Even at the age of 14, when I started my skeleton career, I knew that the adrenaline from sliding at speeds reaching over 120km/hr was for me. Initially I was hoping to transition from my club track team to a bob sled athlete; however, I was too eager and young to wait to go down, so it was head first for me! Competing in Track and Field led me to the sled sport recruiters, as there are similar fundamental movements in the equally different sports. Speed and power correlate with both sports and when focusing on one's start time in skeleton, the more powerful and fast you are the better.
Travelling back and forth from my home town of Red Deer AB to Calgary, was worth missing all the school and extra curricular activities average high schoolers experience. Winsport, Calgary's olympic training centre, was key in my training as they have a full track and one of North America's only indoor ice start house. Perfecting my sprint style came from both my track coaches and sled coaches for the last five years and most recently, to improve my power, I have been introduced to the world of olympic weight lifting (but we will talk about that later!).
Participating in skeleton has taught me that sports can be thought of in a broader paradigm, as many different sports intertwine with in each other. This furthers my belief that when building athletes, they should be introduced to as many sports as possible to create a more well rounded player. This also feeds into the idea that they can be active for life, as if they do not enjoy a certain sport or if they obtain an injury, they can always find another outlet to stay PHYSICALLY LIT!
~ Mr. Huo
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