This Is the Insane Amount of Money It Takes to Become an Olympic Figure Skater

[misskarne]

^I'd always heard figure skating is the most expensive sport apart from equestrian, FWIW.

Motorsport.

 

[triple_toe]

IME Tania Bass dresses ran around 2k several years ago.

 

[concorde]

Deleted.

 

[concorde]

For any skater (regardlesd of level).that reaches top 6 at Natinals, Jackson provides free boots. Or at least that is what Jackson told our fitter when he called about a year ago.

 

[concorde]

Deleted.

 

[Jennifer Freezer]

Sailing can be expensive. Even the smallest boats (sunfish/lazers) are $5500+ for a base model, not to mention storage, replacement parts (rigging, sails, etc.). If you want to get an Olympic boat, which come with heavy customization, top line parts, etc. those could easily run you $20000+, and to stay competitive you have to constantly be swapping out parts and boats. For the races around the world or across oceans, those boats will be $200,000+ (Idk an exact estimate, as it depends on the boat length). For stuff like the America's Cup boats are $1,000,000+, but those are often entirely funded by companies eager to show off their engineering departments.
A lot of sailing clubs decrease this cost by simply buying boats through membership/rental fees and have their members share the boats they have. The competitive sailors I knew (except those in yacht racing) all used shared boats. One owned her own, but it was used and paid for by her parents. She sold it once she graduated high school.

@vesperholly Elise has switched coaches a number of times. I believe she's been with Rafael, Tom Z (twice!), Ryan Jahnke, and now apparently Ravi Walia. I believe she was also in Texas at one point? And she's only 11 right now!

I really hope she loves skating as much as her mom (when her mom posted her, she said Elise could quit at any time), because moving that many times as a kid has to be awful. I moved twice and that was bad enough, but five times at age 11 is a bit excessive. I've always wondered if her Dad is military (although even then the moving would be excessive for a military family), if one parent has a strange job requiring lots of moving around, or if it's one of those crazy parent situations where no coach - no matter how accomplished - is good enough for their little snowflake.

Hi just to let you know that the moves have a lot more to them than you could imagine. We believe in a healthy happy child and the pressures put on these kids bu US coaches is ridiculous. Ravi is a gentle beautiful person, great skills but no pressure and just fun! Cost is a fraction in Canada to the US, our overall cost, including accommodation dn frequent flights home is a 1/3 of US training cost in Colorado Springs. It was at the recommendation of many parties to place Elise with Ravi as cursing a kid to get success or anything else is unacceptable to us as a family. She loves skating and refuse to take up archery, she is very good at it, so with the help of some fabulous skating mentors and coaches Ravi was the coach and environment that would give us what we wanted. A well rounded kid that will go on to make the world a better place! I believe we would all do what ever we can to help our children be good well rounded humans. not a cray skating parent, just a parent tryin to raise a good kid in an ugly world

 

[Jennifer Freezer]

Totally separate from the cost issue, but the Freezers moving around that often to different coaches raises some questions in my mind.

They could be moving for a family member's work, like Ashley Wagner did, or to follow a particular coach, like Todd Eldredge did. If they're not IME that many moves with a skater that age is, sadly, usually because of a parent getting frustrated that a coach is not making enough "progress" with the skater - which may simply be the coach doing what he or she thinks is appropriate for the skill level and ability of the skater. The parent thinks the skater is being "unfairly" held back and takes the skater elsewhere.

The comments upthread about the costume costs and the high amount of off ice training for a skater that age also concern me.

I hope that this is what Elise genuinely wants, and that if she decides it isn't what she wants, she can stop and go on to do something else.

