Local Athlete Looks To Strike Winter Olympic Gold

HOUSTON, TX — Jonathan Garcia first dreamed of Winter Olympic lore when he was a 7-year-old kid. He watched American speed skater Dan Jensen race to Olympic gold at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games in Norway.

Garcia began skating, but not on ice. Garcia started inline skating and he got good. Really good. Ten years after he started, he won his first inline speed skating national championship — one year before he graduated Katy Taylor High School in 2005. In 2006, former inline skater Chad Hedrick won three gold medals at the Turin Winter Games.

So Garcia packed his things and moved to Salt Lake City to train and follow the tracks of Jansen and Hedrick. Garcia missed the 2014 Winter Games in the 500-meters on the long track because of a snafu, but he qualified in the 1,000.

See, during the Winter Olympic Team Trials in December 2013, Garcia cranked out a personal best in the 500 meters at 34.85 seconds on his second run. His combined times placed him fourth to earn the final team spot, but one thing went wrong – he forgot to wear a transponder on his ankle. A transponder serves as a third timing device. Allowed to do the race again, his time was slower, and he missed out. However, he did compete in the 2014 Sochi Games, where he finished 28th in the 1,000 meters.

This year he made the team by finishing second in the 500 meters in the Team Trials, and getting to the 2018 PyeongChang Games that start Thursday was a big relief for Garcia, who's now 31 and still calls Houston home.

"It was a feeling that I can’t even begin to put into words," Garcia told Patch this week via email from PyeongChang. "It was one of the best moments of my life. It was a close second to walking into to Olympic opening ceremonies [in 2014] with Team USA."

But making Team USA is just another step in reaching the ultimate goal — the medal podium. Garcia has put in a rigorous training regimen to get ready for this next step in his journey.

A typical day of training for Garcia consists of getting up at 6:30 in the morning for a three and a half training session on the ice. He breaks for lunch at the house and then works another 3 hour training session in the afternoon with either a bike ride, a run or weight training. After that gets about an hour of recovery treatment by consist stretching, massage and ice bath.

In his free time he plays soccer and guitar. Garcia is one of three Texans on Team USA in PyeongChang, and the local athlete wants to perform his best on the world's biggest stage.

"I want to skate my best race possible and get another personal best here," he said.

The men's 500 meters is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 19 at 5 a.m. Texas time.

Garcia's Olympic Profile
Team USA Profile

Image: Jonathan Garcia competes in the Men's 500 meter event during the Long Track Speed Skating Olympic Trials at the Pettit National Ice Center on January 5, 2018 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)