Lehigh Valley speedskaters lace up for a sport of spills, chills and sharp blades.
By Jim Kelly of The Morning Call
Go straight, turn left. Go straight, turn left.
It looks so effortless on the flattened dimensions of television. In skintight suits that cover everything but their faces, the speedskaters on TV look like gliding seals.
It is not until you see the sport up close that you notice the things that aren't so obvious: The thick pads strategically placed in the heavy crash areas of the rink. The skaters hunched over like Quasimodo as they round the curves. The sheer speed of an activity that bills itself as the world's fastest self-propelled sport.
Watching past Olympics on television might have piqued the interest of East Penn Speedskating Club members, but strapping on the skates has convinced them that they chose the right sport.
"I can't believe, at 41, that I am skating and racing," said Hence Bollinger of Bethlehem, who began speedskating competitively after she started the club four years ago. "It had been a dream of mind ever since I was 10 years old." Realizing the dream took some cajoling. And some pizza.
Six years ago, Bollinger read a newspaper column that noted 1988 Olympic speedskater Leslie Bader was living in the Lehigh Valley. She contacted Bader about forming a club. Bader told Bollinger she was too busy raising twins.
"I wanted to simplify my life, not complicate it," Bader recalled.
Bollinger phoned again six months later. She showed up at Bader's door with a pizza and a bottle of soda. Bollinger told the Olympian about her passion for skating.
"We sat and talked about skating for about half an hour and we talked about our lives for an hour and a half," Bader said. "We just hit it off. She is such a dynamic person, she is such a character. She would not take no for an answer."
In August 1997, more than 70 people showed up for a speedskating clinic organized by Bader, Bollinger and others at Lehigh Valley Ice Arena in Whitehall Township. Later that year, Steve Camarano opened a second rink in the complex. Friends of Bader and Bollinger started calling friends. Speedskaters began renting the ice.
The club has 25 members, with 15 regular skaters.
The aerodynamic skintight suits are fitting a little more snugly these days, now that club members are puffing out their chests in pride over the Olympic appearance of club member Allison Baver.
Baver, 21, of Sinking Spring, Berks County, was an elite in-line rollerskater. After reaching her goals in that sport, friend and East Penn Speedskating Club member Shawn Walb introduced her to the ice. She started skating short track (111-meter hockey-size rinks) in 1998 and placed fifth in the 2002 Olympic trials, wearing the East Penn logo on her outfit.
Along with Baver and Bader, the club boasts another Olympian, Leigh Barczewski, a cyclist in the 1976 Summer Olympics. Barczewski and his wife, Karyn, started bringing cyclists from the Lehigh Valley Velodrome to the speedskating club. Many speedskaters choose cycling as their off-season sport.