-
.
Fotogallery: incontro con i media
. -
.
Rachel Flatt sceglie di frequentare la prestigiosa università di Stanford e contemporaneamente di continuare la carriera agonistica ai massimi livelli. Stanford or skating? Rachael Flatt chooses both
Rachael Flatt is enjoying her college/skating experiment, even if she has to get up at 5 a.m. for training.
This is the first installment in a semimonthly series following the life of 2010 U.S. champion and 2010 Vancouver Olympian Rachael Flatt, focusing on her adjustment to college and the pursuit of her skating career.
STANFORD, Calif. --This was going to be a long weekend, and Stanford freshman Rachael Flatt could already see it. She'd wanted to go to the Stanford-UCLA football game, but she wasn't sure if there was going to be enough free time.
"Depends on how much homework I have," Flatt said.
Flatt, the 2010 U.S. national figure skating champion, had two essays due on Monday. And she had to be on the road before daybreak, heading to San Jose, Calif., for training before making the drive back up Highway 101 to San Francisco, where her dorm was holding a 12-hour scavenger hunt around the city.
She has chosen a college life, one with classes and dorm living and the pursuit of a degree in chemical engineering. And she has chosen a skating life, one with training and competition and travel and the pursuit of an Olympic medal.
In truth, she didn't really choose at all. She's doing everything she wants.
"It's been amazing so far," Flatt said, two weeks into her first quarter as an undergrad at Stanford. "It's been a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work."
Flatt knew that going in. It's the reason people in the figure skating community tried to talk her out of going to college while she's still competing.
"A lot of people in skating told me it would be all right if I took a few years off from school, but I would eventually like to do an M.D. or a Ph.D. program and I really don't want to extend my academic career to that point," Flatt, 19, said. "I wanted to go to school and I did not want to put this opportunity off. I really wanted to get going."
But in a nod to reality, Flatt, who graduated from Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2010, deferred her Stanford acceptance for a year while she made arrangements for her new life in California. She needed time to establish herself with new coaches and prepare for the move to California. She needed rest.
Flatt has battled through injuries in 2011, winning silver at nationals then sustaining a stress fracture in her right leg before the world championships.
She competed with the injury and finished 12th. U.S. Figure Skating fined her in June for not letting them know of her injury in advance.
But she has had time to heal and time to prepare for her college life.
"The two months [to get ready] I would have had [last year] wasn't going to be enough, it was going to take more planning," Flatt said. "I didn't realize how much I needed that break and it was amazing to focus on skating for the year, but I also realized that I really need to combine school and skating."
Flatt is training with Justin Dillon and Lynn Smith. She is also spending some training time with former Olympic bronze medalist Charlie Tickner. Dillon is the "overseer of the operation," Flatt said.
Flatt is rooming with another athlete, freshman basketball player Jasmine Camp.
They've barely spent any time in their room together.
Flatt got an exemption from Stanford that allows her to keep her car on campus so that she can get up at 5 on most mornings, before anyone else in her dorm, and hit the road for San Jose or Oakland or Redwood City for training.
She's trying to keep her dorm room refrigerator stocked with fruits and vegetables to help her avoid the temptation of eating too much cafeteria food.
She will leave at the end of the month to compete in a Skate Canada event near Toronto.
In the meantime, she's a college student with three classes: computational mathematics, writing and rhetoric, and humanities. She has joined her friends to cheer on dorm mates who play on the men's and women's soccer teams.
She is among her people on the Stanford campus, where elite athletes preparing to compete at the highest levels of their sport are commonplace.
"That's one of the reasons I chose Stanford," Flatt said. "This is the kind of environment that I need. Other athletes who are majoring in engineering have told me that I can do this, that you just have to have great time management."
Flatt will compete throughout the fall, preparing for the U.S. nationals, which will be held down the road in San Jose.
"I know I am going to be sleep deprived by the time finals come around," Flatt said.
Flatt, an only child, has seen her parents recently move, too. They relocated a few weeks ago to the San Diego area, returning to their California roots after 10 years in Colorado, where Jim Flatt was working and Rachael was training. Theirs was not a story in which the skating-prodigy daughter was sent away to train and live far from home. They've been their own home base for all of Rachael's career.
Now they've sent their girl off to college.
"I miss her," said her mother, Jody Flatt. "But I think this is a good transition for all of us. I used to see her every night and now I'm talking to her a couple times a week. We usually text every day. But this is another mantle of responsibility for her. I was talking to her on Saturday and she was talking about doing laundry and I thought, 'OK, laundry.' For me, it's kind of fun to see her take on these things."
Flatt is hoping college is the more typical experience that her high school years were not.
"I don't know what a typical experience is anymore," Jody said. "But as a high school student, she was missing 12 weeks a year to compete and I think she's looking forward to the social component at Stanford and she's gotten involved in campus stuff."
