Rachael Flatt
Figure Skating - Singles
2010 Olympic hopeful
Personal Specs
Height: 5'0"
Coach: Tom Zakrajsek
School: Cheyenne Mountain High School
Short List Performance
- Two-time U.S. Championships silver medalist (2008 and 2009)
- 2009 World Championships - Fifth
- 2008 World Junior Champion
- Ranked No. 7 in the ISU World Standings as of May 2009
Vancouver Watch
Flatt is on the fringe of becoming America's next great female figure skating star. Flatt, 16, has finished second at the last two U.S. Championships and proved herself the greatest junior skater in the world in 2008. She rebounded from a disappointing short program to finish fifth at her World Championships debut. Making the U.S. Olympic Team is no sure thing now that the U.S. women will only have two spots at the Winter Games for the first time since 1994, making it even more competitive to qualify.
Personal
The daughter of a biochemical engineer and a molecular biologist, she started skating at age 4 when her dad took her to a mall to shop for a birthday gift for her grandfather but came home with skating lessons instead. She is a former pairs skater at the junior national level. In singles, Coach Tom Zakrajsek has taught her former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success." Flatt is a straight-A student in the AP honors program at Cheyenne Mountain High School and a recipient of the Presidential Fitness Award. She aspires to attend Stanford where she eventually wants to study sports medicine and biomechanics. Her hobbies include tennis, skiing, surfing, reading and going to the beach. She had her braces removed in December and subsequently signed a sponsorship deal with MAC Cosmetics to provide her makeup through the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Madonna, Pamela Anderson and Christina Aguilera were previous spokeswomen for the company.
Did You Know...?
- Grandfather was a national fencing champion
- Wants to be a contestant on "Deal or No Deal"
- Knew more Spanish than English at age 3
- Has two Old English Sheepdogs, Fred and Ethel, named after "I Love Lucy" characters