Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 28, 1993 TAG: 9301280351
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
DETERMINDED SPEED SKATER EARNS A SPECIAL TRIP
When Barbara Quarles first touched her size 7 skates to the ice two years ago, she also clutched a walker to steady her body as her feet learned to glide across the rink.Though she ended up in a hospital with some sore bones after that attempt at speed skating, Quarles didn't give up. She went on, in fact, to win a gold medal last year at Virginia's Special Olympics competition, a medal she dedicated to her Aunt Dorothy.
That medal win also earned her a spot in the drawing that Virginia Special Olympics held to determine its representatives for international competition. Only five names were drawn, and the 27-year-old Quarles from Vinton was one of them.
When her coach, Greg Gereaux, told her she'd be part of the Virginia team going to Austria this March, "I screamed!"
Quarles, a material handler at Tinker Mountain Industries in Troutville, has been involved with Special Olympics for about 11 years. "I've done everything," she says. "Basketball, track and field, bowling and pentathlon. . . . I've got so many medals, I can't count them."
Quarles didn't even consider ice skating until she began taking her brothers to the LancerLot Sports Complex ice rink for their Special Olympics practice sessions. When she told Gereaux, who has coached her in other sporting events, she was ready to try the ice, there was no stopping her.
"She's pretty dedicated," Gereaux says.
So dedicated that after the first two practice sessions, which Gereaux admits were pretty difficult, she still wanted to compete on ice.
Quarles says she's never been easily discouraged when it comes to competing. When she was running in a Special Olympics race at 12, "I lost my shoe and kept on running and still got first place. At the end of the race, I looked down and said `Where's my shoe at?' "
Though Quarles' thoughts have been directed toward Austria, she competed again in Virginia Beach last week, facing competition at the state level. She and other skaters representing Area 8, which includes Roanoke and Salem and Botetourt, Craig, Franklin and Roanoke counties, returned home Friday. Quarles brought with her a gold medal from the senior masters women's 100-meter race.
Before her trip, Quarles said she was a little bit nervous about the Virginia Beach events, "but I'll just go in there and skate and get out of there - get my boost up to get my gold in international."
In December, Quarles made her first trip out of Virginia, to Lake Placid, N.Y., to meet members of the United States' team to Austria. She also met the coaches for the speed skating Team USA.
Quarles has been practicing with the Area 8 team - every Saturday for two hours. They time themselves skating around the ice, sometimes racing against each other, sometimes against time.
On a recent Saturday, during practice, Quarles concentrated on the 300-meter race, her competition in Austria. The distance is three times around the LancerLot rink.
Although Quarles has never skated that race before, she isn't worried. She knows she gets better with practice, and Gereaux says every time Quarles practices, her times improve.
Quarles says she has a strategy for beating her competition. "I learn their strategy so I can beat them."
And to psyche herself up for competing, she prays.
An avid churchgoer, Quarles spends much of her time working with a youth group at Vinton Wesleyan Church. She sings in a church choir and also helps with the church's bus ministry and Vacation Bible School.
Besides church and competing in Special Olympics, Quarles writes poetry - mostly love poems - and draws mountain scenes, dogs and people. She says she's better at drawing people.
When Quarles goes to Austria this spring, she plans to win the gold. But also on her list is meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I'm going to try to get his autograph," she said.
Family members also want her to "have fun and bring back a Swiss hunk."
Quarles, however, has only one thing to say about being selected to go to Austria. "Do you ever watch the `Wizard of Oz' - when they say dreams really do come true? That's the way I feel."