Rachael is just enjoying her time as a college student.
"At this point, it's trial and error and I'm going to make it work," she said. "It is supposed to be the best four years of my life, so I'm going to go with it."
Fonte: http://espn.go.com/espnw/topics/7059151/st...tt-chooses-both. -
•Silvy on Ice~+1 .
User deleted
Skate Canada 2011 - SP 
. -
+1 .
Le hanno dedicato una copertina di una rivista di pattinaggio (mese di ottobre) 
. -
.
Rachel Flatt. -
.
ISU GP Cup of Russia 2011 
. -
+1 .
Ah però O_O 
Here it is, a 45-foot vinyl wrap of Rachael Flatt to commemorate the first day of single-session ticket sales for the Four Continents Championships which will be held in Colorado Springs! Tickets start at just $9!. -
.
2012 US Nationals short program
Video
2012 US Nationals free program
Video. -
.
Woah, trovata una foto di Rachel Flatt che pattina al Rockefeller Center (2001) 
Edited by Sylvia~ - 4/5/2012, 22:42. -
.
. -
•Silvy on Ice~ .
User deleted
SKATE AMERICA 2012 
. -
.
E così, non ce l'ha fatta...
beh, sono certa che è possibilissimo conciliare scuola e sport, o studio e sport, laurea e sport... ma non frequentando un college a tempo pieno, infatti la si vedeva per niente in forma allo Skate America. Inutile che continui a fare piazzamenti così deludenti (per i suoi standard passati), è ovvio che non si allena un numero sufficiente di ore.
Rachael Flatt rinuncia alla stagione 2012/13
"Non parteciperò alla restante parte della stagione" - ha dichiarato martedì sera la 20enne pattinatrice americana Rachael Flatt, campionessa nazionale nel 2010 e campionessa mondiale Junior nel 2008 - "Mi concentrerò sui miei impegni scolastici e sarà mio obiettivo rimettermi in perfetta salute."
La sua decisione è dovuta infatti alla recrudescenza di un infortunio a gamba e caviglia destre. Rachael si è quindi ritirata dall'Ice Challenge di Graz, che si svolgerà dal 6 al 10 novembre, e non parteciperà ai Nazionali USA a gennaio, di fatto una rinuncia all'intera stagione.
Il suo recente debutto stagionale a Skate America non era stato peraltro fortunato, con un penultimo posto.
La Flatt, che è iscritta alla Stanford University, corso di ingegneria chimica, e si allena a San José (California), si è detta molto dispiaciuta per questa rinuncia, ma ritiene suo dovere prendersi cura del suo stato di salute e si augura di potersi rimettere in fretta dall'infortunio.
Rachael Flatt, the 2010 U.S. champion and 2010 Olympian, announced Tuesday she will not compete due to injury for the remainder of the 2012-13 season.
"It is with deepest disappointment that I will be withdrawing from the Ice Challenge in Graz, Austria, and will not compete at the 2013 U.S. Championships in January due the recurrence of an injury in my right lower leg and ankle," Flatt said. "I will focus on getting healthy while pursuing my academic goals. I am saddened that I will miss out on this season, but I feel it is my responsibility to take care of my general well-being. I hope to make a full recovery. I wish the very best for all the other skaters this season."
Flatt is a full-time sophomore at Stanford University. She trains in San Jose, Calif., under coaches Justin Dillon and Lynn Smith.. -
•Silvy on Ice~ .
User deleted
. -
.
Skate America 2009! 
. -
.
La storia del suo Triple lutz-triple toe 
CITAZIONERachael Flatt: Triple lutz-triple toe
I started working on triple-triples when I was a junior lady, and I tried my first triple toe-triple toe as a junior in 2006 in St. Louis. I fell really hard on it in my program. I was a little apprehensive to work on it after that.
The next season, I was moving up to senior, and I started working on triple flip-triple toe and triple lutz-triple toe, working a lot on the pole harness. I could do [lutz-toe] quite easily on the pole; it was just a question of taking enough speed into it off the harness. I just kept cheating and cheating and cheating it. I just couldn't get enough speed and height. I had some pretty nasty falls on it, like the one I had at nationals.
In the summer of 2006, there was one of those days where I'd been doing it on the pole harness and landing it really well. I ended up just wearing the harness, with one of my coaches (Erik Schulz) behind me holding the pole, but they weren't actually connected! It was just a mental thing -- I had to convince myself I was still on the harness. ... As soon as I took that risk, I just convinced myself that I could do it, and it was so easy. It just clicked..
Ice Skating e Rhythmic Gym Forum | Pattinaggio e Ginnastica Ritmica - » Pattinatori - Skaters
- » Ex-Atleti
Rachael FLATT (USA) |
