days later Baver flew back to the U.S. with her leg propped up on the seat in front of her. When the trauma doctor in Philadelphia gave her his grim prognosis, Baver was stunned.
"There's nothing going through my mind, I'm in absolute shock," Baver said, choking up at the memory months later. "I'm looking at my mom. I'm not really crying because I'm in shock. Skating is my life. I've always loved to skate. I've always loved the thrill of competition, the feeling of skating and everything about it. It's a part of my life every day."
Baver began skating when she was 11, and it quickly became the most important thing in her life.
"She ate, slept and drank skating from the time she was little," said her mother Dixie, recalling the time Allison passed up a cheerleading trip to Miami in the ninth grade because she didn't want to miss a skating competition. "What child would ever pass that up?" Dixie said.
But there she was last February, back at her parents' home in Sinking Spring, Penn., a once powerful Olympic athlete rendered nearly helpless.
"My aunt Cindy took care of me in the mornings, she doesn't drive so her husband would bring her at 6 a.m. before he went to work," Baver said. "My mom would come home [from work] at lunch and then my dad later in the day, around the time my aunt's husband would pick her up."
Baver, who has a modeling contract with the Wilhelmina Agency, would wear her sister's clothes because she still had just that one suitcase.
When she was finally ready for rehab in Colorado Springs -- two months after the injury and a mere five months before the Olympic Trials -- she could barely pedal an exercise bike with her right leg. The sports medicine staff put her on an intensive program of physical therapy and took X-rays every two weeks to make sure the bone was healing.
A couple weeks after ditching her crutches, she started doing workouts on The Incline, a steep 1,700-foot climb at the foot of Pikes Peak long used by Olympic Training Center athletes seeking an intense and character-building workout. The Incline was a major goal because one doctor told her she'd never be able to go up and down stairs again.
Her return to skating May 23 was tentative and painful, but it was another important milestone in her comeback, a brief 15-minute session at a public rink four blocks from the training center supervised by one of her doctors.
"He's like, 'Allison, don't get discouraged, you don't have to skate a lot, see how you feel,''' Baver recalled. "I was actually able to get in a skating position and it was the best feeling in the world. I was able to cross over, and I was like, 'I can do it, I'm going to get off the ice now.' It hurt, really bad."
That was less than four months ago. Usually the Olympic Trials are in December, but not this year. Baver could have used those extra three months, and nobody expects her to be as good as she was before the injury. Not this week, at least, not so soon after such a traumatic injury.
"I'm going to be hopefully ready no matter what, or as ready as I can be," Baver said. "I just have to have the confidence that I've done everything possible in order to be the best that I can on that day. I know I won't be my best, although everyone else will. I can be confident in all the work that I've done, and hopefully that will be enough."
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Post by bubblebuttsbabe on Sept 8, 2009 17:21:55 GMT -8
Source - www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2009-09-08-baver-speedskater_N.htmSpeedskater Baver undaunted by injuryBy Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY Seven months ago, Allison Baver shattered her lower right leg when she crashed full speed into the boards at a short-track speedskating World Cup meet. This week, she has that leg laced into a skate, racing through pain as she tries to make the U.S. team for the 2010 Winter Olympics. "I just tried to keep pushing forward," she says of the rehabilitation she went through to get to the Olympic trials starting line in Marquette, Mich., "forget the fact that my leg is broken, forget how it happened, forget everything and just focus on the Olympic trials — not only the trials but winning a medal at the Olympics." The latter would give the two-time Olympian her first Olympic medal. But just making the team — which Baver could do by earning a top ranking over a series of races through Saturday — would complete what Bill Moreau, the sports medicine clinic manager at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, calls "a Herculean feat." "When I first saw her, I kind of thought, 'Oh man, what a terrible break for that person,' " Moreau says. "After about Week 2, I just thought, 'We better be pretty serious about this, or she's going to leave us behind in her tracks.' " The February crash left Baver, 29, with a tibia broken in four pieces and cartilage damage. She determined almost immediately that it would not leave her off the 2010 Olympic team. "Talking to some medical people, I heard quite a few of them telling me that it's the type of injury that ends a career," U.S. Speedskating high performance director Guy Thibault says. "But knowing Allison and knowing her will to compete, I knew that she was going to challenge these guys and prove them wrong." Baver couldn't walk for more than two months. While she recuperated at her parents' house in Pennsylvania, she moved her ankle and foot as much as possible and did 30-minute ab workouts with a medicine ball. She moved to the USOTC in Colorado Springs in April to work with Moreau and his team. In late May, for a photo shoot, she put on her skates for the first time. "I was in so much pain I wanted to cry. I couldn't move my ankle in my skate. I couldn't bend my knee," she says. She decided she needed to get on ice the next day to see whether she could skate or if all the work she was doing would be for naught. She and Moreau went to a public rink in Colorado Springs. "She was just working on her stride," Moreau says. "There was a little girl, probably 3, and she cut in front of her — You know how little kids just decide to turn left? And I thought, 'Oh no!' — and Allison just crosses over and zip, right behind her, just lickety-split. That's when I thought, 'Things are good.' " Baver rejoined her U.S. Speedskating teammates in Salt Lake City in June. She has had to balance her pain level and what kind of impact her leg can tolerate against trying to increase endurance and speed. She works constantly to minimize the swelling so she can pull on her skate boot. "Her technique is actually pretty good," Thibault says. "Her top speed is not quite at what she usually does but close enough to be very, very competitive. As far as making the team, I would personally put my money on her."
