They got their start in the sports in which they seek to capture Olympic gold the same way millions of boys and girls in this nation got their start.
A frozen pond in Suzanne Merz’s hometown of Greenwich was where one of the stars on the United States women’s ice hockey team first skated.
A friend suggests that Christopher Soule of Trumbull, Conn., try an obscure sport known as the skeleton and he excels.
A little girl’s father is a former college hockey player who put half a rink in the backyard and John Hughes has his figure-skating daughter, Sarah, on the ice at the age of 3.
These athletes from the tri-state area are on their way to Salt Lake City where an electricity last seen in Lake Placid is lighting up the city which is set to host the XIX Olympic Winter Games.
“That’s the cool part,” Merz told The Post. “In the last Olympics we were just in awe. Now there’s a sense of purpose. I can’t wait to take the ice in front of our crowd, see all those flags and hear them cheering, ‘USA! USA! USA!’ ”
The metropolitan area will be well represented in Salt Lake and, possibly, on the medal stand.
Merz and her teammates are expected to battle Canada for the gold. Soule, who had a role as a stunt man in “G.I. Jane” and has been on “Sex in the City”, has a chance to upset Switzerland’s Gregor Stahli in the death-defying skeleton; a sport in which athletes transform themselves into human torpedoes, barreling down a bobsled track on their belly. Hughes will battle fellow-American Michelle Kwan and Russia’s Irina Slutskaya in what figures to be a tightly contested women’s figure skating event.
Hughes, 17, beat Slutskaya and Kwan, the sentimental favorite, at the Skate Canada International in November but Kwan won the U.S. Championships. Hughes might have a technically more difficult program than Kwan but Kwan has the experience.
What Hughes has, however, is refreshing. In a sport overrun by sheltered, spoiled teenage girls, the Great Neck High School junior is as grounded and sweet as America could want.
“When you first start skating and you’re five, six, seven years old, people say, ‘Oh you’re a skater. Are you going to the Olympics?'” Hughes told reporters after qualifying for the Games. “Like everybody who skates goes to the Olympics. Not everybody goes to the Olympics.”
Those who go face great challenges. Merz and her teammates, including Julie Chu of Fairfield (Conn.) and A.J. Mleczko of New York, know it will be difficult to win a second straight gold medal. They stunned the team from Canada in Nagano and now the bull’s eye is on the back of the Team USA jersey.
“Everyone is gunning for us,” said Merz. “It’s not a comfortable spot but we put ourselves in this position so we might as well go for it.”
Which is exactly what Soule intends to do. In an underpublicized sport such as skeleton, most of the publicity has been heaped upon Jim Shea Jr.
Shea’s story has been endearing and heartbreaking. He will be the third generation of Sheas to compete in the Olympics, an Olympic first. Jim Sr. competed in the Nordic combined and two cross-country ski races in 1964 at Innsbruck, Austria, and grandfather Jack won gold in two speedskating races in his hometown of Lake Placid at the 1932 Winter Games.
But, Jack, won’t be there to see his grandson make history. He was killed by a drunk driver in a car crash on Jan. 21. Jack was Anerica’s oldest living gold medalist.
It was Jim Jr. who in 1993 introduced Soule to skeleton when they were both waiting tables at a Lake Placid restaurant. Soule was named Skeleton Rookie of the Year in 1993.
Should Soule or Shea medal, there won’t be a dry eye in the American contingent.
“My grandfather used to dream about me competing in the Olympics,” Shea said in a statement. “When I qualified for the games, he could not have been more proud. It was one of my best moments, one that I will always remember.”
That’s what the Olympics have come to mean. They are a time of great pride, when dreams are reached and wonderful memories are recorded for all time.
Name EVENT HOME
Patricia Byrnes Snowboard/Halfpipe New Canaan, Conn.
Julie Chu Women’s Ice Hockey Fairfield, Conn.
Kyoko Ina Figure Skating Greenwich,Conn
Suzanna Merz Women’s Ice Hockey Genwich,Conn
Christopher Soule Skeleton Trumbull, Conn.
Naomi Lang Figure Skating Hackensack
Peter Tchernyshev Figure Skating Hackensack
Beata Handra Figure Skating Pomona, N.Y.
Adam Heidt Luge Northport, N.Y.
Sarah Hughes Figure Skating Great Neck, N.Y.
Allison Jaime (A.J.) Mleczko Women’s Ice Hockey New York
Charles Sinek Figure Skating Pomona, N.Y.
Thomas Vonn Alpine Skiing Newburgh, N.Y.