What It Costs To Raise A Winter Olympian
If you're watching the Winter Olympics this month and junior gets an urge to go for the gold, chat with Eric St. Pierre first. from South Korea as a young child, and dropped out of school chasing her dream. Then there's the former female team member カルティエ 結婚指輪 St. Pierre won't name who missed 100 of 180 classroom days, thanks to the travel and practice time Olympic prep demands. Once in the fold at the organization's Salt Lake City training center, skaters are put through seven-to-nine-hour days of training and treatment. "Most have no opportunity to go to college," says St. Pierre. "And some don't even finish high school."
reRedditThen there's the money. If you're intent on seeing your son's or daughter's mug on a Wheaties Box, be prepared to spend. Most Olympic sports, including speed skating, offer funding through カルティエ 財布 the sport's national organization and the USOC for the elite athletes once they make the national team. But as far as getting there, most are on their own.
Beth Bedford, ニューバランス キッズ mother of USA Speed Skating team member Ryan Bedford, estimated the cost of her son's training during his climb to the elite level--coaching, ice time, travel, equipment and assorted dues--at $13,500 a year. For プラダ バッグ a serious speed skater, a pair of quality boots costs $2,000.
Parents of aspiring downhill racers can expect to spend anywhere from $6,000 to $30,000 a year (for a full-time ski academy) for 10 years en カルティエ ネックレス route to World Cup proficiency. Ski Association picks up the tab once a skier has made the national team--often $200,000 annually. Many ski jumpers start as early as age 7. Those with promise will typically train for a decade or more, eventually putting in four to five hours per day improving their timing and vertical leaping mcm リュック 激安 ability. Expenses run as high as $14,000 a year. Cross-country skiers, whose goal is endurance and technical proficiency, put ポールスミス バッグ in a similarly exhausting schedule, though costs tend to run lower--say $6,000 to $8,000 annually.
And that clich you often year about competitive figure skaters--that most can skate as soon as they can walk? It's not an exaggeration. Future Olympians start as soon as they can stand on skates and train three hours a day for a decade or more. The cost? Families shell out roughly $100,000 over the years in private ice time, coaching, custom-made mcm リュック dresses and skates, travel and various competition fees. And only a handful of them end up peddling cars, cereal and fruit juice.
Looking for シャネル 財布 a bargain? Try curling. Known in some circles as golf on ice--with team members sliding stones down 140 feet of ice to a ポールスミス スーツ target on the other end. "Sweepers" use brooms to make sections of the ice more slippery, thereby directing as they slide. Getting into curling is generally cheap for beginners-- usually a few hundred dollars annually for brooms, shoes (known as "sliders" and club dues.
USA Curling picks up the tab for national team members--some $120,000 annually to field a squad. Still, the training isn't easy. Serious curlers put in 20 to 30 hours a week for practice and various tournaments. The competition to build stamina and get the finer points down is critical, since the sport doesn't particularly value one type of athlete over another.
"A big part of it is team attitude, the ability to be a part of a team and to get along," says Rick Patzke, the chief operating officer of USA Curling. Sounds like a deal.
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