Jennifer Rodriguez's Last Hurrah

KEARNS, Utah -- It's the last Olympics for speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez. Vancouver will be the fourth and final time she marches into the opening ceremony with the American team. It's one more Olympics than the multi-medaled Olympian ever thought she would skate in. But this time, she has no idea what will happen.

"Before, I always knew what my expectations were. This time I don't, because I took two years off after Torino, and I'm still trying to work my way back up," she said.

This ending will be a total life change for the 33-year-old Miami native, who was just four years old when she wobbled onto the pavement near her home in a pair of inline skates that didn't quite fit. From that moment, skating was all she wanted to do. After years of rolling around Miami's streets and sidewalks, she finally tried the smooth floor of a skating rink, and suddenly realized she was good -- good enough to go pro.

In 1993, Rodriguez won the inline skating World Championships. Life suddenly began moving faster. She met speed skating champion KC Boutiette and the two soon married. Boutiette introduced his wife to ice, and Rodriguez switched from wheels to blades, like many other inline skaters who made the U.S. speed skating team and became champions. Less than five years later, Rodriguez was on the 1998 Olympic team. Three Olympics later, disappointed by her performance at the Torino Games in 2006, she retired.

But Rodriguez realized that she still had more inside; that she was still hungry. In 2008, she came back to the team.

That's when the roughest road of her life started. First, the dream marriage to Boutiette broke up and ended in divorce. There went the comfort of having a soulmate who understood the sport as well as the pressures of being one of the top female speed skaters in the world -- and the first Latina. Soon after, her best friend and staunchest fan, her mother Barbara, died of breast cancer.
"I'm not as consistent as I used to be. There are days when I skate really well and could be on the podium, and days when it doesn't click, doesn't work
for me."
-- Jennifer Rodriguez
Rodriguez was devastated. The team and her teammates became her home and her family, the hard training became her solace. The ice was her only haven.

But Rodriguez says that now, because of the two-year layoff, "I'm not as consistent as I used to be. There are days when I skate really well and could be on the podium, and days when it doesn't click, doesn't work for me. Before, I knew what was going to happen. Now I don't know what to expect, so that kind of makes things exciting, makes it a little more fun, rather than all the pressure."

She will go into the Athlete's Village in Vancouver as one of America's most decorated female speed skaters: two bronze medals from the Salt Lake Olympics in both the 1000 and 1500 meters, plus six World Championships medals: a gold, a silver and four bronze medals.

The Athlete's Village may be the final experience to wipe away the the pain of the past two years. "It's the ultimate atmosphere for an athlete, because you're around the best athletes in the world in all the winter sports. You can feel it. Everyone's revved up, there's a lot of nervous energy, a lot of excitement. It's definitely contagious."

The life of an elite speed skater can be a long one, so 33 isn't old. "Skating isn't like running, where you have that constant impact on your body. Though, as you get older, you definitely have issues. I have hip issues, everyone has something. So it becomes a mental game, it becomes whether you still have that motivation to push you," Rodriguez said.

Next, Rodriguez will begin what athletes call "the rest of your life," the part that starts after competition ends.

"I'll be going to school, to become a physical therapist. Whether I retire at the end of the Games will depend on my gut feeling. Even if I continue to skate next year, I'll still start school. I won't be focusing on another Olympics; I'll just be competing to have fun and enjoy it. To say goodbye, with no stress."

And to leave this final Olympics at the top of her game, with another medal around her neck.