Vaulter Mickie Rzepka makes U.S. Bobsled team

[skidog]

Mickie Rzepka (Michigan State/McNeese State coached by Ty sevin) has made the U.S. two womans bobsled team. Mickie who last spring laid her vaulting pole to RIP. has totally thrown herself into bobsledding with the same energy,passion and love that she had for polevaulting. You can follow her at www.usbsf.com

[rainbowgirl28]

Nice job Mickie!

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.freep.com/article/20091004/B ... le-(Mickie)-Rzepka

POSTED OCTOBER 4, 2009 - 3 A.M.
Olympic spotlight: Bobsledder Michelle (Mickie) Rzepka


Michelle (Mickie) Rzepka, back, and Erin Pac won bronze at the Whistler track in February 2009. (Special to the Free Press)

BY JO-ANN BARNAS
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

Two years ago, she was considered a longshot to make the U.S. Olympic women's bobsled team. Not anymore.

Michelle (Mickie) Rzepka of Novi is gaining a reputation as one of America's best female push athletes heading into the World Cup season before the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Here are five things you should know about the former Spartan:

Before bobsled came into the picture, Rzepka dreamed of making it to the Olympics as a pole-vaulter. A 2001 graduate of Novi High, Rzepka was a Big Ten indoor and outdoor pole-vault champ at Michigan State, where she also earned All-America honors. She completed her final season of eligibility at McNeese State, where she won the Southland Conference title in 2005-06.

After completing her master's degree in exercise physiology, Rzepka returned to Novi with no clear career path. "I had no idea of what I wanted to do," she said. "I was a lost soul." Two former coaches told her she should try out for USA Bobsled's women's team. Rzepka was skeptical at first, but she came around: In October 2007, she bought a one-way ticket to Lake Placid, N.Y., and made the team.

Rzepka teamed with driver Erin Pac to break three start records and pushed her way into the top 10 in seven of eight World Cup competitions the past two years. Watch out, Vancouver: The two set the start record at the Whistler track last winter on their way to racing to a World Cup bronze medal. Rzepka was honored with the women's bobsled athlete of the year award by USA Bobsled. "Watching old videos of myself, I was terrible -- elbows out, arms flailing," she said with a laugh. "After my first year, I got super serious. I've just lived and breathed bobsled. I've definitely proved that I am more than what I showed before."

Call her Mickie, not Michelle. Rzepka, 26, is the daughter of Holly and David Rzepka of Novi. Her older brother, Ryan, was a former standout soccer player at Oakland University.

Like many Olympic athletes, she needs sponsorship help. She lives at the training center in Lake Placid, where she sleeps with the Olympic rings taped to the ceiling above her bed. The Olympic team will be decided in January. You can contact Rzepka via e-mail at rzepkami@msu.edu.

[rainbowgirl28]

Mickie Rzepka has been named to the bobsled team for the 2010 Olympic Games! She will be sliding with USA1 pilot Shauna Rohbock.

Yay Mickie!!!!!

[rainbowgirl28]

http://detnews.com/article/20100223/SPO ... lle-Rzepka

There's no slowing down for Novi bobsledder Michelle Rzepka
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News
Vancouver, British Columbia -- When Michelle Rzepka was a little girl, the boys in the neighborhood constantly knocked on the door, pleading with her mom and dad to let her come out and race.
She rarely lost.
"Mickie's whole life has been in sports," said her mom, Holly Rzepka, of Novi. "She was a tomboy. She grew up with all of the boys in the neighborhood.

