Three Olympic Games without a medal haven’t deterred skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender from trying again at a fourth in Pyeongchang.
Neither has her frustration over the reversal of an International Olympic Committee decision to ban 28 Russian athletes and strip them of their Sochi medals amid evidence of widespread doping — a turn of events that denied her a bronze medal.
These setbacks — and the death of her father — may have challenged her Christian faith, she said. But they did not shake it loose.
“Quitting is never an option, so why would I quit on God? He guides me and gives me the strength to keep going,” she told Christian Sports Journal.
Uhlaender makes her first run of the 2018 Winter Olympics on Friday (Feb. 16) in skeleton, the sliding sport in which athletes speed down an icy track face first.
The 33-year-old Coloradan was raised an athlete by her father, Major League Baseball pitcher Ted Uhlaender. She was skiing at 18 months, and she competed in the U.S. Olympic weightlifting trials before the 2012 Summer Games in London, according to NBC.
She also was raised in church. She went to services with her grandmother while visiting her in Texas, she told CSJ, though she did not name a specific church or denomination. Later, she started to go “on my own as many days as I could because the church youth groups were a ton of fun for me.”… Read More
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