The Port TIMES RECORD
Volume 29, No. 7
CHARIOT COLLISIO N Port Jefferson • Belle terre • Port Jefferson station • terrYVille C ENTER January 14, 2016 We work with and we w
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91 Gnarle EAST SE d Hollow Rd. TAUKET 6
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Barns’ last hurrah
Exhibit makes final stop in Port Jeff Also inside: celebrating black history, Sandy Hook children’s book review
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Annie O’Shea grabs gold Swearing is caring Town officials take oaths to start new terms
Port Jefferson Station athlete earns first place in skeleton World Cup race in Lake Placid BY Daniel Dunaief
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Photos by Pat Hendrick
at top, annie o’shea practices in lake Placid prior to the World Cup race. above, o’shea flaunts her new gold medal.
Everything started turning around for Port Jefferson Station’s Annie O’Shea this past summer. A veteran of the high-speed world of skeleton racing, O’Shea had a reputation for her extraordinary sprinting speed. She just had to put it all together. In skeleton, where racers use the same tracks as bobsled, competitors clad in aerodynamic suits and helmets, sprint at top speed with their hands on their sleds for five seconds, until they dive on top of the sled, steering through treacherous turns at speeds faster than 80 miles per hour by shifting their body weight. “For years, she’s been known for having one of the fastest starts in the world, and then losing that on the way down,” said Tuffy Latour, the head coach of
the United States skeleton team. But not anymore. At an International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation World Cup race last week, O’Shea was poised to do something she’d never done on her home track in Lake Placid: collect a medal. Behind the leaders by a tenth of a second after the first of two heats, she visited with her skeleton coaches and her conditioning coach, Brett Willmott, who is also the associate head track and field coach at the University of Vermont. “Her first run, she was a little sloppy” with her sprint, Willmott said. “I told her to be aggressive in the last four steps. That’s all she needed to know.” With a physical game plan, O’Shea, 28, stood at the starting gate, waiting her turn to dig her SKELETON continued on page A11