USA TODAY International Edition
Quinn, 38, emerges as Olympic contender
skating team in 1998 and 2002, is, astonishingly, almost preposterously, on track to nail down the second spot with Niccum, with whom he partnered only last season.
u“ Absolutely, they’re contenders,” says Fred Zimmy, U.S. national team
manager.
u“ Patrick wants it,”
Niccum says. “ He’s
willing to put everything on the line.”
u“ It’s crazy,” says Chris Thorpe, the retired two- time Olympic doubles medalist who introduced Quinn to the sport. “ Hopefully, this will make people realize it’s never too late. You have to look at his determination. He’s driven and dedicated.”
The two + rst met when Quinn called Thorpe at his Florida home shortly after reading that Thorpe was quitting luge because his partner, Clay Ives, retired after the 2002 Winter Games. Thorpe will never forget the April 2002 conversation.
“ He said, ‘ Hi, I’m Pat Quinn, superstar sports agent and nationally ranked speedskater. I’ve had this dream forever of getting to the Olympics, and I think you’re my best help in getting there.’ I thought he was crazy, of course.”
Exceeding expectations
Luge of + cials were equally skeptical when Quinn showed up in Lake Placid. After all, this was the same organization that told him he was too old for the sport when he + rst gave it a shot in college. He was 19.
“ Eighteen years later, I guess I’m not too old,” Quinn says. “ I am what I am. I’m stronger and + tter than I have been in my life. There’s no reason I can’t do it. The maturity helps.”
His age, 36 when he started, concerned Zimmy — but not for long.
“ We laid that aside very quickly after he showed us what he can do,” Zimmy says. “ He already had the athletic background and knew the dedication it took to succeed. Not onlywas he mentally ready, he was already physically prepared.”
Thorpe and Quinn teamed up but never competed on the ice.
“ I was sliding out of my mind, as good as I’ve ever gone down the mountain,” Thorpe says. But he was forced to retire when he couldn’t + nd a sponsor.
Thorpe, however, introduced Quinn to Niccum, and the two made a jawdropping debut last season. In six World Cup races, they posted three eighth- place + nishes — and even beat Grimmette and Martin once, an unthinkable feat before the season started. At the 38th World Luge Championships in Park City, they + nished ninth — and posted the second heat’s second- fastest time.
Two weeks later, in late February, they secured a spot on the national team with a second- place + nish — just .099 seconds behind Grimmette and Martin — in the national championships.
Zimmy hadn’t expected anything the two achieved, even though Niccum is an experienced sledder and four- time junior world champion in doubles.
“ Christian has been in doubles most of his life,” Zimmy says, “ but to get a bottom guy under there who’s never really been in a sled . . . ”
Quinn says his rookie season was dif + cult.
“ I never knew if there was a tomorrow. It was always based on what you did today,” he says. “ We got through the + rst camp and were invited to the second. We got to the second and into the third and got on the ice. But they left us behind when they went to Europe to train.”
Quinn paid his way overseas, and the two + nally got to compete in the third World Cup event.
“ We earned it inch by inch,” Quinn says. “And logically so. Everybody doubted us.”
Tenacity, desire in full supply
Quinn never has wavered in his Olympic dream, “ But the vehicle of getting there did.”
As a child, he envisioned himself as an Olympic hockey player. He played hockey at Holy Cross, but a neck injury ended his career.
After graduation, he moved to New York and worked in sales and marketing and got into roller- skating. In 1995, he switched to speedskating. That, he said, is when his life began, and his Olympic dream was reborn.
Quinn was a national team member from 1996 to 2003 but never made it over the hump. “Something didn’t click,” Parra says.
They became more than teammates. In the late ’ 90s, Parra was down to his last $ 700. He considered quitting, but Quinn talked him out of it and wrote a check for Parra’s rent.
“ The only thing he said to me was, ‘ When you make it big, don’t leave me, remember me,’ ” Parra says.
“We shook hands. We’ve been together ever since.”
Parra was one of Quinn’s + rst clients. He got into the business to support himself in 1999. That’s when he met his wife- to- be, Kathleen, in Milwaukee. Times, she recalls, were lean.
“ He furnished his apartment for $50 at a garage sale,” she says. “ And thatwas a step up from the cardboard boxes it replaced.”
Q Sports International’s clientele grew, but Olympic hopes in speedskating + nally ended in 2002 when Quinn + nished sixth in his best distance, the 10,000 meters. He was devastated — “ the disappointment of a lifetime,” he says. But he had no time to feel sorry for himself.
Ten minutes after his race, he was at work as an agent, taking pictures of his Olympic clients to market on his company’swebsite.
“ It was a bitter pill to swallow,” he says. “ Butwhat doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and that made me stronger.”
At Salt Lake, athletes he represented won 11 medals. Clients include Niccum, bobsledders Bill Schuffenauer and Vonetta Flowers, snowboarder Adam Smith and speedskaters Joey Cheek and Jennifer Rodriguez.
Watching Parra win in Salt Lake rekindled Quinn’s Olympic dream.
“ I was right there for the whole gold- medal process, but a step away, behind the scenes,” Quinn says. “ I have this + rsthand experience of what it is like to go to the Olympics and win a medal, but it wasn’t me winning a medal.”
Parra, looking ahead to 2006 himself, remembers their eyes meeting after his record- breaking run. They started crying.
“ He said, ‘ You did it.’ And I said, ‘ No, we did it,’ ” Parra says. “ He believed in me when others didn’t. My dreams came true. Now he wants to experience that again on his athletic level, and I don’t blame him.
“ He’s so tenacious. He’s gotten into a sport he’s never done before and he’s in his late 30s and he’s making a dent in the world. I’d love to be there watching him win a gold medal and be there when he comes off the podium to give him a hug. He believes in me, and I believe in him.”
Family life strained
So does Quinn’s wife, but at a price.
Quinn’s juggling of his job, his Olympic dream and his family — they have a 2- year-old daughter, Alaina — has tested their marriage. He has been gone six months each of the past two years, and they have yet to celebrate their anniversary together.
“ I can’t pretend it hasn’t been dif + cult,” says his wife. “ It’s hard when you love someone yet there is something else pulling them away.”
The loneliest time, she says, was when she was pregnant. “ He wasn’t there, then having the baby, I felt like a single mother.”
A director of sales for a plumbing company in Chicago, she worked at home when the baby was born. “ I spent a lot of days nursing our daughterwhile working on a laptop.”
But she says she always has shared his dream. “ It’s been our dream. Even though we’ve had our problems, it’s still about pulling together as a family for a common cause.”
Quinn says, “ We’re working it out.”
His wife plans to be in Italy with their daughter if Quinn makes the team.
“ When I get off that sled at the end of the competition, no matter what happens, there are people I want to be there who have sacri + ced a lot and been there for a lot of frustrations,” he says. He pauses, then adds, “ I guess down the line, my daughterwill be 20 and someone will say she’s too old for this or that. And maybe she’s going to take out a picture of her at the Olympics with me and say, “ No, I’m not.’ ”