The opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics starts tonight in South Korea. Lots of athletes who live or train in Utah will be there representing the US, including Abby Ringquist from Park City. She'll be competing in the women’s ski jump. KUER's Erik Neumann asked Ringquist how she’s feeling about her Olympics debut after landing in South Korea.
Ringquist: It’s kind of been a whirlwind. We went through all the athlete process of getting all of our gear and opening ceremonies garb, and all of that fun stuff. I woke up this morning crying because I realized that I’m actually here.
Neumann: Yeah, it sounds like it’s been quite a journey for you to get there.
Ringquist: Yeah, so when Sochi was the main focus we didn’t have enough funding to send our team to every single World Cup, and because of that my spot kept sliding down in the in the world ranking. And the last World Cup came and I unfortunately got disqualified and I lost Team USA the fourth spot for Sochi and it was devastating to say the least.
Neumann: And that’s an especially big deal because that was the first time that women’s ski jump was an Olympic sport. So how does that feel to be part of that second time that this sport is being presented there?
Ringquist: It’s a really cool experience. We’re such a tight-knit group of girls that had worked so hard and pushed this sport to the limits to get it here, to get it to the games to get it to world championships and World Cup events, so to be able to share this moment with girls that I’ve grown up with for the last 15 years and with some new ones in there. I don’t know. I can’t wait to have this moment and this experience.
