Athlete Seeks Supportive Hand from Poker Players

She claims she's not an adrenaline junkie, but instead finds peace while racing down an icy track at 85 mph as a skeleton athlete.

Lauri Bausch, a 26-year-old Fredonia native, is working towards a chance to participate in skeleton in the 2014 Olympics.

Skeleton involves an athlete riding solo on a sled down a frozen track, and training and supplies come with a lot of expenses. While she saves every penny to pay for the sport, Bausch tries to hold fundraisers to help her cause. A recently planned golf outing had to be canceled due to low participation, but Bausch is placing her bets on a game of poker.

A on Saturday at the in Saukville is actually meant to raise money for Bausch's 2011-12 international race tour. Registration for the Texas Hold 'em event starts at 10 a.m. Saturday, and the tournament starts at 11 a.m. There will also be a raffle, silent auction and Skeleton Federation T-shirt giveaways, as well as payouts for the top 10 poker player finishers.

"I think part of the reason why I came back (to the area for the fundraiser) is that it’s nice to get back to people who — it’s not their life ... so you can teach them something about it," Bausch said. "In Lake Placid (NY), you’re not going to be able to fund raise for your sport because most of the people there are a part of it. It’s a little Olympic village."

Lake Placid, NY, is the only Olympic center in the U.S. to have both a skeleton track and a training center located at the same facility. Bausch interned at the center after college, and that's where her love of skeleton began.

"Basically, I lied down, they kicked me down the track and on the first turn I loved it," Bausch said.

During her internship, Bausch landed in the weight room, where she helped Olympic athletes work on their training routines. She would often meet with new recruits for bobsled and skeleton and give them tips on how to train.

"Some of the people that went to the Olympics, I wrote them their starter programs," she said. "When they first came in, they didn’t know what to do. Maybe some of them had to put weight on and they had to figure out 'Okay, we’ve got to put muscle on your legs'; especially if you’re skeleton — you don’t want to build your upper body up."

One day, one of the Olympic coaches suggested Bausch get on the track with some of the athletes. At first, she tried her hand at being a breakman for a bobsled team, but was later invited to participate in a skeleton camp.

"I thought my natural high stress level would force me to drive into a wall and crash and it was kind of the opposite. I got on the sled and relaxed, so I think that’s what kind of hooked me," Bausch said.

The coaches said Bausch had naturally good form and, after trying the skeleton that first time, they entered her in a regional competition race, where she came in fifth place.

Bausch was told to come back to the center in the fall of 2009, so she went back to Eau Claire (where she attended college to pursue a  degree in kinesiology) to pack up her things; she then worked for a summer in Texas before returning to train with the skeleton coaches six days a week.

“A lot of people, if they don’t know the sport or they’ve just seen it on TV, think it’s crazy, and I thought it was until I tried it. There’s logic to it, it’s a lot of physics,” Bausch said.

Bausch won the eastern regional competition in 2009, which meant she could compete in the team trials in the fall of 2010. The team trials determined which race circuit she would be in. For her rookie year, Bausch competed in the Europa Cup, where she never came in below fifth place.

In the off-season, she returns to the Fredonia area to work and train. She has held a variety of jobs in the area growing up, including working down at the Port Washington marina for a few summers. This summer, she had an office position with a company which supplies outdoor services such as seal coating, landscaping and paving.

Bausch enjoys having a seasonal job that allows her to maintain her extensive exercise and nutrition schedule.

"It allows me to eat according to my schedule. I’m constantly eating nuts or something random," she said, "but (its) those little things that I think make a difference in being in shape and being able to perform."

Working while training in Lake Placid has proven to be a difficult task for Bausch, who has noticed that it can affect her skill level on the skeleton track.

"I would try to work just a couple days a week and my sliding started going way downhill. I was exhausted," Bausch said.

Bausch made the tough decision to focus completely on training while in New York. She now saves as much as she can while working at home during the off-season to put towards her travel expenses and equipment. The expenses rack up fast for Bausch when she has to tour in the different race circuits.

"My equipment I had to buy. All my travel I had to pay for. Every race there’s a fee that varies [in price]," Bausch said. "Your luggage fees add up. My sled’s almost 100 pounds, so if I have a suitcase to travel around Europe with and then you have something that’s both oversized and overweight, right there’s a couple hundred dollars."

One of three girls, Bausch said her father had to slowly get used to the idea of his daughter competing in the sport, but is now one of her biggest supporters.

"He wears his skeleton shirt all the time. He’ll buy shirts and give them out to his friends, so now he’s definitely that proud parent. It’s just a hard sport for him to watch," Bausch said.

The 2011-12 tour starts in October. Looking ahead to the future, Bausch’s game plan would be to compete in the Intercontinental Cup, put money towards a new sled, have time to train on the new sled and then compete in the World Cup. If she does well in the World Cup, she could go on to the World Championship and possibly the 2014 Olympics being held in Sochi, Russia.