Return to Olympics no easy task

Having already been to the Olympics, Liberty Lake’s Tom Rothrock is able to provide perspective on the process of qualifying for the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy.

“There’s a little pressure,” said the 27-year-old Rothrock, who grew up in Cashmere, Wash., skiing at Mission Ridge in Wenatchee. “You’ve just got to try to focus on your race and not trying to go to the Olympics.”

That approach worked for Rothrock in 2002, when he qualified for the Salt Lake City Games in the slalom. Rothrock crashed on his second run and did not finish.

“I was fairly happy,” Rothrock said. “It was the best experience of my life for sure. You have to go all out. It’s once every four years, and you can’t hold back at all.”

He got to compete in front of 30 to 40 family members on the biggest stage in winter sports, just two hours away from where he lived in Utah.

Rothrock was the last entry on the Olympic team in 2002 and faces a similarly tight situation in trying to make the 2006 Games.

He’s third in line to qualify for Turin, and the team takes four, but there are a few World Cup events left for Rothrock to pick up points and hang onto his spot on the team.

“It’s looking good right now, but you’ve still got five World Cups that you have to do really well,” Rothrock said. “I just really need to focus on having races that I do finish, and make sure they’re good.”

He’ll attempt to duplicate his late run to make the team in 2002.

“I think I did a pretty good job last time,” Rothrock said. “I went at it pretty good. I don’t want to do things a whole lot differently.”

For Rothrock, consistency is the key to maintaining a rank high enough to be taken to Italy.

“You could have a couple off ones,” Rothrock said.

Rothrock moved to the area a couple of years ago, but doesn’t spend a lot of time here as he races mostly in Europe and trains in the summer in New Zealand.

When he is here, he works out and does a lot of cross training and dirt biking to train without actually skiing.

Rothrock also works at Home Depot in a program designed to provide Olympic-caliber athletes with a little extra money while they train.

He’ll be traveling extensively for the next couple of months as he tries to solidify his spot on the team and attempts to master the toughest part of ski racing, being fast without being out of control.

“It’s really always kind of unknown,” Rothrock said. “You can ski fast and miss a gate, but there’s not a whole lot you can do to balance it. You have to go all out.”