ATLANTA — The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is inspiring local athletes to sharpen their skates, even down south in the warm weather of the Peach State.
As the Winter Games continue to drive curious athletes of all ages to their local ice rinks, the Georgia Figure Skating Club is now 400 strong.
It's a training ground for hundreds of the metro's skillfully experienced and brand new skaters alike. Georgia Figure Skating Club President Rob Lichtefeld is welcoming all interested in the winter sport.
Watching the best in the world during the Olympics inspires a lot of people, of all ages, to give it a try – through groups like the Georgia Figure Skating Club.
"For a southern city, southern metro area, we're actually a fairly large set of ice skaters here. There's two clubs in town - the Georgia Figure Skating Club and the Atlanta Figure Skating Club, we're both about 400 members," Lichtefeld said. "That's judges, coaches, skaters, parents, friends of figure skating - so it's the people that are involved with the figure skating community, with figure skating in the Atlanta area."
Lichtefeld said the Olympics are a major inflection point for interest in figure skating.
"There's usually a huge influx of kids and their parents coming in on public sessions or signing up for learn-to-skate... usually they kind of plan on having more sessions for lessons beginning after the Olympics or after (the World Championships), it just seems to be the thing that kicks people off," he said.
Lichtefeld added that it's never too late to get started with the sport.
"There's a lot of people like myself that took it up older. I was in my late 30s and I've continued skating 'til I'm now in my 60s... my first competition I was in my 30s competing against somebody in his 70s - he took it up as (physical therapy) after his first stroke," he said. "So it does look a little hard the first time you get out there in a public session, you're wobbly, you think 'Well there's no way I can do this.' It's really just one of those things you have to practice."
The club president said he believes it's definitely possible for a young figure skater to get their start in metro Atlanta and get all the way to the Olympics.
"For kids it's like they see these beautiful people on the ice doing amazing elements - spins, jumps, lifts, throws - and it's like, 'I wanna do that.' You see kids out here at six (years old), that are like, 'Okay, I have Olympic dreams.' Given the right skills, the right training, the right mindset - you can make your way towards the Olympics," he said.
In many ways the Olympics, he said, are the unifying purpose of clubs like the Georgia Figure Skating Club.
"We are - U.S. Figure Skating and local clubs - developing our future champions, and the champions will eventually one day hopefully make it to the Olympics," he said.