Brittany Bowe golden girl once more

Brittany Bowe is at it again.
The Ocala native swept through the Speed Skating Outdoor Nationals last week at the Olympic Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., collecting five gold medals and setting new records in the 200 (18.49) and 300 meter (25.95) time trials. Bowe also snagged titles in the 500 (46.70), 1,000 (1:39.68) and took the overall title in the Junior World Class Ladies division with 20 total points.

Bowe, who plays basketball for Florida Atlantic University, completed her impressive run at outdoor nationals after an eight-month layoff from the sport during the fall and winter months.

"I don't want to say (I was) concerned (about the layoff), but I was very unsure about how I would perform," Bowe said. "I came home for spring break and trained a little bit. Then right after school ended in May I came home and wrote down my training schedule and tried to prepare myself for nationals, and it paid off. I think the combination of basketball and skating really helped because we do so much agility and speed work. I think (basketball) really complemented my skating."

Bowe prepared for outdoor nationals by entering various indoor events, which is normally where she thrives. After lackluster performances in those prep races, she began to hear rumblings from competitors about how she had lost her edge.

As the sharks began circling, Bowe turned the situation into added motivation.

"It did motivate me," Bowe said of the second-guessing. "I was getting third and fourths and I really wasn't even in the race at the end. I wasn't comfortable on my skates at all."

Bowe then took a trip to the World Inline Cup - a series of races in Asia and Europe - and got the first indication that her skating was back to par.

"One of those races was a 26-mile marathon in Korea that I won, which was amazing," she said. "I'm pretty sure the girls out there were like 'if we're gonna beat Brittany, this will be the year, because she hasn't

skated at all' and blah, blah, blah.
"So, yeah, I surprised myself."
Bowe got some more good news last week when the 19-year-old was selected to participate in the Pan American Games as part of the four member TEAM USA in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in July.

Read More ...