The Cupertino Courier

Cover Story

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer

Left Turns: Betsy Dickinson (right) and Bob Payne put in some laps during a speed skating practice session at the Logitech Ice Center in San Jose.

Fast Company

Local speed skaters race the clock

By Joanne Griffith Domingue

When Betsy Dickinson laced up her ice skates for the first time nine years ago, she wasn't thinking about competitions or gold medals. But then she took up speed skating.

Dickinson, a 64-year-old Sunnyvale resident, won a gold medal in her age division earlier this year at the 2007 U.S. National Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Cleveland.

Apolo Ohno, the Olympic gold-medalist and reigning champion of U.S. short track speed skating since 2002, also won a gold medal at the meet.

"He got the fastest time at nationals this year. My gold medal was the slowest," says Dickinson. "But then he wasn't competing against women in their 60s. Watching Apolo is breathtaking. You watch speed skaters. Then he gets on the ice, and it's a different sport."

Seven or eight skaters from Northern California went to the Nationals, says Bob Payne, a Cupertino resident and past president of the Silicon Valley Short Circuits, the local short-track speed skating club.

Payne, 54, put on his first pair of speed skates when he was 42. He had always liked roller skating and decided to try speed skating. "I'm a late bloomer," he says.

Payne is also a gold medal marathon speed skater, winning in his age group (40-49) at the 1999 U.S. Speed Skating National Championships.

Speed skating is about going as fast as you can for as long as you can.

The first all-iron skate appeared in 1572 in Scotland. The abundance of frozen canals in Europe helped develop skating as a national pastime in The Netherlands and other countries.

Speed skating was the first of the three ice sports--speed skating, hockey and figure skating--to develop into a sport. Its popularity spread quickly through Northern Europe. The first U.S. speed skating club began in Philadelphia in 1849. A year later the first all-steel skate was developed. It was light and strong and didn't require the frequent sharpening of iron skates. This revolutionized the sport.

Speed skating has produced more Olympic medals for the United States than any other winter sport. Charles Jewtraw of Lake Placid, N.Y., was the first U.S. speed skater to win an Olympic gold medal. In 1980, 21-year-old Eric Heiden of Madison, Wis., won five gold medals at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Although Dickinson grew up in Minnesota, a center of speed skating in the United States, she didn't start skating until she was in her 50s. In 1996, she watched as San Jose native Rudy Galindo won the men's title in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships at the San Jose Arena. At 27, he was the oldest male winner in 50 years.

"If he can do it, I can do it," Dickinson remembers. " I even wrote him a letter."

The day after Galindo's triumph, Dickinson called her childhood friend, Diane McIntyre, who lived at the time in Redwood City. The friends went skating at the Ice Center at Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino.

"We didn't skate. We spent our time sitting on the ice,'' Dickinson says. "We were laughing so hard. We'd skate, and we'd fall. I'm not sure we ever even got up on our skates.''

That experience began a new chapter in Dickinson's life. Skating became a passion. "From then until now it has taken over my life--in a good way. Diane never went back."

Dickinson began with figure skating lessons at Vallco that she continued for three to four years. She joined a synchronized skating group that competed nationally.

Five years ago, Dickinson watched some speed skaters at Logitech Ice Center in San Jose. She thought it looked like fun and just showed up one Sunday morning at 11 a.m. A coach loaned her a pair of his daughter's skates. Dickinson brought her bicycle helmet and wore knee guards.

"I loved it right away. It looks easy but it takes a lot of strength,'' she says. "Every instinct in your body says don't lean. But you have to lean into the ice."

Dickinson began speed skating two times per week with the local club--Saturdays in Oakland and Sundays at Logitech. At first she continued figure skating. After six months, she competed in a big race. "But I couldn't do corners or crossovers. That's where you get the speed, at the corners."

She never thought of competing nationally until a year ago. A friend in her age group who was competing in the nationals invited her to come too. And she did. In 2006 Dickinson won a bronze medal in Madison, Wis.

To maintain her competitive edge, Dickinson follows a rigorous training program. She has a weekly sports massage, takes a cold bath every time she trains, skates six hours a week, lifts light weights twice a week and rides her bike about an hour a day. "I don't do hills. I ride the wonderful side streets of Sunnyvale about 10 p.m., when I can see a car three blocks away.

"For women, it is such a sense of empowerment to be physically strong. I feel fabulous. I sleep eight to nine hours a night."

Before discovering exercise, Dickinson says she was a "chunkette" and wore a size 18. Now her body is lean and strong.

She also used to be a vegetarian. "But for speed skating, I need the meat."

When skating, Dickinson wears a skin suit with built-in Kevlar knee and shin pads. She also wears Kevlar gloves and a neck guard.

Her $1,200 custom-made skates have blades as sharp as knives. Speed skating blades are much longer than hockey or figure skate blades. Dickinson's first pair of starter speed skates cost $300.

But for anyone who wants to try speed skating, the local club has loaner skates in almost every size. It is easy to get started, Dickinson says.

The national organization, U.S. Speed Skating, is concerned with bringing young skaters into the sport. The local group, the Northern California Speedskating Association, holds fundraisers to buy skates for its loaner-skate program for children and adults.

On a recent Sunday morning at Logitech, Payne and others set up the ice for speed skating. All ages were speed-skating that day, from an 8-year-old boy, carefully practicing his crossovers, to a jolly grandmother.

The organizers pulled out large, blue pads that they installed at the ends of the ice on the boards. The organizers used rubber toilet plungers, without the handles, to set up tracks on the ice. A group of black plungers marked one loop; a group of orange plungers marked a circle.

"Parents bring their kids to Logitech. The parents get interested. Then the kids go off and play soccer and the parents stay on," Payne says.

"We have a lot of teen boys who will be very good. But first they have to get through the embarrassment of having a 64-year-old woman beating them," says Dickinson.

Dickinson's license plate holder tells it all: "Speed skaters go fast and turn left."

For more information, visit the Northern California Speedskating Association website at www.norcalspeedskating.org.