FAU's Bowe aims for speed skating gold

By Mario Sarmento
SPORTS EDITOR

If basketball doesn’t work out, FAU’s Brittany Bowe has another career to fall back on.

Bowe, who just completed her freshman year as a basketball player for the Owls, recently won five individual titles at the U.S. Speed Skating Championships in Colorado Springs.

The result was a bit surprising to Bowe, who said, “Going into the championships, I wasn’t sure what kind of performance I would show.”

That’s because Bowe had only put on her skates “about a dozen times” during the school year. Between her studies and her duties as a shooting guard for the Owls (she averaged 5.4 points and 2.2 rebounds in 30 games), Bowe was much too busy to focus on skating.

But once the school year ended, she worked hard to get back into skating shape. Bowe found that her basketball workouts actually helped her cross train for skating.

Against skaters who train year-round, Bowe set a U.S. record in the 300-meters and won the 1,000, 500 and 500-meter road race and the 200 meters.

Her 300 time of 27.759 seconds broke the previous mark of 27.941, which Bowe had set last year.

Her reward is a trip to Rio de Janeiro for the 2007 Pan American Games July 13-29, then Bowe will travel to Colombia for the World Championships in August.

“I’m really excited to go,” she said. “I’m going with the best-caliber athletes.”

The irony is that Bowe always wanted to be a basketball player when she was a child. Her father Mike coached her at Trinity Catholic High in Ocala, and Bowe’s goal was to play college ball.

Speed skating literally came from nowhere.

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