ARLINGTON, Tenn. (AP) — Skating came almost naturally for Arlington 9-year-old Piper Alberson when she first put on roller skates about two years ago.
Now, she has four speed-skating national records, six gold medals and a “dream sponsorship.”
“I feel great, like in a dream,” said Piper, a rising fifth-grader at Donelson Elementary in Arlington.
She said nothing else matters when she skates. “You can’t really hear anybody cheering for you. It’s like you can’t hear anything. Your brain’s talking to you and telling you what to do.”
Piper competed at the U.S. Roller Speed Skating American Championships in Colorado Springs in mid-June and walked away holding national records for the 100-, 500- and 700-meter races for rookie girls 6-9 years old and the 700-meter for elite girls 8-9 years old.
Piper clocked in at 13.171 seconds for the 100-meter race, 58.765 seconds for the 500-meter race and 1 minute, 8.879 seconds for the 700-meter race.
She also won six gold medals in rookie divisions, two silver medals in the professional competitions and got her “dream sponsorship” from Missouri-based TCK Skate Supply, a skating goods store.
“I was so excited, I just couldn’t believe it,” Piper said. “I felt pretty good about myself.”
“We’re so proud of her. She’s worked hard for all of this,” said Julie Alberson, Piper’s mom.
FROM SKATING WITH FRIENDS TO SETTING NATIONAL RECORDS
At 7 years old Piper would skate weekly with friends at the Cordova Skating Center when her mom noticed how easily her daughter rolled on the rink.
Julie Alberson then bought Piper inline rollerblades and watched her adjust to them almost instantly. Piper’s mom began looking around for recreational skating teams and could not find one immediately, so she started taking her twice a week to ice skate at the Mid-South Ice House in Olive Branch.
Once traveling back and forth from Arlington to Mississippi became too much of a chore, Julie Alberson looked around again for skating teams and found Sayle Robinson who coaches Tennessee Speed, a Memphis-area speed skating team.
“We went two summers ago just to try it out, and she’s a natural,” Julie Alberson said.
Piper attended Robinson’s speed skating training afterhours at the Cordova rink, and around the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, the coach thought she was ready to compete.
“She’s a classic example of where you can go if you just stick with it,” Robinson said. “Training used to be just a time for her to get together with her buddies and skate, and then she was just being very coachable, very focused, not goofing around, just in the zone.”
Piper trained more than four times a week since the beginning of the pandemic to become like her inspiration, Robinson’s 16-year-old daughter MacKenzie Robinson who has skated for more than eight years.
“My goal is to just try as hard as I can like (MacKenzie) and have fun,” Piper said.
Piper and MacKenzie will compete on the Infinity Racing team at the USA Roller Sports Speed Skating National Championships beginning Sunday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
THE ‘UNDERGROUND’ MEMPHIS SPEED-SKATING SCENE
Robinson started coaching Tennessee Speed around six years ago, and it has grown over the years to his surprise.
“Other people have got like eight people on the team,” Robinson said. “Well, I’ve got like 30 on the team and it seems like it’s growing, every week I’ve got another kid showing up to give it a shot.”
He never expected his team to grow to more than 15 skaters because speed skating is a niche sport and the scene in Memphis is quite “underground.”
“Here, in Memphis, speed skating is not a big popular sport,” said Julie Alberson, who helps with the team. “There are no competitions around this area, none in Tennessee.”
Robinson would recruit kids like Piper who are “rink rats” at the Cordova Skating Center, and from there he would teach skaters discipline and how to work for what they want.
He said the goal is to put the Memphis skating scene on the map, which his skaters are already doing.
Robinson has kids heading to compete in nationals, although through the chartered Missouri-based team Infinity Racing. He recently applied for Tennessee Speed to be an official team so his racers can compete in official competitions, but the team will not be established until next year.
Robinson did not see a point in chartering his team when he did not have skaters ready for national competitions, but after his daughter and Piper qualified for the championships in Iowa he felt it was time.
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