Phyllis Braun, who just came back from the Michigan Senior Winter Olympics last week in Gaylord, can’t wait to go back and do it again.
Braun, 74, who gained her first competitive figure skating experience at the Olympics, said she would “absolutely” like to compete in next year’s event. She was awarded a blue ribbon for her efforts.
Braun is one of four people that practice at Lakeland who made the trip to the Winter Senior Olympics. The other three were William Horning of Waterford and Russell Matero and Lenore Hiscoe, both of White Lake.
The Rusty Blades, a figure skating group which Braun practices with three times a week at Lakeland Skating Club in Waterford, were on hand in full force to support their teammate.
“It was a great time and we had great support,” she said. “There must have been 14-15 Rusty Blades there. I got flowers from them after my event. We had a good all-around trip.”
Due to the number of teammates cheering her on, Braun wasn’t all that nervous skating competitively for the first time. “It was fun,” she said. “Because I had so much support, it was like skating at home. It was stimulating.”
Braun started taking lessons four years ago and hired Irina Kortchach, a defector from the Moscow on Ice tour 10 years ago, as her personal coach. She currently practices about 10 hours per week, with the longest stretch of practice coming for four hours Monday mornings.
The only mild source of disappointment was the fact there was only one other person in her age group of 70-75 in the figure skating competition. “It’s too bad more people don’t get involved,” she said. “We really had no other competitors.
However, that didn’t detract from Braun and her teammates’ enjoyment of the competition.
“I just had the best time – I think we all did,” she said. “No one walked away without feeling good. It makes you want to go out there and do it again.”