(May 29, 2024) – For our second athlete profile of 2024 (and the 47th in the “Getting to Know…” series) we chat with USA Skeleton’s Sara Roderick. Sara completed her first full season on the IBSF World Cup in the 2023/2024 sliding season where she scored a best finish of ninth (and bronze in the Pan-American Champs at the same race). Across all tours, she’s won seven medals, including two golds in an international sliding career that began in the 2018/2019 season.
Slider: Sara Roderick
Team: USA Skeleton
Hometown: Truro, MA
Home track: Lake Placid
We’ll start as we always do: What’s your favorite track and why?
It changes! Even though I don’t go there anymore, Sochi was pretty awesome. I went one time, we were there for a good amount of time, and I just love the feel of that track. I want to go back so badly. And I got to go there with Matt [Antoine – bronze medalist in 2014] which was really fun. It was his first time back so it was cool to listen to him and be like “Whoa, you did pretty great here!”
You said your favorite track changes, when and why does it change?
I think as someone who is still developing, when I’m focusing on a certain skill, different tracks play to those. So this year it was probably Altenberg, because I was really working on intensity of steers and working through that process, what that meant and what that felt like. And Altenberg really gives you a lot of feedback, so I was able to hone in to that skill there. Whereas an Igls, where it’s a driving track but everything is subtle and I’m not subtle in most things in my life!
Unrelated to the track, what town is your favorite to visit on tour?
Pyeongchang and Seoul! It’s so fun, and Seoul is one of my favorite places all time in the world for whatever reason! I had the most fun there!
It was right at the beginning of COVID when I was there, and Pyeongchang was pretty closed down when we got there, but we did get to sing some sweet karaoke with the Brits in Pyeongchang and that was great! And the area by the track is really walkable, with some really great coffee shops there.
Prior to sliding, what were you doing for sport?
I was a heptathlete…mediocre at seven things and loved it enough to get the bug of skeleton and try it out!
I love track and field, I coach now with the town I live in in Vermont and it’s so fun. I love it!
Do you talk to any of the other heptathletes on tour? We just had Vanessa Mark last week and she was a heptathlete!
I do, sometimes yeah! Sometimes it can be a little tricky, I know some of the bobsledders are the ones I talk to the most about it. They’re just such monsters of athletes, so it’s cool to hear what they’ve done and how fast they are. So I totally fangirl over all of it, I’m a pretty big track nerd!
Something about coming to bobsled or skeleton is that you were really great at a sport but then you come to this…and you’re not good at first. What’s it like from being very good at a sport to being just not very good at a new sport?
I love it! It’s so humbling, and it’s awesome because it gives you so much opportunity to learn and think about what need to be done! Every time I slide that an opportunity presents itself…the first time that you go down, you hunker down in Lake Placid for two months and slide at like 6 PM when it’s like -5F and dark and you live with the same 10 people and get to form this sweet friendship. And you all get to embrace the suck, which is so fun! And it hurt!
Something that I did appreciate at the time was the “no pressure” of it. We were all on the same page, and then slowly when we were introduced to smaller races, whether it be regionals or nationals or whatever…then to North American Cup and Europe Cup, I like how those stepping stones lined up. So it wasn’t too much pressure all at once.
You’ve raced on all the tours, but went to World Champs before World Cup. What was that like?
It was weird because it was in a COVID season, and the whole thing was a bit messy. The selections were weird, and then people weren’t able to travel because of all sorts of things. So the way I was at World Champs wasn’t because I was the best on the team, but it was mostly because of how the rank was and that I could travel.
So I was super grateful for the opportunity, but it was wild, like drinking from the firehose. It was a ton of fun and cool to watch all these people be SO good.
And then you did go to World Cup this past season, how was that experience?
Going into my first World Cup season, I came off of an injury last season, so I wasn’t racing internationally and I just raced in our nationals that spring. It was really interesting, because I immediately turned back into Race Mode and that’s how I do things…and then I realized that there’s nothing like being in the situation that you’re in and being in that environment. It was definitely an uphill climb…not a battle though…all positive experiences this season. I learned a ton and was able to create more of my own process other than just doing what I was told all the time…following the footsteps of others instead of creating my own process.
So that was a huge win this season.
Was that your big takewawy this season? That you can do your own thing with your own process?
Absolutely! I really like people, I’m a social person…I’m sure that comes across pretty well! I like to help people, I like to make sure other people are taken care of as well. And this year was kind of interesting to see that shift that kind of needs to happen in a positive, healthy competitive way that you can have both. But finding that balance was key!
When the season ends, what do you like to do to relax?
Normally I’d go home to Vermont and be with my husband and my dog and do some coaching. But this year I got surgery on my meniscus two days after the season ended. I tore it last summer, so this season I was competing on that which wasn’t awesome. But it feels a heck of a lot better, which is great! It’s a lot of mellow time, hanging with family and friends and coaching kids, and getting all the love back that I was missing on the road.
Tell us about your dog.
Smudge! I’m obsessed with my dog and everyone knows it! Smudge is the best and I wish she could go on tour! She is 6 ½ years old, she looks like a puppy all the time. She’s part healer and part something else we don’t really know. She’s super energetic, super stubborn, super athletic. She’s so happy all the time, loves people…so she’s a lot like me! She’s just the very best, she’s literally the best! She makes me so happy!
I saw this post an old coworker of mine in upstate New York made, and it was like “There’s six puppies left of the 13, if we can’t get them out we’ll have to bring them to the shelter” and I was like “Dennis we have to get this dog!” And my husband has never had a dog in his life and at that time we’d been dating for like two years and he was like “Ooooookaaaaay?” And I was like “Great! Because there’s no other answer.”
