Jan. 17, 2002 – When the torch is lit at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City in February, the U.S. Virgin Islands will have eight or possibly nine athletes on hand to compete.
None are favorites to take home medals, "but people of the Virgin Islands ought to take pride in the fact that these people are able to qualify," said Larry Heikkila, a member of the V.I. Olympic Committee.
For example, he said, of the 130 women who competed in the Women's Luge World Cup, an Olympic qualifying event, only 30 will compete at the Olympic Games. Two of them are representing the Virgin Islands.
Hans Lawaetz, VIOC president, said that while the event is a pinnacle experience for the local athletes, it also is an opportunity for tremendous exposure for the Virgin Islands. He said the committee has not yet decided who will carry the Virgin Islands flag in the opening and closing ceremonies.
Eight athletes have qualified in events that are best described as sliding down an icy hill at breakneck speeds in various positions on sleds of varying shapes and sizes.
In bobsled competition, the racers climb into an open car and sit down. In luge, the athletes race lying on their backs, feet first. In skeleton, they race lying on their stomachs, head first.
Julianne "Anne" Abernathy, 49, and Dinah Suzy Browne, 32, have qualified for luge. Zachary Zoller, 28, and Quinn Wheeler, 27, have qualified to run in the two-man bobsled event. And Keith Sudziarski, 28, Paul Zar, 34, Christian Brown, 34, and Michael Savitch, 28, make up the four-man bobsled team.
The ninth V.I. athlete, Troy Billington, 34, will have to pass muster in late January in order to qualify to represent the territory in the skeleton competition.
Heikkila said that it has been the most difficult for Billington to qualify because this is the first time since 1948 that skeleton is on the roster of events and the Olympics organizers are keeping close tabs on who qualifies. "He's going up against stiff odds," Heikkila said.
Billington and the others all have faced an uphill battle to raise money to fund their training to qualify for the quadrennial games. Since the Virgin Islands has no snow, they train on the mainland and in Europe. And, like all of the other Olympic athletes, they must attend international competitions far away from home in order to qualify.
"No matter where you're from, you have to go to Lake Placid [New York], Park City [Utah] … " Heikkila said, ticking off a list of distant competition venues.
He said that fundraising this year was particularly difficult because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Early fall is the traditional time to push for money, he said, but this year local business owners uncertain of their financial futures in this tourism-based economy were reluctant to donate.
Lawaetz said the V.I. Olympic Committee has contributed $35,000 to help defray training costs for the nine athletes.
In the Olympic Games, competitors represent nations. However, the U.S. Virgin Islands, like Puerto Rico, is counted as a sovereign entity. Thus, while athletes from any of the 50 states have to compete with all others in the country to make the U.S. team in a given event, those in the territory qualify for their own "national" team.
This will be the fifth time the Virgin Islands has sent a delegation to the Winter Olympic Games. Abernathy, who Heikkila said works for AOL out of her home in Peterborg on St. Thomas, has been on all five. This is the first time for Browne, a native Crucian who teaches English at Central High School, and she is the first black athlete to qualify in women's luge. Zollar competed in 1994 and 1998, but this is the first time for his partner on the two-man bobsled, Wheeler.
Three members of the four-man bobsled team also have Olympic experience. Sudziarski and Brown were competitors in 1994 and 1998, and Zar took part in 1992, 1994 and 1998.
Zoller, Zar and Sudziarski are partners in Senor Pizza on St. Thomas's East End. Over the years, "The pizza business has funded the bobsledding," said Sudziarski's father, Gene Sudziarski.
He said that Browne, who used to work for the Planning and Natural Resources Department, "has put his life on hold" while he trains for the Olympic Games. Wheeler is a bartender at Café Wahoo on St. John.
Billington, who has been devoting his time to skeleton training, formerly worked at the St. Croix Boys and Girls Club and at Guy Benjamin School on St. John. If he qualifies, he will be the first black athlete to do so in skeleton.
Lawaetz, Heikkila and Gene Sudziarski will accompany the team to Salt Lake City. Additionally, a physician and coaches are expected to attend.
The senior Sudziarski said that in an effort to help raise money, a $100-a-plate fundraiser will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. on Sunday at the East End Café on St. Thomas. There'll also be an after-hours event with music; admission is a contribution of $5.
