Andrew_Blaser

Andrew Blaser

Andrew Blaser

American skeleton racer

Andrew Joseph Blaser (born May 8, 1989) is an American skeleton racer who competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics. He was previously a collegiate track and field athlete at Louisville and Idaho.

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Early years

Blaser was born on May 8, 1989, in Boise, Idaho to Sherman and Ellen Blaser.[1] He was the youngest of four children in an athletic Mormon family,[2] and danced ballet in elementary school.[3] He attended Meridian High School in nearby Meridian, graduating in 2007.[4] In addition to playing football and basketball,[3] he was a three-time Class 5A state champion in track and field, winning back-to-back state titles in the 110m hurdles and tying for first in the 300m intermediate hurdles as a senior.[5] He also won five district titles and set a school record in the 110m hurdles.[1]

College track career

Blaser attended the University of Louisville as a freshman, setting a school record in the heptathlon.[6] He was planning to transfer to a junior college ahead of his sophomore year, but a friend of his convinced him to come to the University of Idaho instead, where he walked on to the track team and trained under sprint coach Angela Whyte.[7] Blaser went on the win six individual conference titles for the Vandals.[6] He was also honored with 10 outdoor All-Western Athletic Conference (WAC) honors and seven indoor All-WAC honors, both school records.[8]

At the 2010 WAC Indoor Championships, Blaser earned first-team all-WAC honors in the high jump after recording a career-best mark of 6 ft 6¾ in.[5] He was also a second-team all-WAC selection in three other events.[5] He suffered a back injury in a car accident soon afterward,[9] causing him to miss the 2010 outdoor and 2011 indoor seasons after undergoing hernia surgery.[5][10] Blaser made his return to competition during the 2011 outdoor season. He won his first conference title at the WAC Championships, scoring a career-high 7,037 points in the decathlon to take first place.[11] He set personal bests in six of the ten events en route to the fifth-best score in school history.[11] He also won the 110m hurdles event at the Sam Adams Classic and the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational, qualifying for the NCAA Preliminaries for the first time in his career.[5]

As a senior in 2012, he led the Vandals to a conference title at the WAC Indoor Championships, where he scored a school-record 40 points and won the heptathlon, high jump, and 60-meter hurdles.[12] His score in the heptathlon (5,324) was the second-best mark in school history.[5] It was the school's first WAC title in any men's sport, and Blaser was named the WAC Men's Field Performer of the Year for his performance.[13] At the WAC Outdoor Championships, he set another school record with 44 points, winning the decathlon and 110 hurdles events while finishing third in four others.[12][14] He won seven of the ten events in the decathlon.[15] He also qualified for the NCAA Preliminaries in the 110m hurdles for the second year in a row.[5] At the end of the year Blaser was given the Joe Kearney Award as the conference's top male student-athlete, which he shared with Utah football player Robert Turpin.[8]

Skeleton career

Blaser spent his first year after college as an assistant coach on the Utah State track team.[10][12] While watching Cool Runnings, Blaser joked with his sister that he should try bobsledding.[4] He first called coaches in the spring of 2012 and attended a combine in Park City, Utah, but he was advised to switch to the similar sport of skeleton because of his lighter frame.[4][6][7] He made the move but soon grew frustrated and moved to Louisville, where he knew some people.[6] After eight months, he decided to give skeleton another chance, so he drove back to Utah, got a job as a waiter, and bought a new sled.[6]

Blaser debuted on the international circuit during the 2015–16 North American Cup season. He won his first medal, a silver, at a race in Park City in March 2016, finishing .07 seconds behind first place.[16] In 2017–18 he earned six medals (one silver and five bronze).[4] The following season, he won four gold medals in the North American Cup: two each in Park City and Lake Placid.[4] At the 2019 USA Skeleton National Team Trials, Blaser won all four races to win a spot on the 2019–20 Skeleton World Cup roster.[17] He finished 23rd and 22nd (out of 27) in his first two races, respectively.[12] Blaser placed 27th at the 2020 World Championships, suffering a concussion when he crashed.[7]

Blaser finished 2021 as the 28th-ranked racer in the IBSF standings and as the highest American earned a spot in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.[4] In January 2022, he was officially announced as a member of the American skeleton team at the Tokyo Games, marking the first time the U.S. delegation included a single male skeleton rider.[18] He finished in 21st place after three heats and missed the finals.[19]

