Figure skating is typically a youngster's sport ? little girls in pretty costumes and young men who jump like they have springs in their skates.
But don't tell that to Beata Handra and Charles Sinek, the veterans of America's Olympic figure skating team.
Partnered in sport ? ice dancing ? and in life, Handra and Sinek have proved that Olympians, especially in figure skating, need not always be children.
Sinek is 33, equal to the combined ages of teammates Sasha Cohen and Sarah Hughes. Handra is 25. The two have been married since 1996 and are the only married couple in the American delegation.
But age isn't the only factor that sets Handra and Sinek apart from the rest of the figure skating team. As they look forward to the pinnacle of their career, they can take a moment to look back at the winding road that led them to Salt Lake City.
Beata Handra is the daughter of Desy, a physician who came to the United States as a refugee from Hungary during the country's revolution in 1956, and Tomoko, a Japan-born concert pianist.
Handra began skating when she was 6 years old at a local rink in San Rafael, Calif. She saw the rink and asked to skate, and her mother arranged for her to have lessons.
"She thought I'd maybe get more out of it if I had a lesson. Also, that meant she wouldn't have to slide around on the ice with me," Handra joked. "I got started right away. I went the next day, and the next day, and the next."
Sinek is the son of Joachim, a chemical engineer and academic, and Maryvan, a homemaker who also took an active role in the family's real estate business.
Sinek began skating at 4, which, he said, "lasted a few weeks." A hyperactive child, Sinek was asked first to leave figure skating, then hockey. He eventually returned to ice dancing at age 9, when he was cajoled into skating with his older sister.
"By virtue of being her brother, I was forced to skate with her," Sinek said, wryly.
"We competed and did well. But she was three years older and about a foot taller the whole time. I'm sure we looked pretty comical."
Neither Handra nor Sinek aspired to become Olympians. There were no "I saw Peggy Fleming at the Olympics, and knew I that's what I wanted" stories.
But as it happened, the lessons they learned in life were exactly what they needed to set them on the path to Salt Lake City.
"I was never one of those kids who said, 'I'm gonna be at the Olympics, mommy,' " Handra said. "I just lived in the present. I looked at the goals I could see and focused on the ones I thought were realistic."
Handra attended public school, then went to one year at the University of California at Berkeley before she met Sinek. Her life, she said, was "normal."
Sinek knew something of the Olympics: His father represented Chile as a fencer in the 1950s, as Sinek recalled. Joachim Sinek passed away 10 years ago.
Though he believed he had the talent and work ethic to put him on par with other Olympic hopefuls, Sinek knew there were other variables: luck, timing, perseverance.
"I didn't ever think that I would be an Olympian," he said. "There are too many variables. But I knew that the teams who stay together the longest tend to rise to the top. If you look at any of the top teams, they're at the top because they have stayed together. That's what we did. We stayed together."
The fact that Handra and Sinek ? four-time national pewter medalists ? stuck together and stayed in the sport, when their bodies and pocketbooks may have nudged them toward retirement, became the key that opened their Olympic dreams.
That perseverance permeated all aspects of their lives. When a blood clot kept Sinek off the ice until two months before the Olympic trials, the team did not give up. Sinek, once cleared to train again, merely worked harder, faster, smarter.
When their modest income and credit cards were not enough to pay for their training expenses, Sinek started his own business making SK8TAPE, a vinyl tape used on skate boots as an alternative to polish. It is sold in skate shops nationwide. The business has provided the money they need to continue training, Sinek said.
Even three consecutive fourth-place showings at nationals weren't enough to keep them from pursuing their dream.
At the 2002 Olympic qualifier last month in Los Angeles, they again placed fourth. But, due to citizenship requirements that disqualified the second- and third-place teams, Handra and Sinek filled the second Olympic ice-dance berth. They will join four-time national champions Naomi Lang and Peter Tchernyshev in representing the United States.
It was a long, winding road. But, Handra said, the journey was worth the effort.
"We do it because we love it," she said. "Skating is an investment with no tangible return. You have to do it for the love of it. We don't have the corporate sponsorships. Our families support us, and the business supports us. But right now, we're just trying to pay for our training expenses."
Handra and Sinek are not medal favorites. They have no entourage of "people" to help them fend off the media. They may not spin their ice-dancing accolades into movie or music careers.
But they are Olympians. And there's something to be said for that. Scratch that ? there's everything to be said for that.
"I'm just going to soak it all in," Handra said. "I have a journal, and I'm going to write every day so I can tell all my grandkids. I hope I don't miss a minute of it. It'll go by way too fast, I know it."
E-mail: jnii@desnews.com