seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2008719588_olysports08.htmlJust one year awayWHISTLER, B.C. — Bobsled drivers, being frontwards-fast people, generally don't spend a lot of time looking over their shoulders.
But Shauna Rohbock, who pilots the sleek bobsled designated USA 1, and Erin Pac, who drives USA 2, can be excused for doing so this week.
Bree Schaaf appears to be gaining.
Schaaf, 28, of Bremerton, arrived at the new Olympic bobsled course at the Whistler Sliding Centre for a World Cup event last week with more than a little apprehension. The track, one of the steepest and most-challenging in the world, had sent more-experienced drivers reeling in training runs.
"It's fast. It's intense," she said after her first practice runs. "It's just work, work, work. The turns are coming at you like fire."
The race also would be her debut against the world's top drivers on the bobsled World Cup circuit. And it would be the first time Schaaf, an Olympic High School graduate and a former Portland State volleyball player, careened down a mountain at speeds of up to 90 mph in front of family and friends.
Not a problem.
With a pair of clean, fast runs, Schaaf and brakewoman Emily Azevedo raised eyebrows up and down the 16-curve track by posting a sixth-place finish — a result that sent Schaaf leaping from her sled as if she were spring-loaded.
"Oh, my gosh!" Schaaf said, jumping up and down. "It's amazing, just unbelievable. Really, I am excited, which is all I can say because it's all that I feel. This gives me something to work toward next year."
Schaaf is just one of a group of Washington winter-sport athletes working toward a ticket to the February 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler — likely the closest the Games will ever get to their home state. The most recognizable face is short-track speedskater Apolo Ohno, but Schaaf and others hope to do what Ohno did in 2002 — use the Games as a springboard to the spotlight.
Schaaf knows all too well that some of her toughest competition comes from her own team. Friday's World Cup Olympic test event proved that the entire American women's squad slid into a comfortable groove on the Whistler track — much to the chagrin of Canada, which has sought to preserve a home-ice advantage there.
Friday's race was won by Rohbock and brakewoman Elana Meyers. Pac and partner Michelle Rzepka were third. The race helped cement the standing of Rohbock, the 2006 Turin Olympic silver medalist who was ranked third in the world entering Friday's competition.
To gain an entry ticket to Vancouver, Schaaf, who converted from the sport of skeleton (facedown, headfirst sliding) two years ago, must pass one of those teammates before this time next year.
Her immediate focus remains on qualifying for the upcoming bobsled/skeleton World Championships, Feb. 20 to March 1 in Lake Placid, N.Y. Schaaf needs to stay ahead of the No. 3 Russian sled through this week's World Cup races in Park City, Utah, to qualify for the worlds.
The Russian driver likely is unaware of that dynamic, Schaaf says.
"They're staying at the same hotel," she said. "Every time she walks we whisper about her. She has no idea she's our nemesis."
If Schaaf does get into that season-ending race in New York, watch out. Schaaf, who has spent much of the past two years training at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, has a special feel for the track at Mount Van Hoevenberg. It's her "home" course, and the site of a January win in the U.S. national championships that put her on the World Cup circuit last week for the first time.
Here are updates on other local winter-sport athletes who stand a good chance of competing in the 2010 Games:
Christian Niccum
Woodinville,
doubles luge
Like Schaaf, luge slider Christian Niccum and his sliding partner, Dan Joye, are on the march, leaving the longtime top American pair, Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin, less secure in their position.
Niccum and Joye slid to a sixth-place finish in the Luge World Championships at Lake Placid on Friday. Grimmette and Martin finished third.
But Olympic prospects look strong for Niccum, who competed injured at the 2006 Turin Games and finished out of the running. Niccum says that after devoting most of his life to the sport, he pondered hanging up the luge sled last summer. But he decided to give the Olympics near his hometown another run after receiving permission — and even some urging — from his wife, Bobbie Jo, and the implied consent of their infant daughter, Hayden Lulu.
"My family is forever," Niccum says. "Luge will come and go. They had to be signed on board with me. It can't be just me going away and doing my own thing."
Apolo Ohno
Seattle, short-track speedskating
One potential Olympian who likely needs no introduction is Apolo Ohno, America's most famous short-track speedskater, not to mention a "Dancing With the Stars" TV star.
Ohno, 26, hopes to cap his Olympic career in Vancouver with a sixth medal, which would make him the most-decorated male U.S. Winter Games athlete in history. He's first to admit it won't be easy.
