Brian's first GOLD!!!

Brian's Gold in the 1000m today! With Stefan, Dmitry, 
and Nico. Thank you Kip for the picture!

Proud. proud. proud.

Brian Hansen, our training partner, won his first individual World Cup GOLD medal in the 1000m race today at the Erfurt World Cup (and he is just 22yrs old!). Darn it, I wish I could have been there for Brian's first Gold, but the best I could do was to catch him on FaceTime to chat afterwards. That guy is a world-class skater. But for those who have known him well, knew this success (and more to come) was inevitable! I am honored to have him as a training partner and to have experienced the Vancouver Olympics with him...we've had the best of memories.

Brian began speedskating at 10 because he just wanted to go fast on hockey skates which led him to the Northbrook speedskating club. Two years later, he (and his parents) found Nancy Sr., who has been his coach ever since. His career has been unusual in that he has constantly risen to the top with rarely ever having a bad race. His athletic talent and exceptional competitiveness combined with what we all think is my mom's unusual intuitive coaching expertise, is how we believe they're an unstoppable team. Day-to-day feedback from us and the one-on-one attention we get from her is what makes our team successful. 

A look into Brian's major accomplishments so far:

Brian will be competing in the 1500m tomorrow, the last day of the World Cup in Erfurt...catch his results at http://live.isuresults.eu/2012-2013/erfurt/index.htm or watch it on live streaming at http://nos.nl/sport/schaatsen/live/. The 1500m will be starting at 1:45pm in Erfurt, 6:45am Central Time/Chicago (early, I know) and Brian is 7th pair with Sverre Pedersen.

Or if you miss the live NOS feed, you can watch a recap of his 1500m anytime here: http://nos.nl/sport/schaatsen/video-en-audio/, just click on video "WB Erfurt 2013 1500 meter (m)". Watch Brian's 1000m race from today by clicking on the embedded video below starting at 0:53!

Brian is dominating...now I have to step up my game next week in Calgary. Ah!

God Bless you all,

Nancy Jr.

1 Corinthians 9:25