A Breakout Season Culminates At Speedskating Worlds For Olympian Kimi Goetz

Kimi Goetz prepares to skate in the women's 1000-meters during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Feb. 17, 2022 in Beijing.

Kimi Goetz has been preparing all season to make sure she peaks for the long track speedskating world championships that run Thursday through Sunday in Heerenveen, Netherlands.

Her recent results would imply the preparations have been going well.

Amid a breakout season in which she’d already won five world cup medals, Goetz claimed her first world cup individual win on Feb. 12, holding off seven-time Olympic medalist Miho Takagi of Japan in the 1,000-meter event in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland.

Then, she closed out the world cup schedule the following weekend, again in Poland, with two more medals — a silver in the 1,000 and a gold in the women’s team sprint. She ended the season ranked among the top five in both the 1,000 and 500, as well as ninth in the 1,500.

This season has been the continuation of a long journey for Goetz, a former inline skater who nearly qualified for the 2014 U.S. Olympic Team in short track before switching to long track in 2018. The 28-year-old from Flemington, New Jersey, has made particular strides in the last year. Her world cup win came almost a year to the day after she made her Olympic debut in Beijing, where she finished seventh in the 1,000 and 18th in the 500.

Coming off her Olympic season, Goetz, who now resides in Utah, made the decision to change coaches in order to train full-time under her fiancé, three-time Olympian Mitch Whitmore. She’s quick to say she had no issues with former coach Ryan Shimabukuro — he’s actually the one who coaches her when she’s traveling the world cup circuit, as Whitmore’s job keeps him at home in Utah. But Goetz felt she could benefit from switching things up, and the first year after an Olympics is the time to try new things.

While being coached by your partner could prove difficult for some, Goetz said having Whitmore as her coach is a big advantage for her.

“No one knows me better (than Mitch),” she said. “He knows what’s going on outside of skating to know if he needs to push me a little more or pull back a little more based on how I’m eating and sleeping and recovering and feeling outside of the rink.”

She said she finds herself feeling even more accountable because of the closeness and relationship. Goetz also noted that Whitmore retired from competing and began coaching the same year that she moved to long track. So, their paths have been parallel, and they’ve been able to grow, support and encourage each other through their journeys, making this a true team effort between them.

It was a risk to make changes to her routine, but Goetz feels like the choice has paid off.

“Regardless of winning or not, I’m having a great time,” she said. “But, it’s nice to have some good results on top of that as well.”

Kimi Goetz skates in the women's 1000-meters during the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on Feb. 17, 2022 in Beijing.

While she prefers to skate at altitude, Goetz is looking forward to skating at Heerenveen. She was pleased with her results at the world cup stop there back in November and feels the ice in Heerenveen can be very fast. She also loves the atmosphere and feeds off the energy the fans bring into the building.

“Speedskating is a national sport in the Netherlands. It’s incredible to race in Heerenveen,” she said. “I know quite a few of the days are already sold out, which will be really, really exciting. My hope would be to be paired with a Dutch skater because it’s just unreal how supportive and fun their fans are, and it’s even cooler if you’re skating at the same time as a Dutch athlete.”

It has been a long, winding, and sometimes bumpy road for Goetz to get to a point where she feels like she’s comfortable, settled in, and skating her best.

“Now I would consider myself a long speedskater,” she said. “I feel like for a while I still was like, ‘I’m a short tracker, but I’m trying long track.’ Before that it was, ‘I’m an inliner, but I’m trying short track.’ I still have a lot of room for growth and development.

“Hopefully, I haven’t reached my ceiling, but I would say I’m becoming more and more comfortable.”

Goetz wasn’t sure how this season would go, and she admitted she struggled a bit at the start of the season to remember that a skater can’t be at their best in both November and March. She found herself frustrated at early world cup races and feeling like she wasn’t performing like she wanted to. But, she reminded herself that following her training plan for those early races was in service of hitting her peak and being where she wanted to now for the world championships.

All that’s left now is to go out and skate.