Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier
Ashley Demling, a 12-year-old Oak School sixth grader, skates with dreams of appearing in the Olympics some day. She practices four times a week at the Ice Chalet at Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino. Demling is among many Los Altos youngsters who regularly take to nearby ice skating rinks. Goals and philosophies among skaters vary widely. While some have eyes on the Olympic prize, others have no such goal other than incredible fun. Women's figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Nagano begins tonight.
Town Crier Staff Writer
Some Los Altos skaters have Olympic dreams, while others just have fun
There's no question about where 12-year-old Ashley Demling will be tonight. This Oak School sixth grader will be in front of the TV, watching the women's Olympic figure skating competition and rooting for her favorite, 15-year-old Tara Lipinski.
A figure skater herself, Ashley, too, dreams of the gold.
"Every time I watch ice skating, I think, 'I can go for the gold and beat those people,"' she said. "Oh, man, I just feel I can do it."
And she just might.
All she wanted for Christmas in 1996 was skating lessons, said her mom. "I can't even stand up on skates," Demling said.
Ashley got her lessons and after only eight of them she moved up four levels and entered her first competition.
For Christmas in 1997, all she wanted was new ice skates. Now she's on the ice four days a week in Cupertino at the Ice Chalet in Vallco Fashion Park. But she'd like to skate every day.
"I wish," she said.
Everyone who sees the graceful, lithe 12-year-old skate around the rink, spin in a waltz jump or glide backward doing cross-overs, says she's a natural.
"She has this desire and drive for ice skating," Demling said. "Her father was a professional soccer player. He had this drive, and she does, too."
The next step for Ashley is "more lessons and finding a really good coach. She wants to come at 4:30 a.m. and skate," Demling said.
A visitor wondered who is at the rink at 4:30 a.m.
"I have no idea. Not me," Demling said.
She might be finding out in the near future as Ashley's skating becomes more frequent.
"We started off slow," with the skating, "to see how it goes, if she continues to be enthusiastic, if she keeps her grades up."
Now the family talks about the move to the next level of training for Ashley.
"I'm always dreaming about the Olympics," Ashley said.
The Demlings clearly love and support their only daughter in her passion for skating. But some trepidation about what's ahead creeps in, too.
"This is going to cost a fortune," Demling said, "with lessons, costumes. But if this is what she wants to do, we'll support her."
For those who have an eye on the gold, "The most important thing is that you love it," said Olympic skating coach and Los Altos resident, Linda Leaver. She coached Brian Boitano in the 1984, 1988 and 1994 Olympics. And in 1988 he won the gold in men's figure skating.
"Nobody could make a person work that hard. The dedication, the hours it takes. It takes a tremendous amount of time and energy. If you love it more than anything, it's for you. It's a great thing for any young person to have a passion," Leaver said.
Today she still coaches Boitano, who skates professionally, and she manages his career. "That takes 40 to 50 hours per week," Leaver said.
For someone who wants to compete, the Bay Area is a good place to be.
"A huge number (of top skaters) are coming from here. There's a very high level of skating here. They all helped each other be good," Leaver said.
"You need a situation where there's training going on and you skate on sessions with other competitors, because you're going so fast," Leaver said.
She lists off world-class skaters from the area like Rudy Galindo, U.S. champion in 1996; and Olympic skaters Peggy Fleming, who won a gold medal in women's figure skating in 1968; Kristi Yamaguchi, who won a gold in 1992; Debi Thomas, who won a bronze in 1988; and Boitano, who won the gold medal in 1988, all of whom have come from this area.
In fact, Boitano was "born right here at El Camino Hospital (in Mountain View)," Leaver said.
Just like Ashley Demling, who was also born at El Camino.
Given Ashley's love of skating, her drive and incredible natural ability, competition seems to be clearly in her future.
But, "Competition isn't for everybody," Leaver said. "It's a wonderful sport, to skate for your own personal goals, for the camaraderie of being with your friends, it's beautiful. It helps you develop yourself. You stand alone, and it builds self confidence, self esteem. And if you fall, you've got to get up. There are a lot of good lessons to learn, valuable life lessons."
Just ask Irini Kolaitis, a 15-year-old from Los Altos who is in the ninth grade at Castilleja School in Palo Alto. She has been skating since second grade.
"I just like to be with my friends. I don't have any goals of going to the Olympics. I just like to keep in shape."
Irini and her friends skate in Palo Alto at the Winter Lodge.
"We don't do competitive skating," said Linda Jensen, executive director of the Lodge. "We want you to be the best skater you can be, to be feeling good about yourself, not about beating someone else."
In the early morning, high school girls spin on the ice. Every afternoon hundreds of children take lessons. There are 1,000 children in the skating school, and the classes are filled, Jensen said. She said about 30 percent of the children are from Los Altos.
Skating is big, no question.
And at the Winter Lodge they love to watch the Olympic skating, too.
"We tape it. When it's on here everyone's glued to the TV," said Amy Groves, a Los Altos 15-year-old and a ninth grader at Los Altos High School.
Amy has been skating for eight years.
"My friend got me started. She stopped, I continued," she said. I just like to skate. I don't want to feel the stress of competition. You always have to have everything perfect. I like to do it for fun."
She usually skates at 7 a.m. before school. "Sometimes my friends think I'm crazy."
Amy would like to do ice shows during the summer at the San Jose Ice Center.
Amy's mother, Robby Groves, also skates. She began skating eight years ago when she was 46. "I'd just quit work, after 20 years in the clinical lab at Stanford Hospital, and my friend said, 'Let's take lessons.
"I tried it. I liked it. It's very relaxing." And now she's part of the group of morning ladies who skate - it's an adult ice show class.
Her coach is Los Altos resident Bobbie Squires, 54, who teaches at the Lodge.
"I take them from where they can't even stand up on the ice all the way up to jumps and spins," Squires said.
Most of her skating she learned as an adult, too. She started skating 15 years ago. "To me it's thrilling," she said. If her students begin training to compete, "they may go on to another coach," at another rink, she said.
That's just what Tina Mandella did. This 18-year-old, a Los Altos Hills resident and Gunn High School senior, has been skating for 13 years.
"I used to watch the skaters at Valco," she said. "My parents would go shopping, and I wanted to watch the skaters."
She began her skating at the Winter Lodge but came to the point where she wanted to compete.
"My mom never pushed me. It's always been something I wanted to do."
She left the Winter Lodge and began skating in Belmont to compete. But it wasn't for her, and she returned to skating in Palo Alto.
"I've seen some skating parents get pretty ridiculous," Mandella said. "They get mad at their kids when they mess up, you slip, you drop your shoulder."
Some parents do get pushy, agreed many of the teens.
"We go wrong when it becomes the parents' sport," Leaver said, and lose sight of it as a tool to develop their child."
Her two daughters, 24 and 16, are not skaters.
"After the Olympics a lot of people will start their skaters in lessons," she said. "Hopefully they'll enjoy it, and we'll have a whole new group of skaters."
She offers this advice to aspiring skaters.
"Never do it to win," Leaver said, "or to become a medalist. But do it to develop your mind and body and sportsmanship. Then you're always a winner."
For more information about skating, the Winter Lodge, located at 3009 Middlefield Road in Palo Alto, can be reached at 493-4566. The Ice Chalet in Cupertino can be reached at (408) 446-2906. The Ice Center of San Jose, 1590 S. Tenth St. can be reached at (408) 279-6000.