Everything was lined up for a truly strange encounter for a local athlete at the U.S. Olympic speed skating trials before pairings were revised.
The original pairings for the men’s 1,500 meters Jan. 4 at the U.S. Olympic Trials for long-track speed skating set up one of the strangest head-to-heads possible.
Sixteen-year-old Henry Schlichting, who is a junior at Arrowhead High School and lives in Pewaukee, was supposed to race alongside 55-year-old four-time Olympian KC Boutiette before a revision split them one pair apart.
“That would have been nice,” Boutiette said. “Instead, I got my ass handed to me by some dude I don't know. I don't [really] know the young kid either. We chatted before. But they should have left that alone … like, you got the oldest guy, you got the youngest guy. Let us pair together regardless.”
Neither was going to qualify.
Boutiette runs two businesses and competes only part time but loves to keep his hands in the sport. Schlichting is in his first trials and can only dream of a future in which he makes a junior world team or World Cup team. Still, both were able to race at a level few people can in a sport they love.
Boutiette, who struggled through a chest cold, placed 18th among 24 starters, two seconds behind Matthew Salm of Grafton, who ended up 14th. Schlichting was 21st.
“Whenever I remind myself that I am skating with people that have been to the Olympics, it's definitely encouraging, even if they're a bit older now,” Schlichting said.
“I've definitely enjoyed skating. I think I could be doing a little bit better right now. It's been fun. A little nerve wracking as well.”
Boutiette is always intrigued by pairings and curious about the other skater.
“It's fun because some of them know who I am. Some don't,” he said. “They look at the personal best and they're [shocked]. My personal best is 1:46, and I'm skating against the guy who is doing 1:56. It's got to be like, who's this old dude that I'm racing.”
An old dude who set those bests before many of his competitors were born.
Other highlights for Wisconsin athletes in the 500 and 1,500 meters at the U.S. Olympic trials
In addition to Schlichting and Jordan Stolz, the phenom from Kewaskum who won the first 500, upwards of a dozen other skaters with ties to Wisconsin competed across the four races held Jan. 4.
Among them:
Finn Siebert of the Wisconsin Speed Skating Club and Marquette University sophomore Leo Drossos-Thompson both set personal bests for the second straight day and did so in both events.
Drossos-Thompson’s 37.024 in the 500 was good for 10th overall, and Siebert’s 37.645 was 17th best.
“I've been getting close to the 37s throughout practices and other time trials so I was hoping today would be the day,” Siebert said. “So I'm glad I got it today. But maybe we can even go faster in two weeks in Salt Lake [at high altitude].”
Both are looking to use their first trials as a steppingstone to the future.
“It's good knowing that I got a PB and made mistakes so I could build off [Sunday] for another 500 tomorrow and hope to clean up those mistakes and get yet another PB,” Drossos-Thompson said. “That'd be amazing coming off of this weekend.
“I've been feeling pretty good I was just hoping to use this as a base for four more years, hopefully, and to see myself on an Olympic team, that'd be pretty nice.”
Later in the day, Drossos-Thompson skated the 1,500 meters in 1:52.619, ninth fastest. Siebert finished in 1:54.028, good for 13th.
Piper Yde of Nashota held a podium spot in the 1,500 for a time between Greta Myers’s disqualification and reskate. Yde has competed in every distance so far and finished fourth in the 1,500 and ninth in the first 500 after placing third in the 3,000 on opening night and ninth with a personal best in the 1,000 on Jan 3.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Pewaukee teen speed skater, Olympic legend narrowly miss Pettit moment
Category: General Sports
