Runner Up–Three Years in a Row

Is there a failure that you've really grown to cherish over the years, that gave you this realization that hey, you know what, it actually transformed your life for the better?

Definitely. I think one of the toughest things in my career was that at the U.S. national championships was always, I feel like, the hardest competition of the year, harder than the world championships and maybe even the Olympics, because there was some much depth in the U.S. And three years in a row, I was runner up, I was second, basically from 89, 90, and 91. And at that point, it was just kinda like. So it was really the first time in my career where I thought about walking away from skating.

Really?

Yes. Yeah because I was just miserable. I think that the self-doubt was starting to take over and it's like why are you doing this? And it really was that one question that I had to ask myself and it took maybe a week or so and I tried to imagine walking away from skating and I'm like I can't do it. There's just no way. There's so much more out there that I want to accomplish. I know my chapter here in skating isn't done yet. So it was finding a way of re-discovering why I started skating. And I found in joy in training again, in skating, and literally a few months later, I went out and won my first world title, which was a month and a half after getting my third second place at Nationals.