Mike Wolanin | The Republic Team USA speed skaters and 2022 Olympians Andrew Heo, left, and Austin Kleba demonstrate a drill during a special practice session with members of the Full Throttle Speed Skating Team as part of US Speedskating’s 2022 Tour of the Olympians at the Hamilton Community Center and Ice Arena in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, April 14, 2022.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Olivia Abon, Michaela Aker and Vincia Li are figure skaters, but when they found out they’d have a chance to skate alongside Olympic speed skaters Andrew Heo and Austin Kleba, they traded in their figure skates for speed skates.
Wednesday night, the public had a chance to skate with the Olympians in a session at Hamilton Community Center and Ice Arena.
“I thought it was a cool experience,” said Abon, a sixth-grader at St. Bartholomew. “I got to learn how to kind of speed skate. (The speed skates) feel a lot more different than they way ours do. I’m a lot more used to those.”
Heo and Kleba, who competed in this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing, are part of US Speedskating second Tour of Olympians to promote speed skating and bring 2022 Olympians to USS clubs around the country. Full Throttle Speed Skating, run by Columbus residents Mikey and Taylor Burdekin, hosted them.
“I thought it was pretty cool because I haven’t really met that many Olympians before,” said Li, an eighth-grader at Northside Middle School.
“It’s really neat,” added Aker, a seventh-grader at St. Peter’s Lutheran. “I never thought I’d get a chance to actually meet them and skate around with them and see how fast they can actually go.”
So far this spring, Heo and Kleba have done sessions in the Chicago area; Milwaukee; Madison, Wisconsin, and Champaign, Illinois.
“The kids are great,” Kleba said. “It’s been awesome just being able to inspire everybody that we’ve talked to and seeing the bright eyes on kids’ faces and how they line up, saying, ‘We’ve been to the Olympics,’ and they get all excited. We’ve done a lot of schools and a lot of clubs such as Full Throttle here. It’s been awesome.”
Heo, 21 a short track skater from the Philadelphia suburb of Warrington, Pennsylvania, finished seventh in the 1,000 meters in this year’s Winter Games. He won the bronze medal as part of the 5,000m relay team and finished fourth in the 1,500m at last year’s World Championships.
“Just going to the Olympics itself was exciting, especially since it was my first one,” Heo said. “At the Olympics, definitley a whole new experience because we’re used to World Cups and other international events, but something on such a big scale like the Olympics is definitely an experience that I’ll cherish for a long time, if not forever. The whole vibe there was very exciting. Obviously, we were in the bubble, so we couldn’t go out and see much, but I think they did a really good job. They made a lot of stuff for us to do in the village, and I think we made the best of it and had a good time.”
Kleba, 22, a long track skater from Campton Hills, Illinois, won the gold medal in the 500m at this year’s Four Continents Speed Skating Championships. He finished 27th in the 500m at the Olympics.
“I thought it was very interesting,” Kleba said. “The media presence is very strong at the Olympics, which is different than all the other events that we do. It was definitely a little bit overwhelming, compared to other events that we’ve done in the past. I’d say that was the biggest difference. The outreach of people is also very crazy.”
Both Olympians were surprised at the lack of crowds at the Olympics.
“It was a little bit weird of an Olympics since it was both our first Olympics, we don’t have a really good grasp of what a real Olympics should be,” Kleba said. “There was no crowd or anything, so it was a little bit weird, but we all made it work.”
“I was looking forward to the crowd, but with the COVID, that was not possible,” Heo said. “But I think China did a really good job of inviting locals and allowing spectators from the local area and allowing other athletes to spectate, which also helped. We had our teammates to cheer us on.”
Heo and Kleba did a meet and greet with young skaters Wednesday. Then after a demonstration by the Full Throttle team, Heo and Kleba joined about 50 youth and adults for the Skate With The Olympians session.
Thursday morning, Heo and Kleba did a session with Full Throttle.
“It was a lot more than I expected,” Heo said. “A lot more work involved, but we’re definitely a good time. Me and Austin are having fun. It’s just fun and inspiring to be with the next generation and the impact that we have on them, I definitely was not expecting. It’s definitely a really good surprise.”
