Maame Biney to replace the short track speed skating game for all the competition that will come after her, on and off the ice.
Biney, 22, became the first black woman to qualify for a U. S. Olympic short-track speed skating team. He was in the U. S. before the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, when he was only 18 years old. She is also the youngest skater in the team’s history.
Fast forward 4 years, and Biney feels guilty for the generation of speed skaters who will stick to her, knowing that she is a leader in her sport.
“I’m very revered to have this name and I look forward to using it intelligently and with respect,” Biney told me over the phone. “I think my main goal is to make sure that other young black women, especially young girls, realize that everything they think is quite achievable. I hope that even before I avoid skating, there are young black women in the game so that it can be a role-playing style for them.
But Biney also hopes to revolutionize speed skating more directly on the ice, adding to the transformation of the way skaters train.
Prior to the Beijing Games, Biney was the first to use a revolutionary new generation of speed skating education. Using motion sensors and tension generation to capture their every move on the ice in 3D, Biney and his trainer Simon Cho hope to bring home the first U. S. USA Olympic medal in women’s short track in 12 years.
They also hope Biney can set a new world record.
The women’s 500-meter world record is 41,936, set by Canada’s Kim Boutin at an ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup in Salt Lake City, Utah, in November 2019. time, which is much less difficult said than done.
Biney’s learning process on how to bring this generation into his own with his sponsor, Red Bull, has been documented in a new short film Bladerunner.
When Biney skates on her lap dressed in motion sensors, she must examine its functionality through an on-screen avatar, as well as accurate measurements of things like her shoulder angle and speed.
“It’s out of this world,” Biney said. I am highly revered for being the first user to use this technology. “
“If we can use this science, combined with its raw power, I think its perspective is limitless,” Cho says.
Biney’s speed skating strategy is necessarily manual, which tends to be vital when you succeed at speeds of up to 30 mph with 17-inch knives on your feet, but it makes up for it with its sheer power.
Off the ice, the Ghanaian local who moved to Virginia with her father at the age of five is recognizable through her megawatt smile and infectious laugh, but after her first Olympics, they denied being uncomfortable with the new projector she found herself on.
Like many first-time Olympians, he didn’t know how to handle the new weight he felt on his shoulders.
At 22, after celebrating her birthday with her colleagues on the flight to Beijing, Biney now feels less embarrassed by expectations, understanding that that of her circle of relatives and network does not count on her performance.
She is grateful to compete for a country in a row that has allowed her to make a living doing so.
“It’s a great honor to constitute America because America has given me so many opportunities and also my father so many opportunities for me to be here now,” Biney said. “I am completely grateful. I know that if it were the same scenario in Ghana, I would do other things. It would be there.
Bring home this U. S. short track Olympic medal. The U. S. for the first time in more than a decade would be “a lot,” Biney said.
“Last year there were a lot of smart adjustments for the team,” he added. “I can definitely see myself and my teammates doing very well at the Games. “
In his Olympic debut in 2018, Biney reached the quarterfinals of the 500m race, where he has the most productive chance of setting a new world record, but eliminated in the 1500m qualifying round.
Four years later, he is about to leave Beijing with a team. She understands what she has replaced in her skating. In 2018, it would enter the curve too soon and spin for too long, which would slow it down. He learned a lot about his technique, added the motion capture generation he worked on with Red Bull, and can put more pressure on the ice. double towards the exit of the corner.
Biney “really was nervous” when she made her first full World Cup team in 2017, she says. Soon after, he reached the Olympic Games.
“It’s so much in a year,” she says. Now that she has several World Cups under her belt, she feels more prepared to compete in the Olympics of her time.
Biney was inspired last season by sweeping the podium at the U. S. Short Track Speed Skating Championships. UU. de 2021, winning gold in the 500 m, 1000 m and 1500 m and winning the women’s overall title.
Biney and teammate Kristen Santos, 27, reached the quarterfinals of the women’s 500 meters at the Beijing Games.
The women’s 500 m quarterfinal final will begin at 6:30 a. m. monday m. ET (8:30 p. m. in China). The final will take place shortly after at 6:46 a. m. m. ET.
When you log in, you may not see Biney taking the ice. You’ll see Anna Digger, a tight ego she created as a child. Biney’s bubbly, lush personality doesn’t stand out at all; it’s actually so nice. As a result, she strives to be a killer, anything that requires short track speed skating, pitting athletes against each other rather than a clock.
Take advantage of his Biney ego fit to be fierce and strong. It’s a healthy coping mechanism for an elite athlete.
In fact, Biney is so interested in the other tactics that competitive athletes think about that when the competition is over, she needs a psychologist.
“I knew that even from a very young age I wanted to do anything to help people, and I never knew what that was,” Biney says. Then the University of Utah graduate turned to psychology, after becoming a five-time major, she says.
“Specifically, I need to be a sports psychologist,” Biney said. “I’ve been through a lot mentally and physically, to use the wisdom I’ve gained as an elite athlete for other athletes.
“Not to do so would be a shame. I can so many athletes, so many other people around the world.