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Sept 15, 2009 17:38:20 GMT -8
The following Hero Card was provided by US Speedskating: Congratulations to Allison for earning Slot #3 on the Vancouver Olympic team!
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Sept 18, 2009 16:00:38 GMT -8
1000M Semi-Final - Sept 11, 2009; Photo Credits for both: Doug Benc / Getty Images
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2009 15:50:41 GMT -8
And, on this day, lucky Procter & Gamble, which will use Vonn this winter to hawk makeup, shampoo, skin moisturizer, etc. The company announced Tuesday it also has partnerships with speedskaters Apolo Ohno and Allison Baver, ice dancer Tanith Belbin, bobsledder Vonetta Flowers and snowboarder Lindsey Jacobellis.
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Dec 17, 2009 12:59:37 GMT -8
Prediction: Allison will be turning heads in Vancouver for more reasons than her quick left turns on ice. It's one guy's opinion, but are any of us surprised? Allison Baver is Going to Melt the Olympic Ice By Jon on December 14th, 2009Every Olympics contains one girl that makes guys watch sports they never knew existed. The 2010 Winter Olympics are no different, meet the gold medalist in my heart regardless of the outcome. Allison Baver is a US speed skater that is guaranteed to be the hottest thing to hit the Olympics since Mark Spitz’s hairy-ass chest.Read the whole story at: girls.gunaxin.com/allison-baver-is-going-to-melt-the-olympic-ice/37965The story contains LOTS of great modeling photos of Allison, including the article/photos (including unpublished ones) from the Muscle & Fitness issue that we heard was coming!
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Post by ruff on Dec 17, 2009 21:13:45 GMT -8
She should take a page out of Reutter's book. Girlfriend had Colbert sweatin' just by pulling out a sharpie.
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Post by mtnme on Jan 14, 2010 10:22:48 GMT -8
Some marvi large scale photos I've just stumbled upon... 1 2 3 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 12: Allison Baver skates during the 500 Meter Semifinals at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 12, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 4 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 11: (L to R) Allison Baver, Jessica Smith and Alyson Dudek skate during the 1500 Meter Final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 11, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 5 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 11: (L to R) Alyson Dudek, Allison Baver and Katherine Reutter skate during the 1000 Meter Semi-final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 11, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 6 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 11: (L to R) Allison Baver and Alyson Dudek skate during the 1000 Meter Semi-final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 11, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 7 8 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 09: Katherine Reutter (L) and Allison Baver skate during the Women's 1500 Meter Final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 9, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 9 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 09: (L-R) Katherine Reutter, Allison Baver and Jessica Smith #57 skate during the Women's 1500 Meter Final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 9, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 10 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 09: (L-R) Kimberly Derrick, Jessica Smith and Allison Baver skate during the Women's 500 Meter at U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 9, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 11 12 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 12: The Men's and Women's US Olympic Team poses for a portrait after the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 12, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 13 oops, a couple more... 14 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 11: (L to R) Allison Baver, second place, Katherine Reutter, first place and Kimberly Derrick, third place pose on the podium after the 1500 Meter Final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 11, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images) 15 MARQUETTE, MI - SEPTEMBER 11: (L to R) Alyson Dudek, second place, Katherine Reutter, first place, and Allison Baver, third place pose on the podium after the 1000 Meter Final at the U.S. Short Track Speedskating Championships at the Berry Events Center on September 11, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan. (Photo by Doug Benc/Getty Images)
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Jan 14, 2010 11:10:29 GMT -8
Whoa! B-B-B-BIG!and beautiful!
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Post by Laura (Lori) on Jan 16, 2010 13:25:03 GMT -8
I applaude the effort, but something was surely lost in translation here. Preview : 2010 Vancouver Women's Short Track EventsJanuary 11, 2010www.associatedcontent.com/article/2568011/preview_2010_vancouver_womens_short_pg2.html?cat=14I'm really glad that Allison survived the plane crash - I know she 'flies' around the ice, but I never realized that she attained altitude too... and Simon Cho will be very surprised to hear that he'll be skating with the ladies in Vancouver!
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