"She was the fastest little girl in the neighborhood, and she beat all of the boys."
Rzepka is still fast, and as startling as it might seem, it might well pay off for the United States in women's bobsled.
In fact, there's some possibility it will pay off in gold, silver or bronze.
Amid the considerable dangers of bobsledding that have been significantly increased by a too-quick track, where a Georgian luger died on the first day of the games, Mickie Rzepka is running strong against her Canadian and German rivals.
"The dream is becoming reality," Rzepka said after her trial runs down the track on the mountain left her and the ace U.S. driver Shauna Rohbock, fractions of a second from first place.
"Everytime I take a trip down the track I get more and more excited for race day," Rzepka, 26, said. "I'm ready to show everyone what we can do and that we are in contention for medal."
Rzepka's speed carried her through childhood and to track and volleyball at Novi High School. Her mom and dad say that hanging out with her brother, Ryan, and his friends toughened Mickie and made her even more competitive.
"Her freshman year in high school was the first time they had pole-vaulting for the girls," her mom said. "And when she came to us with the idea, we said, 'Pole vaulting?'
"Mickie has always been very, very competitive," said her father, David. "When Mickie sets her mind to something, it's 100 percent. She always sets some high goals for herself and does everything all in."
Rzepka competed in the state track meet in the 100 meters in high school. But the pole vaulting was really starting to happen.
At Michigan State, she was a two-time All-American. But a stress fracture to her shin derailed hope for the Summer Olympics.
The lion in her was suddenly in repose.
For the first time since the little boys used to knock, it looked like Mickie Rzepka was finally done running and playing.
Then, the phone rang.
"She came home one day, and out of the blue, she gets this call from U.S. bobsledding," her father said, referring to the U.S. Bobsledding and Skeleton Federation.
Like many of the winter sports that are rarely played by kids in the United States, U.S. bobsledding officials are regularly looking for successful high school and college athletes who may well be able to compete, after some training, in the Winter Games. Those efforts have begun to pay huge dividends.
Bobsled officials knew Mickie could run and loved to compete. And it was not lost on them that running down a track with a pole in her hand, planting the end, and jumping, was not unlike what a brakeman does in bobsled.
"There was an emptiness inside of her, no doubt about it, for not being able to make it to the big stage," Dave Rzepka said. "Here was that opportunity, and as soon as she got that phone call, there really was no decision.
"She was going to seize the opportunity."
Her mom laughs at the memory. Holly remembers her and Dave sort of acting surprised. But to parents used to the twists and turns of life, they simply realized they were about to get used to their daughter speeding on ice through the twists and turns of bobsled.
"We said, 'Bobsledding?' " her mom recalled. "And, of course, she said it was something she'd like to try.
"Her rookie year, in 2007, she went straight to the World Cup," Holly said. "It was pretty incredible and really unusual that she would do that her rookie year."
The lion was back in her lair.
"I always said that bobsledding chose me; I didn't choose bobsled," Rzepka said. "It was just kind of there.
"I am the sort of person that if you ask me what I would do five years from now, I really don't know. But I have a really strong sense I will be happy and doing what I want.
"Life has a real way of figuring itself out, and that's how it happened."
When it comes to Rzepka, life still had a lot of figuring out to do.
Her first years in bobsled were wildly successful, and she sat in one of the subordinate U.S. sleds just before Christmas, hopeful of qualifying for the Games.
Then, Valerie Fleming, the brakewoman for Rohbok, the most successful women's bobsled skipper in U.S history, injured her leg.
Rzepka got another phone call. And now, the ol' Spartans' pole vaulter is looking straight down an icy track, on a snowy mountain, right at the possibility of an Olympic gold medal, tonight.
She's the brakeman in USA-1. Through two training runs, the sled finished mere tenths and then, three-hundredths of a second behind Canada-1.
On Sunday, Rohbok started having a little trouble with the combination of turns three and four, and USA-1 slipped back to fifth.
Meanwhile, trouble can quickly become danger, here.
The sleds, or sleighs as they are officially known in Olympic parlance, are coming down the same luge track where the Georgian rider, Nodar Komaritashvili, died.
But the tomboy is not scared. Rzepka has been competing with the boys her whole life -- with lion's heart.
She seems to go back, in her mind, to the experience of running against the boys, and training with her brother Ryan and his friends.

[Erica]

Congrats to USA Bobsled Team 1. Mickie's team finishes 6th overall in Vancouver Olympics!

[rainbowgirl28]

http://www.freep.com/article/20101227/S ... -Vancouver

Mickie Rzepka accomplished dream in Vancouver Olympics

By JO-ANN BARNAS
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER

The parents of Vancouver Olympic women's bobsledder Mickie Rzepka had the most patriotic house on the block during the Winter Games.

Decorated in red, white and blue, the Novi home was a gathering place for relatives and friends in February to cheer on Rzepka during TV coverage of the opening ceremonies and the women's two-man bobsled competition.

Rzepka, a former Big Ten women's pole vault champion at Michigan State, had become an Olympian less than three years after winning a spot on the U.S. bobsled team. She was the team's top push athlete for driver Shauna Rohbock -- the 2006 Olympic silver medalist -- and the two had come away with a victory in the final World Cup of the season heading into Vancouver.

Rohbock and Rzepka didn't win an Olympic medal -- they took sixth -- but Rzepka didn't leave empty-handed: "I accomplished my childhood dream of going to the Olympics," she said.

So what's the retired bobsledder been up to lately? Free Press sports writer Jo-Ann Barnas caught up with Rzepka, 27, recently. The following are highlights of their conversation:

•On what she's doing now: "I'm teaching part-time at Adrian College -- a class called Principles of Fitness -- and I absolutely love it. I am so passionate about it. I love working with college students and kind of lighting their fire on health and fitness. I'm hoping I make an impact on my college department (so) that maybe they'll hire me on next year. That's my next goal. If that happens, then I would be financially ready to afford to start on my PhD."

•On being unofficially retired: "The biggest thing I've always said in life is nothing is permanent. That has helped me make a lot of decisions. I want to make sure that I put myself in a good situation, that if I did miss it, it would be easy for me to go back."

•On why she probably won't return to bobsled: "I moved back to Michigan (from Lake Placid, N.Y.) to be with my family and to do a little soul-searching. I kind of had a real good feeling after the Games that I was ready for a new set of goals and dreams. I've lived in a suitcase the last 3 1/2years, and I kind of felt at peace. But I will say this: I've had many highs and lows after the Games, trying to define myself as not being an athlete anymore, and trying to figure out where I can fit and be successful and feel passionate. So in this transition in my life, I think I've made a great decision. I still work out every day. I've been biking, swimming and running. Who knows? I might have triathlon in my future."

•On her weeklong fun experiment driving a bobsled before leaving Lake Placid last spring: "I crashed, which is kind of funny, because I never crashed as a brakeman."

•On keeping tabs on her former teammates: "I'm definitely always on the Web site checking how the U.S. team is doing. It's a part of me. I thoroughly loved and enjoyed the sport of bobsled. Shauna and I talk on the phone or e-mail each other every once in a while."

•On her parent's house being a hub of media activity during the Olympics: "My dad still has the Olympic flag waving (in the front yard). I don't think he'll ever take it down."