BLOG: I take off and land about 85 times per day 6 days per week. No, I am not a Qantas 747!
 
My name is Brooklee Han, I am a 17 year old figure skater and a 2014 Australian Olympic Team hopeful. I have been competing internationally for three seasons now and I am the top ranked Australian lady in the world.

I have competed in 10 international events in England, Germany, Australia, Italy, Slovenia, United States, and Turkey, 3 ISU Junior World Championships in South Korea, Belarus and Italy, 1 Four Continents Championship in Japan and this season I competed in my first ISU World Championships in London, Ontario, Canada, placing 21st overall.

I was Australia’s only entrant in this year’s World Championships, due the increased technical scores required for skaters wishing to be eligible to compete. I was very excited and honored to be part of such an important event. For my first Senior World Championship. I was very pleased with the two performances, including a personal best in my short program and an almost personal best score in my long and overall score. This was a great end to my season and I am hoping for bigger and better things in this next Olympic season.

I train six days a week at Newington Arena in Newington, Conneticut, International Skating Center of Conneticut in Simsbury, Conneticut, and Medibank Icehouse in Melbourne, Victoria under the instruction of Serhii Vaypan. I am very grateful to have Serhii as my coach and choreographer, as he has helped me achieve so many of my goals and I know without all of his help, support, and guidance I would not be where I am today.

Besides being an international figure skater I am also a full time high school student and am in year 12 at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Conneticut. The administration, teachers and my classmates have been a huge part of my success over the past few season on and off of the ice. Their support has enabled me to miss over 40 days of school each year whilst taking honors and advanced placement course and maintaining top marks in all of my classes. I have also been accepted to Wesleyan University and am planning on studying Biology. Wesleyan has already shown their support of me and my skating career by allowing me to defer my studies for next school year so I can focus more on my skating in preparation for the Olympics.

I  have played the violin since I was five years old. I have had the pleasure of being part of  multiple orchestras, chamber ensembles and quartets. My other love is  riding horses. My first time on a horse I was 6 weeks old and it was really fun ( so I am told). The early start on horses led me to competing in my first horse show at 20 months old. I have competed in both Dressage and Eventing equine sports. Both my parents were involved in equestrian sports. My father was the Junior Young Rider Eventing Champion of Australia and my mother worked for the US Equestrian team athletes in Dressage and Eventing. I have not competed in riding for a few years now as I have chosen to focus on my skating career. 

I still have my fat white Welsh mountain pony, Fatboy, at home and I ride him on weekends during the school year and almost everyday during the summer. Needless to say figure skating is Fatboy’s favourite sport, he believes that another child on the ice is another child off of a poor pony’s back. We are all animal lovers in my house, we have a dog named Willa, an eight month old kitten named Mishka – Mishka means bear in Russian, which is definitely fitting for this little one.  My dad has a horse named Benny, he competes him in eventing , Jumpers and Hunter shows.

This is my first blog and first blog post ever, so thank you to everyone for reading and supporting me on the road to Sochi. I will try my best to keep you up to date with my progress over the next year.
 
Thank you again and Please keep reading!
Brooklee