WHERE ARE THEY NOW?


SKATING CONTINUES TO BRING GRATIFICATION TO LYONS


by LOIS ELFMAN W


hen Shelby Lyons’ students tell her they’re too busy to work on a skating skill she’s asked them to practice, she has a pretty decisive reply. “Tese kids who tell me, ‘I don’t have time


to do that,’ I say, ‘How did I have time to do it? I did singles, pairs, school and I had a job (working at Jamba Juice),’” Lyons said. “Anytime I wasn’t on the ice or in school (she was able to attend some classes at Cheyenne Mountain High School) or with my tutor, I had to come home and do homework. It was crazy, but it was so worth it.”


Te sacrifices that Lyons and her parents made when she competed were well-known, including the fact that her bedroom was a con- verted walk-in closet. Despite the challenges, she excelled on the ice — four times earning a spot on the podium in senior pairs at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships with Brian Wells (1995‒98), twice placing in the top 10 at the World Championships (1996 and ’98), winning the U.S. junior ladies title (1996) and twice com- peting in senior ladies (1997 and ’98). Tese days, Lyons balances being a wife and mother with full-time coaching, although some- times when she’s with 4-year-old daughter Sylvie people think she’s the babysitter. “People look at me funny sometimes be- cause I still look like I’m a teenager,” said Lyons, 31, who is 4 feet 10 inches tall. “People say I’m really going to like [looking younger] when I get older. We’ll see.” After her partnership with Wells ended, Ly- ons continued to train in singles, but eventually decided she was ready for a change. She signed on to tour with Disney on Ice in 2000. It proved a fortuitous decision, as she met her future hus- band, Gordon Harrison, in the first city on the tour, Mexico City.


“I was kind of naïve,” she recalled. “After


the show everybody was going across the street to this bar/restaurant. He invited me to go with him. I thought, ‘He’s just inviting me because I’m new and that’s where everybody goes.’ My room- mate said, ‘He’s asking you to go with him.’ I didn’t quite get it, but eventually it worked out.” Te show in which they appeared, now


called “100 Years of Disney Magic,” is still tour- ing the world. It came through Colorado earlier this year, and some of her former castmates are still in the show. Lyons became ill during a tour in Japan


and returned home. It took a while for her to recover, and when she did she signed on for a sev- en-month contract aboard the Royal Caribbean International cruise ship Adventurer of the Seas. “When I first got on I felt I was skating in circles, circles, circles,” she said of the small


ice surface, “but then I got used to it and it was great.” She got along well with her castmates and also made friends with other people on the ship, seeing it as a chance to experience things outside of skating. “I got as many jobs doing other things as I


could,” she said. “I worked on the sports deck, the rock-climbing wall. I got all the equipment out for the parades. I’m not a beach person, so I didn’t really care if I was missing out. “I loved meeting all of the dancers. Te skaters helped with the costume changes for the dancers and the dancers would for the skaters. It was super fun to do that. Every show that I wasn’t changing, I would go watch the dancers. Tat was fun.” When both decided to leave the road be-


hind, she and Harrison moved to Texas to coach. About eight years ago, they settled in Fort Col- lins, Colo., which isn’t far from Colorado Springs. It allows her to see her parents most weekends. Her dad recently took up curling, and Lyons and Harrison, 34, have even joined her parents for bonspiels (curling tournaments). She’s often amused by how much her parents enjoy spoiling their granddaughter. “I’m so thankful for everything that they


did for me,” Lyons said. “Tey moved across the country. Even as a coach it helps me to help kids understand that their parents do all this stuff to let them skate. I still tell my parents how grateful I am. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do any of the things — compete, Disney, anything — if they hadn’t done all that for me. “I’m trying to get my daughter to under-


stand that,” she continued. “Tey like to spoil her. I try to make her understand you can’t always get what you want.” Originally from upstate New York, the Ly-


ons family relocated to Colorado when Lyons teamed up with Wells. Tey all fell in love with it. “I love the mountains, the weather. I love


everything about it really,” Lyons said. Lyons coaches singles and pairs skaters at all


levels. She’s had pairs teams make it to the U.S. Junior Championships a couple of years ago and also coached a novice team a few years ago. Sylvie is already skating pairs with a 9-year-old partner. “She started when she was 2,” Lyons said. “It kind of was a joke, but it’s worked out. “I wanted her to know how to skate, but I


was kind of hoping she might not really be that into it,” she added. “From the time before she was walking she wanted to be on the ice. I stuck with it and it’s not bad. She likes her partner and they have fun together. “For now, she likes skating. We’re also trying ballet and gymnastics. We’ll see.”


Shelby Lyons and partner Brian Wells compete at 1996 Skate America in Springfield, Mass.


Tey visit Harrison’s family in Squamish,


British Columbia, Canada when they can. Tey were there over the summer when a friend of his got married.


When asked to name her most memora- ble competitions, she mentions the 1996 U.S. Championships in San Jose, Calif., where she and Wells placed third in pairs and she won junior ladies. She also relished the first trip to Worlds in 1996 and her three trips to the World Junior Championships in 1996, ’97 and ’98. She also competed singles on the Junior Grand Prix circuit and saw Timothy Goebel land his first quadruple Salchow.


Tese days, she catches skating on TV when she can, but not as often as she’d like. She en- joys watching Jeremy Abbott, whom she trained alongside, do well. Away from the ice, Lyons said they’re a “to-


tally Disney family.” Tey visit Disney World as often as they can. “Our whole entire house is pictures of my


daughter from Disney World,” Lyons said. “If anybody needs to know anything Disney, I’m the one to come to.” While Lyons may not look much older than when she last competed at the U.S. Champion- ships, there is one big difference — her hair. As a competitor, she always wore it short. Now it’s long and flowing. “My mom wouldn’t let me grow it out back


then,” she said. “I’m never going to have short hair ever again. My daughter had super-long hair, but she just cut it off for Locks of Love (a public nonprofit organization that provides hairpiec- es to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada suffering from long- term medical hair loss from any diagnosis). She thought that was pretty cool. She wants to do it again.”


SKATING 9


GRAY MORTIMORE/GETTY IMAGES


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