From the Mayor

from theMAYOR The time is right for an inline track

BY MAYOR KENT GUINN

What a privilege it is to be mayor of Ocala, the “Speed Skating Capital of the World!”

That does have a pretty nice ring to it, and why not? Champion horses of all disciplines have made Ocala the official “Horse Capital of the World,”so it only makes sense that after two native daughters and a native son brought home the entire contingent of U.S. medals won in speed skating at the Winter Olympics, that Ocala earn a similar designation, as unofficial as it may be.

We will have fun with this today and take pride in it forever as Erin Jackson, Brittany Bowe and Joey Mantia have quite literally put Ocala on the map. Watching the weather on a national network recently, there were the typical cities listed – Los Angeles, New York, Houston, you get the idea – and there was Ocala. Honestly, I had never seen Ocala listed on the national weather map of a major news program, but there it was, and I can’t help but think the three aforementioned athletes had more than just a little bit to do with that.

The press coverage these three skaters brought to Ocala was rather unprecedented. Not only did their talents shine at the games, as all three earned spots on podiums, but their humanity shined as well. Bowe’s giving up her spot in the 500m race to Jackson has been well documented and will go down not just in speed skating history, but in U.S. sports history for one of the great acts of selfless sportsmanship we’ve ever witnessed. At the games, the three conducted themselves as true ambassadors not just of their sport, but of the hometown where each was born and educated.

With that in mind, it seems the time is right to build a legacy to their accomplishments. All three broke as inline skaters under the training of Renee Hildebrand, who is pushing for an inline bank track to be built in Ocala, and I think the idea is not only great of itself, but is also consistent with the sports trajectory of this town. If a state-of-the-art track is built here, it would be one of only three such banked tracks in the country (one is in Fort Lauderdale and the other in Colorado).

With Hildebrand’s international reputation for producing world champion inline skaters and future Olympians who transition to ice, Ocala as home to such a facility makes perfect sense. What the Roberts family has done with the World Equestrian Center and Ken Colen has achieved with the new FAST aquatic center, Ocala is already home to a pair of the nation’s finest facilities in their disciplines. Why not make it a third?

I am going to push for the development of this project and think this is something all Ocalans can get behind, the same way we all got behind Jackson, Bowe and Mantia as they chased their Olympic dreams. Like WEC and FAST, an inline track of this sort will be one that attracts people from across the state and the country – knowing Hildebrand, it will also bring people from across the ocean as well.

In Cali, Colombia, seven banked oval inline skating tracks exist and that third-world country owns the sport right now. Putting just one such track in Ocala would be a boost for the sport not just locally, but for the entire country. It would also be yet another reason to call Ocala a destination town.

And once a track is in place and more champions are groomed here, “Speed Skating Capital of the World” may actually go from an unofficial to an official title.