CLC’s Leech to compete at inline speed skating worlds

Crystal Lake Central junior Hailey Leech was selected to represent the U.S. as a member of the Junior Women’s Inline Speed Skating World Team. The team will compete in the world championships this September in China. (Photo provided)

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While her classmates are preparing to return to school, Hailey Leech is packing her bags.

The Crystal Lake Central junior and inline speed skater was one of six female athletes selected to represent the United States as a member of the Junior Women’s Inline Speed Skating World Team, which will travel to Haining, in eastern China near the port city of Shanghai, to compete in the Federation Internationale de Roller Sports (FIRS) Speed Skating World Championships from Sept. 16-27.

The opportunity is the realization of a dream that started eight years ago, when Leech started skating for fun at Extreme Wheels in Crystal Lake.

“I’m very excited about it,” Leech said, “because it made me realize that there still is stuff I can accomplish in this sport as long as I work really hard.”

Leech earned the opportunity to skate for Team USA, which selects six women and six men for the Senior World Team and six girls and six boys for the Junior World Team, during the Inline Speed Skating National Championships and World Team tryouts from June 28-July 4 in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the Olympic Training facility.

The top six finishers in Colorado Springs were selected for the Junior World Team, Leech said. Leech finished fourth.

Now she has two weeks until she leaves for Colorado Springs again, where Leech will stay until Sept. 5 training for the World Championships.

Leech’s departure for Colorado Springs coincides with the start of school, but Leech has addressed her situation with the school administration, she said.

Leech said she would miss the first semester of classes this year and re-enroll at Central for the winter semester. She said administrators told her she was not in danger of falling behind as she has plenty of credits.

Still, missing the start of school does make Leech different from her classmates. Couple that with the reason for Leech’s absence being a skating competition in China, and it’s safe to say Leech’s experience is much different than that of most other high school-age athletes.

“It’s been pretty hard to keep up with my friends because I’m working on skating all the time,” Leech said. “But it’s what I want, so I know people understand it.”

Leech spends about two hours twice a day skating or in the gym. While she’s in Colorado training, she expects the team will practice three times daily.

The training soon could be worth more than Leech even imagined. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is considering five sports – baseball, softball, inline speed skating, karate and rugby – for inclusion in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. On Aug. 13, the IOC will announce which two sports have made the final cut for consideration. In September, the IOC plans to unveil the final sport selected.

Should inline speed skating be chosen, Leech would have the chance to become an Olympian.

It gives her and her Team USA teammates more incentive than ever to perform well in China.

“I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am now,” said Leech, “Once this possibility started to become real, I started training really hard. It’s paying off.”