Livonia skater Gene Kalmat preps for world competition in Paraguay
Livonia roller skater Gene Kalmat preps for upcoming world competition in Paraguay
John Heider, Wochit
Skating is all spins and speed, but he loves those three seconds he spends in the air.
Everyone stops talking, time freezes and suspense takes over.
“I love jumping; that’s the one thing I love the most about skating,” said Gene Kalmat, a roller skater from Livonia. “Humans aren’t meant to fly and that’s fact. But those three seconds you’re in the air are amazing.”
The skates hit the wood, and the audience has its answer.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen until they land,” he said.
Kalmat is Michigan’s lone representative on USA Roller Sports’team for the 2021 Artistic Skating World Championship in Asuncion, Paraguay. Kalmat qualified for Team USA by earning a silver and a bronze medal at a national competition in Iowa last month.
The world championship runs between Sept. 29 and Oct. 9. The competition also serves as a qualifier for the World Games, an Olympic-level competition happening next year.
When he isn’t competing, the 19-year-old trains at Riverside Arena in Livonia, a rink on Plymouth Road that’s been open for 81 years. Staff there say Kalmat has a kind heart, humble spirit and has dedicated countless hours to being at his best.
Kalmat found his love of roller skating at Riverside Arena. He was born with craniosynostosis, a condition that keeps him from playing high-contact sports, and roller skating ended up being the athletic outlet he found excitement in. The sport is similar to figure skating, but requires more balance manipulation because it’s done on four wheels instead of a blade.
“My mom and I used to come to this rink on Wednesday nights just as a mom and son bonding thing,” he said. “You know, you’ve got to spend time with your mother. It just became my thing. I skated around, ran into walls and I had fun with it.”
Kalmat eventually sought private lessons and started competing. His first international competition was the 2019 Artistic Skating World Championship in Barcelona, Spain. There was no 2020 competition because of the pandemic.
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“The experience of being at the world championship was amazing,” he said. “The crowd, the environment, the practices were amazing. It was my first international competition and, unfortunately, I let the nerves get to me. But that’s part of learning.”
Heading to Asuncion, Kalmat has more confidence in his ability to handle the mental hurdles of being on a world stage.
“I’ve grown a lot and I hope to do better this year,” he said. “I’m much more confident because it’s not my first time and I know what to expect.”
Kalmat is raising money through a GoFundMe called “Help Gene to get to 2021 Worlds” to take some financial burden off his parents. Kalmat is a full-time financial economics student at the University of Detroit Mercy and has a part-time job. Days before the championships start, his GoFundMe was less than $200 short of its $6,000 goal.
“It’s very expensive to travel internationally and pay for a lot of this stuff,” he said. “My parents work really hard to get me to where I am, and I’m raising money so I don’t have to put a major financial strain on them.”
Contact reporter Shelby Tankersley at stankersle@hometownlife.com or 248-305-0448. Follow her on Twitter @shelby_tankk.
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