{"id":21711,"date":"2024-02-14T20:51:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T20:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=21711"},"modified":"2026-04-21T19:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:57:13","slug":"world-championships-up-next-for-speed-skating-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2024\/02\/world-championships-up-next-for-speed-skating-star\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championships Up Next for Speed Skating Star"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2021, Conor McDermott-Mostowy \u02bc24 (Washington, DC) was gearing up for the ISU Speed Skating World Championships in the Netherlands, positioning himself for his ultimate goal of competing in the 2022 Olympics. And he was almost there\u2014until norovirus abruptly snatched his chance away. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, the twenty-five-year-old is again preparing for this weekend\u2019s World Championships in Calgary, Canada\u2014with a shift in perspective. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s had a year of what he calls \u201cunexpectedly good skating,\u201d a modest description of his record-breaking 1000-meter race on January 28 at World Cup #5 in Salt Lake City. Having previously finished in the top twenty, he climbed to the top five, his personal best by a wide margin. His final time? Just under one minute and seven seconds\u2014something only three other people in US history have ever skated. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a career goal that I did not expect to happen that weekend,\u201d he says. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he\u2019s unsure of what exactly led to the breakthrough race, he has a hunch. \u201cI used to feel like everything was dependent upon my  skating results, like being content with my career,\u201d he says. \u201cBut seeing the prospect of the Olympics disappear in 2022 made me reframe what\u2019s important\u2014working on doing things for myself, having fun outside of skating, and remembering that skating is not everything in my life.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shift has helped him relax before competitions, something he thinks contributed to his remarkable World Cup time. \u201cI used to be extremely anxious as an athlete,\u201d he says. \u201cBut over the last couple years, as I’ve gotten more successful in skating and more confident in myself, I enter competitions with a lot less anxiety.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a more-than-useful trait for the upcoming championships. The World Cups are qualifiers for the World Championships, which Conor likens to \u201cthe Olympics in non-Olympic years.\u201d The Championships do not determine eligibility for the Olympics, but they\u2019re a sort of stepping stone on the path there. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With back-to-back traveling around North America for the past couple of weeks to skate, it\u2019s been a busy start to his final semester at Macalester, but he admits that he\u2019s never really had a traditional schooling experience to begin with. There were gap years and rearranged semesters for skating engagements (and not to mention the pandemic) to work around, so Conor has spent most of his time at Mac away from St. Paul, taking equivalency courses at the University of Utah for the past two years. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Splitting his time and efforts between skating and schoolwork has been a constant challenge, and while he\u2019s looking forward to graduation to focus on Olympic training, he says it\u2019s all been worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been skating five days a week since high school,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of sacrifices I\u2019ve made to get here. But the opportunity to compete like this is something that can usually only occur within a very small window of your life. I would do it again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a nontraditional education, Conor might also move into a nontraditional athletic career: if he makes the Olympics in 2026, the tentative plan is to retire afterward. For athletes in his field, it would be retiring right at the peak of his career\u2014but the neuroscience major is aiming to attend medical school, something he feels would be incompatible with skating on this level. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Conor also acknowledges that his plans have always been \u201cin flux,\u201d so a standout performance at the Olympics could alter his future yet again. However the timeline shakes out, he says he feels prepared for whatever new challenges lie ahead with the lessons that skating has taught him over the last fifteen years. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the most important factors in my skating success has been a sense of work ethic and the idea that results don’t come overnight,\u201d he says. \u201cOf all my years skating, only four of those have been as an international World Cup competitor, so I am fully aware of the work, commitment, and time it will take to achieve my goals. Anything really good you have to work for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conor will compete in the 1000-meter, 1500-meter, and mass start races at the International Skating Union World Speed Skating Single Distances Championships in Calgary, Canada from February 15\u201318. <\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years after missing the Olympics, Conor McDermott-Mostowy \u02bc24 is still grinding for the 2026 games\u2014with a quick stop at the Speed Skating World Championships <\/p>","protected":false},"author":677,"featured_media":21753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":false,"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21711"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29835,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21711\/revisions\/29835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}