By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 15, 2005
MARQUETTE, Mich., Dec. 14 -- There was no reason to expect a warm welcome in the United States. Hyo Jung Kim hated the atmosphere at her speedskating club in Seoul. She said she wilted under the pressure and fumed at the daily criticism levied by her coach.
But when she left her parents and home at 15, determined to reinvigorate her promising career in short track speedskating in a country with less rigid training methods, she wasn't escaping problems. Her life got better, but it didn't get easier.
In South Korea, she was unhappy but comfortable. From the moment her plane landed in the United States, she was the best woman in the entire U.S. program, a rare female short track skater with legitimate Olympic medal potential. But in her early days at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, she was neither happy nor comfortable. She spoke no English. She was homesick. She had no close friends, and no way to reach out. She abhorred American food.
Nothing was smooth, except the ice.
In her first U.S. Olympic trials, Kim has set two American records and won every race halfway through the event, which will conclude Friday. Kim, who turned 17 last week, is a lock to win one of the five spots on an otherwise uncertain U.S. women's roster for the 2006 Winter Games that open in Turin, Italy, on Feb. 10. Teammates and coaches say she has the technique of a veteran skater, the grace of a ballet dancer, the strength of a workout junkie and the incalculable ice instincts of Apolo Anton Ohno.
But there is one major distinction, U.S. speedskater Brigid Farrell noted recently:
"She is just a kid."
Her new teammates, some in their 20s and 30s, and many of whom saw their Olympic hopes dwindle with her arrival, picked up on that right away. Instead of resenting her, they felt sorry for her. She was supposed to elevate the entire U.S. team. She, however, was the one who needed help.
"When I came here, I had a really hard time," Kim said in English. "I called my parents all of the time but I couldn't tell them I wanted to go home or 'I'm sad' because I know they were sadder than me . . . [but] I was crying every day."
Kim said she had wanted to escape her Korean club team because of personal problems with her coach of four years. She said the coach pressured her, but she declined to give specifics. Her U.S. roommate, Allison Baver, said Kim had relayed a tale of being forced to do a skating drill for two hours despite a painful shin injury.
"I don't like to keep in mind bad experience," Kim said. "He just didn't teach me honestly."
Kim's parents moved to the United States for business reasons in 1979 and stayed for more than 10 years. Her father, who speaks fluent English, got U.S. citizenship. The Kims moved back, however, and Hyo Jung Kim was raised in Seoul. She took up the sport, which is wildly popular in South Korea, while in elementary school.
Her father's foray into the United States gave her dual citizenship and a choice. She moved to the United States in January 2004.
"The Olympics is my dream," Kim said. "I didn't think about the country. I just wanted to go to the Olympics."
Asked recently about Kim, who chose the nickname Halie soon after her arrival, Farrell said: "You mean my little sister? I'm the one who makes her do her homework and corrects her English. . . . I see how hard it is to be in a place like this and deal with everything."
Said Baver: "I'm totally being her mother. We all felt responsibility in some way; the guys, too."
In less than two years, Kim's star potential has been diluted by her inability to tap into her abilities at the right times. She failed to win any medals in four World Cup events this fall despite high expectations. Even so, she remains a likely medal contender in Turin.
"Her finish ranking in so many races could easily have been on the podium," said U.S. teammate Caroline Hallisey. "It's just a little inexperience that keeps her off the podium. . . . I don't understand the strength and ease she gets from the sport. It's amazing to watch, and I think that's what's going to bring her to great heights in the sport."
Though international results haven't come as quickly as Kim would like, in many ways she has grown up fast: blossoming from an overwhelmed and introverted 10th-grade student who initially couldn't attend classes because she knew just a few words of English into a young athlete willing to be interviewed in her adopted language.
Farrell bought Kim a book soon after she arrived. It was, she said, an animal board book for toddlers. Farrell sat with Kim like she used to sit with her younger siblings.
"At first she couldn't say 'squirrel,' " Farrell said. "I taught her all the farm animals."
Her teammates pushed her in other ways. Farrell and Rusty Smith took her to the Mall of America on a trip to Minneapolis. They invited her to join in making a birthday cake for a teammate's birthday; Kim broke her first egg as she participated. Farrell and other teammates have taken her canoeing and water skiing in New York.
"Everybody," Kim said, "they are just like brothers and sisters."
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