After discovering skeleton at age 26, Curtis rides it all the way to Bejing
Kelly Curtis will be competing for the United States skeleton team in the Winter Olympics.It has been quite a trip from Princeton to Beijing for Kelly Curtis.
Like the teams representing most countries this year, America’s women’s squad is limited to two skeleton competitors, which made Kelly’s last slide her last chance to go to Beijing. Long shots that came in, thanks to sheer tenacity. Last week, speaking to NJ.com from the Olympic bubble in Chula Vista, Calif., Curtis discussed her rise in a sport that she began just six years ago. Her dad, John, a former Princeton High athletic director, chimed in from his Miami home.As the youngest of four children, Kelly certainly has athletic ability in her genes.
Debbie, the family matriarch, worked at a fitness center in Princeton, where Kelly would go visit as an 8-year-old. Despite her athletic prowess, Curtis did not start out with much of a focus on reaching the Olympics. As a junior, she won the New England Division 3 Indoor Championship in the pentathlon and finished 13th in the NCAA Division 3 Championships. In outdoor season, Curtis won the heptathlon at the Penn Relays and earned All-America honors by finishing fourth in the NCAA heptathlon.
“At that time I wanted to get into running,” Curtis said. “I wasn’t that good at running. So I was just looking for something to keep me active and in shape. I never thought I would find something that would one day lead me to the Olympics.” “I said ‘What? That’s where you go down headfirst, right?’” Curtis recalled. “So her mother and I just gave her our best wishes and I basically told her to keep chasing her dream.”Kelly did not initially harbor Olympic dreams with the skeleton. She just thought it would be cool to try. But her friends wondered why.
“But when you’re on the sled and you get to feel everything around you – you get to see very little because your head is buried – it’s a very different feeling. You just have to embrace whatever’s going on at the moment and block everything else out. I think that’s the effect I love most about it.” Like so many athletes training for a goal, there was no time for a full-time job. Thus, Curtis had to cobble together some unique odd jobs.
“Here I was thinking I would have two coaches in the family,” John said. “The two would come stay with us and have skeleton videos going and Jeff would be breaking down Kelly’s stops compared to other competitors. I had no idea what they were talking about.” “So every single time I was like ‘Alright, this will be the deciding race’ and I would win the race and I was like ‘OK, I guess I’m going to keep going down the slide.’”
Curtis continued to work and progress with U.S. Driving Coach Jack Thomas during the past year and it came down to her final slide in St. Moritz. Uhlaender had one U.S. spot secured and, with Henry ahead by 60 points, Kelly needed the best ride of her life. Following in the footsteps of her brother Jimmy, Curtis joined the U.S. Air Force in the summer of 2020. Jimmy saw active duty for four years and Kelly was impressed by his travels.
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