Katherine Reutter had people congratulating her on her decision to retire from short-track speedskating at 24. Others, though, expressed sympathy that the two-time Olympic medalist was walking away from the sport just a year before the Sochi Games.
Her overall feeling was peaceful, having had the last 12 months to adjust to life away from the ice while she struggled to rehab from multiple surgeries.
Reutter said Wednesday that her retirement announcement a day earlier was prompted by the realization that she couldn’t train through constant pain anymore.
“It’s something I’ve had to ask myself for several months, but I was never willing to accept that this was the end,” she said by phone from Salt Lake City. “I reached a point where I felt I was constantly jumping through hoops — try to see another doctor, try to do treatment. The physical pain and the mental anxiety was too much to go through.”
Reutter underwent two hip surgeries a year ago in order to alleviate the back pain that had plagued her. She constantly asked doctors, physical therapists, coaches and family whether it was reasonable to think she could recover and resume competing at an elite level. They always told her yes.
But the incessant pain told her otherwise.
Reutter has been skating since she was 4 in her hometown of Champaign, Ill., and she said her series of injuries and surgeries were more developmental than genetic.
“My bones over-calcified trying to deal with the stress I tried to put them under,” she said. “The right side of my body is infinitely tighter than the left side and I think that’s a byproduct of always turning left (on the ice).”
Even though she’ll no longer be pushing her body to the limit, she experiences pain daily doing the kinds of things that non-athletes take for granted, like going on walks or gardening.
“I can do 40 minutes of exercise before I know I’ll be hurting the next day,” she said. “Most doctors say it will always be a nuisance. It will probably flare up once in a while, but they said I can expect to live a normal life.”
Reutter accomplished a lot in her relatively short time competing at speedskating’s highest level, and her bubbly personality made her a standout in the wild-and-woolly world of short track.
She won silver and bronze medals at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. She won the 1,500-meter world title in 2011, the first American woman to do so since her idol Bonnie Blair in 1986, and was the overall World Cup champion that year. She won 34 medals in World Cup competition, 42 medals in international events, and was a four-time U.S. champion in the 1,000.
“I was constantly pushing my body to the edge,” she said. “Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so intense for 4-5 years straight.”
But Reutter has no regrets, and is busy looking ahead.
She plans to be in Poland later this month for the Junior Short Track world championships as the team leader, and she will continue serving as one of three athlete representatives on the U.S. Speedskating board of directors through 2014.
Reutter is in her final semester at Salt Lake Community College, where she is pursuing an associate’s degree in exercise physiology. She is close to earning certifications in teaching yoga and personal training. She wants to pursue coaching certification this summer in order to eventually help skaters ages 14-16 develop their skills. Eventually, she plans to transfer to a four-year university for a bachelor’s degree.
“I try to remind myself all the time that it’s going to be OK. Sometimes uncertainty is the scariest thing in the world,” she said. “I’m so at peace with my decision. I don’t feel like I’m losing something, it’s just time to gain something else.”