Elise may stop at any point. She is our only child. We have many times tried to get her to leave the sport due to the crazyness of it, but she refuses. Her knee surgeries were no over training or anything, it was birth defects that had to be prepared, through all that she did not want to stop. We even offered to travel for 6 month if she did, no luck. She is actually been slowed down on process and her body preserved and enhancing skating and showmanship. We actually left our previous coach as the pressures were to high and she was been pushed to fast and I felt, with my PhD knowledge in the human body, that it would result in long term health issues as she is tiny and young. Canada is cheaper, more social, not on the "Russian" push and destroy wagon but obviously can coach skating for a kid to achieve her greatest potential, look back at her time as a skater and have great friends and even better memories.

It is an incredible sport to teach basic life lessons to go on and use later in life. We have no other hopes or dreams for Elise but to be a good Human and give back. She actually only gives 3.5hr of her day in total to anything related to skating, rest is outside activities and fun! She does not even skate weekends...crazy skating parent right...we have a family life that comes first.

 

[Jennifer Freezer]

It is over 1300 miles to Edmonton. It is an international flight with all the usual taxes, fees, and customs hassles. There is no comparison to flying from SF to LA.

Colorado Springs to Edmonton is not a “quick, two hour flight.” It is almost 5 hours with a connection through Denver and a quick google search puts the cost around $700 per person (that probably doesn’t include taxes and fees.)

No it is 2.5hr out of Denver. We work in denver. My spouse travels extensively for work 25K miles round trip and I have never paid over $300 for a refund trip ticket with United, good planning. Not a typical international flight, no real customs ect, I think it takes longer to get through LAX than Edmonton

 

[Jennifer Freezer]

In some places there is a lot of spending money because you CAN. When I was skating, there were prelim and pre-juv skaters with lessons every day, sometimes more than one each day. And some of those kids were in lessons most of the time they were on the ice (maybe one session a day practicing on their own).

So agree, but as a new parent you trust the coaches recommendation and that is why you higher a coach. We always questioned our daughter amount of lessons and were told she is to young to be alone and needed them, all the kids had that many lessons where she trained, no she has maybe 1 lesson per day, slower progress but solid and we go home for two weeks a month with no lessons and she can manage by herself as she has been taught to not depend on her coach.

 

[Willin]

Hi just to let you know that the moves have a lot more to them than you could imagine. We believe in a healthy happy child and the pressures put on these kids bu US coaches is ridiculous. Ravi is a gentle beautiful person, great skills but no pressure and just fun! Cost is a fraction in Canada to the US, our overall cost, including accommodation dn frequent flights home is a 1/3 of US training cost in Colorado Springs. It was at the recommendation of many parties to place Elise with Ravi as cursing a kid to get success or anything else is unacceptable to us as a family. She loves skating and refuse to take up archery, she is very good at it, so with the help of some fabulous skating mentors and coaches Ravi was the coach and environment that would give us what we wanted. A well rounded kid that will go on to make the world a better place! I believe we would all do what ever we can to help our children be good well rounded humans. not a cray skating parent, just a parent tryin to raise a good kid in an ugly world

It makes total sense to move to Canada to train if the cost of training is that much lower. I've also heard similar things about rink culture being a lot less stressful.

My bigger question is the moves before going there. Was there a reason for it? (ie. setting up business stuff in LA?)

 

[4rkidz]

So agree, but as a new parent you trust the coaches recommendation and that is why you higher a coach. We always questioned our daughter amount of lessons and were told she is to young to be alone and needed them, all the kids had that many lessons where she trained, no she has maybe 1 lesson per day, slower progress but solid and we go home for two weeks a month with no lessons and she can manage by herself as she has been taught to not depend on her coach.

I think that’s how many of us learned the hard way! My daughter figured skated till she was about 12 and the costs were ridiculous and once she had her double jumps it was like each solo was a splatfest, injuries etc. I was pleased when she switched to speed skating and reached most of her sporting goals, competing nationally and in Europe and now coaching etc. Through our experiences I did learn that for our kids it’s really about the journey and the amazing life skills they learn from competitive sports that truly do help them later in life. Maintaining a healthy balance is key for the whole family, not just the athlete!