Peters Township Native To Skate In Olympics

PETERS TOWNSHIP, PA - It’s a long way from Pittsburgh to South Korea, but Peters Township native John-Henry Krueger is making the trip to compete in the 2018 Olympics. Krueger is a member of the U.S. short track speed skating team.

Krueger, 22, qualified for the team by winning the men's 500-meter, 1000-meter, 1500 meter and overall at the U.S. Olympic Team trials in December.

Krueger started skating at 5 when his mother, a figure skating coach, brought him to their local ice rink, according to his official Olympic biography. Krueger and his older brother, Cole, weren't interested in skating or hockey, but they enjoyed racing.

Cole eventually caught the eye of the head of a speed skating club, and Krueger followed him into short track soon after. In their teens, the Krueger brothers left Pittsburgh to train with the national short track team in Salt Lake City.

At 16, Krueger won three medals at the 2012 World Junior Championships. He gained a reputation as a short track prodigy and looked on track to make the 2014 U.S. Olympic team but contracted swine flu during the U.S. Olympic Trials. Barely able to move and highly contagious, Krueger had to pull out of the last few days of trials and missed the opportunity to compete in Sochi.

After recovering from the illness, Krueger turned his focus towards the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics. At the 2015 National Championships, Krueger won three out of four events and took the overall gold. In 2016, he ended his individual medal drought on the World Cup circuit by winning a bronze in the 1500m. It was the first individual World Cup medal won by a U.S. short track skater in two years.

Krueger has spent the last few years traveling the world in search of top coaching. He spent a year in South Korea working with Apolo Ohno’s one-time coach before moving to the Netherlands in 2017 to train with a Dutch team.

Photo: Associated Press.