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Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Hot Wheels: A Willow Glen roller-skate dancer is flying to Japan to film a commercial, and returning to train for the Olympics.
Teen queen is the 'Nancy Kerrigan of the artistic roller-skating world'
Willow Glen skating champ entertains Olympian hopes
By Jessica Lyons
Seventeen-year-old Amie Alnutt glides across the rink, her blond hair slicked back in a pony tail, the skirt on her blue velvet skating suit ruffled from her speed. She skates faster, preparing for a lift, her athletic legs powering her lean frame in unison with partner Andy Minieri, clad in a T-shirt and matching blue velvet pants. He lifts Amie above his head, and her foot almost grazes the disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Andy spins, and gently lowers Amie back to the plastic-coated rink floor. The pair circle the Skate World rink, past the fuchsia and turquoise dots and zigzags on the walls, as an organ arrangement of "Makin' Whoopee" plays in the background.
"It's scary watching her," says Pat, Amie's mom, as she watches her daughter from the sidelines. "Every time they do a lift, I think 'don't drop her, don't drop her'--and she has been dropped."
Practice complete, Amie skates over to the edge of the rink and steps through the entry way onto the maroon carpet. She skate-walks over to the bench outside the rink.
"I didn't take skating seriously at first," she says, playing with a thin gold chain around her neck. "I'd just gotten out of tap and ballet, so it was just a different sport. Now it's pretty much brought out my personality. At school I'm known as the skater."
A roller skater, that is.
In a week from this practice, Willow Glen's roller girl will skate off to Japan, where she and Andy are filming a commercial--a rare opportunity for roller skaters, they say. Most promotional deals go to ice skaters. Indeed, for the majority of the skating-exhibition watching public, figure skating, pairs skating, dance skating--all of that means ice. Amie and her mom are used to that.
"Everyone says, 'Oh, they do ice,'" Pat says, when she tells friends about her daughter's accomplishments on the rink. "I thought about switching her, but she was doing so well in roller. I didn't have the heart to switch her.
"It's just like ice skating," she adds. "It's the exact same thing, but it's three times harder on roller."
A sport that's gaining momentum, roller skating programs under USA Roller Skating boast a membership of more than 32,000--in speed skating, artistic skating and roller hockey--and over 1,100 skating clubs across the United States that fall under the umbrella organization for amateur roller skating. There are a dozen clubs in the Bay Area--including one artistic skating club in San Jose--with about 400 members, says Tommy Andrew, secretary for the Southwest Regional Championships. The Southwest Regional competition--where all of California's skaters compete in hopes of proceeding to the national competition and the world competition--is the largest regional competition in the world, Andrew adds.
If roller enthusiasts have their way, they will be skating right alongside the ice skaters in the 2002 Winter Games--that's when roller speed skating is slated to be introduced as an Olympic sport. Artistic skaters hope their sport will follow suit.
"It would be great, but it won't happen right away," says Andy Grubbs, Amie's coach for dance skating. "A lot of it depends on the countries involved and how they take to the speed skating." A world champion himself, Grubbs coaches for both the Santa Clara Artistic Skating Club and the Redwood Artistic Club in Redwood City.
But when it does happen, roller skaters will be ready. In October, a select 150 Olympic hopefuls from around the U.S. travel to Colorado Springs for an intensive week of round-the-clock skating at the Olympic Training Center. For the past four years, Amie has been one of the chosen few. At the camp, skaters work with Olympic trainers from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. It has its perks, as Andy says: "The food's real good and it's free."
But at the moment, Amie's more concerned with her upcoming trip to Japan than with any post-millennium Olympics.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Dance With Me: Partners Amie Alnutt and Andy Minieri strut their stuff on the Skate World rink before skating off to Japan to film a television commercial.
Skating commercially wasn't in Amie's original game plan--although a gold medal and world championship are--until a Japanese agent spotted the duo rollering in Central Park. A chance occurrence, kind of like how Amie got her start.
She's only been skating since she was nine, and the initial interest in the sport came from mom, not daughter.
"I started taking adult classes," Pat says. "And I enjoyed it so much that I enrolled Amie, too."
So, Pat started Amie in "star" or beginner classes. Now, more than 50 competitions, at least five pairs of skates and countless gasoline miles later, she's well on her way to becoming the Nancy Kerrigan of the artistic roller skating world. Amie practices in either Santa Clara or Redwood City five days a week: Monday to Wednesday from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday from 2:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. until noon. She competes about once a month. In roller competitions, skaters enter artistic events in four categories: singles, pairs, figures and dance skating. Amie competes in solo dance and in pairs with Andy. She's only one skating test away from competing for a gold medal, and has already won first-place trophies in the southwestern regional artistic skating competition, and the national artistic skating competition for dance.
Sometime between school, skating and sleep, Amie manages to study and maintain straight-As at Del Mar High School.
"I go to school, skate, do homework and go to bed," she says, describing her schedule. On Friday and Saturday, her skate-free days, "I usually go out with my friends and babysit. But I pretty much skate and go to school."
And does she ever consider converting to ice?
"People ask me if I ice skate, but I don't really take an interest," she says. "I've tried ice but I don't really like it. It's really different edging--and it's too cold."
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