Personal life

Blaser lives in Boise during the offseason, where he serves as an assistant coach for volleyball and track at Capital High School.[4] He also works through the Starbucks Elite Athlete Program.[4][7]

Blaser is openly gay. He came out to his family around 2014 or 2015, though he had been out among his friends for years.[2] In high school, he spent his lunches "with the theater kids instead of the athletes he competed with" and faced homophobic taunts from his peers.[2] He first talked to the media about his sexuality in a November 2021 interview with Outsports.[20] He was the first publicly gay man to compete in skeleton at the Olympic level,[21] competing with a rainbow saddle on his sled.[22] In the days leading up to the competition, he received a shoutout on Instagram from his favorite singer, Sara Bareilles.[23]

His brother, Sherm, won a state title as head football coach at Kuna High School in Kuna, Idaho.[12]

References

  1. [1]
    "Andrew Blaser". Louisville Cardinals Athletics. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  2. [2]
    Bolies, Corbin (February 15, 2022). "Olympian Andrew Blaser Spent Years Living a Double Life. Now He's Thriving". The Daily Beast. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  3. [3]
    "Summer Series: Getting to know Andrew Blaser". Team USA. April 24, 2018. Archived from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  4. [4]
    Wustrow, John (February 3, 2022). "Meridian High graduate Andrew Blaser set for Olympic competition in skeleton". The Idaho Press. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  5. [5]
    "Andrew Blaser". Idaho Vandals Athletics. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  6. [6]
    Ramsey, Ben (December 10, 2017). "Andrew Blaser, former decathlete, hopes to slide into new life on skeleton". Park Record. Retrieved February 7, 2022.
  7. [7]
    "'Writing was on the wall': Former Idaho track and field standout Andrew Blaser reset his dreams and found his way onto U.S. Olympic skeleton team". The Spokesman-Review. January 29, 2022. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  8. [8]
    "Track and field". The Spokesman-Review. June 24, 2012. p. c4. Retrieved February 11, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. [9]
    "2010-11 Idaho Track & Field/Cross Country Yearbook". Issuu. p. 18. Retrieved February 14, 2022.
  10. [10]
    "Blaser, Strickland Named New Assistant USU Track & Field Coaches". Utah State University. August 16, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
  11. [11]
    "Area roundup: Idaho junior Blaser wins WAC decathlon title". The Spokesman-Review. May 12, 2011. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
  12. [12]
    Cripe, Chadd (December 30, 2019). "He was one of Idaho's top track stars. Now he slides face-first down the ice". Times-News. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  13. [13]
    "Idaho men capture WAC indoor track title". The Spokesman-Review. February 26, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  14. [14]
    "Vandal men take WAC crown". Idaho Vandals Athletics. May 12, 2012. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  15. [15]
    "Blaser leads Idaho convoy in decathlon". Lewiston Morning Tribune. May 10, 2012. Retrieved February 14, 2022.
  16. [16]
    "Team USA wins three medals in Park City North American Cup races". Team USA. March 6, 2016. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  17. [17]
    "Blaser, Henry win their way onto World Cup skeleton team". The Washington Times. November 3, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  18. [18]
    Price, Karen (January 15, 2022). "Meet The 2022 U.S. Olympic Skeleton Team". Team USA. Retrieved February 7, 2021.
  19. [19]
    "USA's Lone Male Skeleton Rider Comes Up Short in Olympic Debut". WNBC. February 11, 2022. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  20. [20]
    Zeigler, Cyd (November 15, 2021). "Andrew Blaser hopes to be an out gay athlete at the Beijing Winter Olympics". Outsports. SB Nation. Retrieved February 10, 2022.
  21. [21]
    Zeigler, Cyd (January 16, 2022). "Andrew Blaser wins Team USA Olympic skeleton spot, first out gay man to do so". Outsports. SB Nation. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  22. [22]
    Reimer, Alex (February 10, 2022). "Team USA's Andrew Blaser raced with a rainbow saddle on his sled". Outsports. SB Nation. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
  23. [23]
    "Olympics Live: Sara Bareilles thrills US skeleton athlete". Las Vegas Sun. February 8, 2022. Retrieved February 16, 2022.
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