We went and got her, she was six weeks old and was so small! And she was already on dry food because the mom was like “There’s 13 of you…there’s no way”. I came home and cried the whole way home, like “I GOT A PUPPYYYYYY!”
She’s the best. Dogs rule.
What was your favorite meal you’ve ever had?
The best meal I’ve ever had?! Oh shoot…so I LOVE food. I. Love. Food.
The best food…here’s the thing: It’s always the same, it’s consistently good, and it’s delicious and you can only get it in this one place. It’s Portuguese fish. It’s stuffed cod with a linguica-crusted baked cod. I’m Portuguese and linguica is our jam! I’m from Truro [ocean and fishing part of Cape Cod] but grew up in Provincetown [inexplicably more fishing] so all sorts of fishing families and all that!
You travel a lot for sliding, but where has been your favorite vacation unrelated to the sport?
I lived in Budapest, Hungary for a year and taught there and I loved it. It was an amazing experience, but I lived there so it wasn’t so much a trip. But last year I went to the track and field World Championships there and it was sick! I didn’t feel the need to tour the city, I just went to the event, which was still a super awesome trip.
Copenhagen was so much fun, too, it was great. So those two were really my favorite two trips.
If you weren’t sliding, what do you think you’d be doing with your free time?
I’m actually trying to figure out what the next step for me could be after sliding. My dream job is to be some form of academic advisor for student athletes at the collegiate level. My mentor in college and afterward is one of the associate athletic directors at the university that I attended [University of Vermont]. I have a background in education, I have a teaching degree and a big athletic background. So merging those two would be great…so something in that world would be great. I think the education piece is super important too, so maybe something like that or guidance counseling…but definitely in a school somewhere working with the youths.
Everyone has one curve that absolutely eats them up, which one is it for you?
I really don’t know!
Is there one that you really love?
I love kreisels!
Who has the best kreisel?
Altenberg! Königssee has a good one but that’s been down for a while. So Altenberg…I haven’t been to China though and I’ve heard that one’s awesome too.
One curve that I think I overthink is Shady here in Lake Placid, which sounds like such a copout. But you know if you have it instantly or not. As soon as you know you’ve missed it you’re not even out of the curve yet and you’re like “AHH! I’m not going to go fast!” But I thin kit’s nitpicky on that…it’s not even that it hurts or anything like that. So probably Shady…
…WAIT! All of Lillehammer. The whole track. I don’t know what was going on in my head, but I could not grasp a single thing on that track this year. I literally went through it over and over and over again, and in my head I’m like “Next year you’re mine!” I didn’t even think I was going to get a second run, and I’d put my bib in my bag by accident then I had to run down to get it! That’s how bad it was! Just curves 1 through “all of them”
What is your pre-race routine like?
It really depends on what time we race, because there’s kind of two different setups. Still trying to fine tune it, really. I have to force breakfast down…I don’t know why but on race day I just can’t eat. So I have to force two eggs every morning, over medium with a piece of toast and a banana and a clementine, two pieces of fruit and of course some coffee. If we’re racing right in the morning I’ll get to the track at like 20 minutes before the start of my routine. It also depends on where my start order is…I’m not going to spend three hours before my race there if I’m like 25th off!
So I get everything out of the bag first before I do anything or set anything with my sled. I get my spot ready. When I have some time I like to play solitaire. I set my rock, do my warmup…there’s some different mindfulness techniques I put in there, but nothing too crazy.
My music changes depending on things, I don’t have a set playlist but it’s really just whatever I’m feeling that day.
Being new on World Cup this season, you had to start at the bottom of the start list sometimes. What’s it like to start something like 50 minutes after the start of a race?
I learned to be okay with it. I’m not a very patient athlete, I want my knee to be better now, I want to race now, I want to slide now…so learning that skill is really difficult and fun at the same time. When that happened this season, I tried to keep headphones in and try not to listen to a bunch of stuff. I’d cheer on my teammates when they went…I mean I love everyone on tour pretty much so it’s hard for me to not cheer for everybody. But there are a few extra special folks out there that I make sure to check in on. But I try to zone it out, and kind of treat it like a training day when there’s like 40 people in your group…there’s just a lot of wait time.
What’s been your hardest memory in sliding?
My first world champs! I was wildly inexperienced and we were having some equipment malfunctions and I felt so out of place. It was a real humbling moment…it was one of my lowest moments as far as sliding-specific things. It was the best because I was learning at on, but it was really hard.
On the other hand, what’s been your favorite sliding sport memory?
Before this year, it was different. I was not happy with how I did in Lake Placid this year race-wise. I was training really well and my race stunk. But I have to say, I had so many family and friends there, it was so loud I could not hear Caleb [Smith – coach for USA through last season] at the line. In that moment I was hyper-focused, but there was second where I decided to look up and was like “Holy crap this is so much love, I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!”
It was so cool to just get that feeling and be like “Alright! We can do anything!” It was really, really special. So that…even afterward, Janine Flock said “In all of my years of sliding I’ve never felt the starthouse shake!”
It really was the loudest I’d experienced in person in at least eight or nine years, and the loudest skeleton start I’ve ever heard in Lake Placid!
There were so many people! I think we tallied like 40 people. I’m just super lucky! I always say that I love love! I love my family and friends, we all live close enough and it was just so, so special!
Now if I can qualify for World Champs next year it’ll be even louder!