15-Year-Old San Jose Ice Skater Makes Olympic Team, Headed To Sochi
SAN JOSE (KCBS)— The South Bay has produced many figure-skating stars including; Peggy Fleming, Brian Boitano and Rudy Galindo just to name a few, but there's a young teen about to join that select group on her road to sports fame.
Over the weekend, 15-year-old Polina Edmunds was named one of three female figure skaters who will make up the U.S. Olympic team.
She's the first Bay Area Olympic single skater since Kristi Yamaguchi of Fremont won the gold medal in 1992.
Edmunds has trained at Sharks Ice at San Jose for much of her life. On Monday, fellow skaters at the rink cheered her on.
Practice pal, Marina Capatina said Edmunds is very dedicated and can bring home the gold.
"She became a champion by the way she's practicing and I think she's practicing very well. Just because she's not like those Russians doing really tough warm ups, doesn't mean that she can't be like them. She has her own way of doing stuff," Capatina said.
The American figure-skating team is considered the underdog going against the Russians, South Koreans, and Japanese teams in Sochi, Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics next month.