SATISFYING HER NEED FOR SPEED

American Ro was terrified by skeleton. Now she's contending for a gold medal

- BY KEVIN BAXTER

AIJAZ RAHI Associated Press

ORIGINALLY a track star, Mystique Ro was at first turned off by the skeleton. "It's not for me," she said.

Mystique Ro still remembers her response the first time someone asked her to give the skeleton a try.

“You want me to do what?” she said.

That's pretty much the right answer any sane, reasonable person would give because skeleton is among the most bizarre and frightening of Olympic sports, one which requires an athlete to lie face down and headfirst on a small sled atop a sheet of rock-hard ice, then plummet down a twisting, banked mile-long chute at more than 80 miles an hour.

In the bobsled, athletes have the sled for protection; in skeleton, they're essentially limited to their helmets.

What's more, Ro is allergic to ice and hates roller coasters and skeleton is pretty much an icy roller coaster. Still, she agreed to give it a try. One try.

“I was screaming on the way down,” she remembered. “We tried it. It's not for me.”

But the coaching staff for the U.S. skeleton team refused to let fear and logic keep her from what they thought was her destiny.

And 10 years later Ro doesn't just love the sport, she has a chance to become just the second American woman in two decades to medal in the event at the Olympic Games when the skeleton competition begins at the Cortina Sliding Centre on Friday.

Ro will take part in both the women’s individual and, with Austin Florian, the team mixed team event, which is making its Olympic debut.

“It’s definitely like ‘let's try to make it work’,” she said. “It is fun. When I'm racing I have a different mindset. It’s very calm. I call it my time.