NASCAR ON ICE

Hey Carron –

Sorry that we didn't get to see you last weekend. Everything was very hectic and we were on an extremely tight schedule and didn’t go by Ely or Anamosa. I hope that your daughter did well in her softball tournament on Saturday. It was great talking to you and, yes, it was quite a while that we talked!

Yes, our oldest daughter (Liz) is doing pretty well at the moment and is now living at the US Olympic Training Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Petit Center). Liz had been a competitive figure skater for eight years prior to moving to Belgium and had to stop competing due to the lack of quality coaching (can you name one Belgian figure skater….I didn’t think so).

So when we hit Colorado Springs last summer, Liz immediately wanted to get back on the ice and was approached last September while skating at the World Arena by two women from the US Women’s Speed Skating Team (training here in Colorado Springs). Well, after a couple thousand dollars for equipment, Liz started training and quickly adapted to going 30 mph in a circle sort of playing NASCAR on ice with four other women at a time! She was extremely lucky that she could get one-on-one training here from September 2006 – May 2007 from two Olympians that competed in the last three winter Olympics.

She progressed quickly and based on her performance in March during the US Silver Skates competition in St Louis (3 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze) she was accepted on the US Women’s Short Track Developmental Team. While it’s a long way between now and 2010 Winter Games for her, she’s giving it her best shot and Rhonda and I continue to do all that we can to give her this chance. She is currently being coached by the same coach that trained Apolo Anton Ohno (Gold Medalist & Dancing with the Stars winner) for the last seven years, so she can’t get better coaching anywhere. The US Speed Skating Team just moved its headquarters from Colorado Springs to Salt Lake City; but many of the skaters didn’t want to train at Salt Lake, so they moved to one of the alternate training venues (Salt Lake, Milwaukee, & Lake Placid). It appears that many of the top US skaters ended up following the coaches that went to Milwaukee so it was very fortunate that Liz was accepted into that program.

Again, we aren’t ordering tickets yet for the 2010 games, as we are currently working on sponsorship to help out. The season starts in August and, hopefully, if she has a good year, she will get some level of US sponsorship; however, until she earns it, mom & dad have to cover everything (training, room, board, travel expenses, etc.)! I’m just happy that it appears that I will not deploy to the desert until June 2008 so that I can at least be here to watch her this year!

I’m really looking forward to Ragbrai and reconnecting with some of our classmates! It should be a blast!

Take care and hope to see you and Tony soon. Remember, you guys can always run out here for a long weekend if you get the chance, it sure is nice right now!

Mike (Hauser)