"Times have changed," he says. "My sport has been evolving. But I'm definitely still one of the top competitors for medals, including gold medals."
Ohno, a multiple medalist in both the 2002 Salt Lake and 2006 Turin Games, says he'll bring everything he has to the table at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, where he helped the U.S. team to a rare relay-race win earlier this season on the World Cup circuit.
"It's a fantastic arena," Ohno says. "The athletes feel like the fans are almost over top of the ice. It's going to be amazing."
Ohno, who now lives and trains in Salt Lake City, is on his way to the short-track World Championships, March 6-8 in Vienna. That competition will go a long way toward telling him how he stands against the world with the Vancouver Games looming, he says.
And he insists he's still a skater, not just a hot dancer.
"Yes, I can still skate," he says.J.R. Celski
Federal Way, short-track speedskating
Growing up in Federal Way, J.R. Celski, 18, looked to Apolo Ohno as a hometown hero. Now he's pushing to take his place — or better yet, skate alongside him in Vancouver.
Celski, who won two golds and a bronze on the way to setting three world records at last month's World Junior Championships in Quebec, also is a U.S. relay team member who is considered a strong candidate to earn a spot on the Vancouver 2010 roster.Scott Macartney
Redmond,
alpine skiing
The bad-luck run of alpine skier Scott Macartney, 31, would make a lot of people give up. Macartney, who suffered a serious head injury in a fall on his 30th birthday last season at Kitzbuehel, Austria, was just getting back in rhythm this season when he crashed at Wengen, Switzerland, damaging a knee, which has been surgically repaired.
Macartney hopes to be back on the circuit in time to qualify for the U.S. alpine team next winter, with the goal of competing in his third Winter Olympics. Macartney, the son of Crystal Mountain ski patrollers, finished 29th in the downhill at Snowbasin in the 2002 Salt Lake Games and 15th in the men's downhill and seventh in the Super G at Sestriere during the 2006 Turin Games.
Patrick Deneen
Cle Elum,
freestyle skiing
Pat Deneen has fallen into an odd habit in World Cup moguls competitions this season: He always seems to finish third, or 43rd.
It's just the way it is when you're one of the hardest-charging young moguls skiers on the circuit: Going all out gets you glory, or a place in back of the line, if it leads to a mistake in one of the Winter Games' fastest-paced, perhaps least-forgiving sport.
Deneen, 21, grew up skiing at Hyak, and has always been known for the raw speed he brings to the moguls course. He'll be looking for a spot on the U.S. squad competing a year from now at Cypress Mountain, outside Vancouver.
Torin Koos
Leavenworth, cross-country skiing
Torin Koos is getting to know the Olympic cross-country ski courses at Whistler Olympic Park nearly as well as the Canadians do. He and his U.S. teammates have made it a point to ski there as often as possible, hoping for the breakthrough that could lead to the first U.S. cross-country ski medal in four decades.
Koos, 28, the son of a biathlete, is a sprint racer who has competed in the past two Olympics. Surprisingly, he says he couldn't even tell you what the exact selection process is to make his third.
"My plan is to be in great shape, race fast, and make no doubt that I'm ready to compete well at the Olympics," he says. "When I do this, making Olympic or World Championship teams take care of themselves."
Ashley Wagner
Kitsap County,
figure skating
Wagner, 17, born in Germany (where her father was stationed in the Army), has lived in nine places, and lists her hometown as Alexandria, Va. But she still likes to spend down time in Seabeck, Kitsap County, where her grandfather, Mike James, is a retired park ranger.
Wagner recently struggled in her short program, then scored the highest point total in the free skate at the U.S. Championships in Cleveland, where she finished fourth overall. She is considered a strong favorite to qualify for the 2010 Olympic squad at the team trials next January in Spokane.
Laura Valaas
Wenatchee, cross-country skiing
Growing up in the Wenatchee Valley, Laura Valaas, 24, started skiing before she could walk. And as she has aged, she just keeps skiing farther — and faster — becoming a sprint-racing specialist on the U.S. Ski Team.
Valaas, a 2006 graduate of Whitman College in Walla Walla, is a former road cycling racer who earned a silver medal in the classic sprint at last year's under-23 World Championships — a first for an American woman. She trains with two U.S. Ski Team teammates at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage and should be a strong contender for the 2010 Olympic team.
Ron Judd: 206-464-8280 or at rjudd@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2009 The Seattle Times Company
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