Ice Skating Is No Big Chill for Them : Keely and Mero Have Dreams of Making the Olympics

Katy Keely and Joe Mero face a big chill virtually every day, but theirs has more to do with dreams found than dreams lost.

Keely and Mero are ice skaters--pairs skaters, to be exact--and three times a day, six days a week, they can be found at the Ice Capades Chalet in Costa Mesa. It is here where the pair work toward their dream of participating in the 1988 Winter Olympics at Calgary.

Entering the chilly rink is a shock climactically, and it’s a shock culturally, too. After all, when you think of sports in Orange County, prep football or even beach volleyball comes to mind before ice skating.

There is something incongruous about winter sports in this area, particularly in August, but thanks to the miracle of modern refrigeration, Keely and Mero are nonetheless able to practice their craft year round.

The tremendous effort that Keely and Mero put into their sport becomes as clear as their breath in front of your face the minute you walk into the rink. For Keely and Mero at least, the lower temperature at the rink is invigorating, something that gets the blood pumping.

“Aw, it’s not that cold in here,” said their coach, John Nicks. “It’s just that if it’s 80 degrees outside and 50 or so in here, you’re bound to notice it more when you drop 30 (degrees).”

That’s easy for him to say, from the inside of a thermal parka.

For his charges, however, it’s a markedly different story. In uniform on this occasion for a photographer, Keely and Mero are compelled to move, and move constantly, lest the muscles stiffen.

A sign on the wall says “No spraying, cutting in and out of traffic flow, tag games, etc.,” but as Keely and Mero practice their routine, that seems to be the order of the day as perhaps a dozen other solo skaters weave around the pair to classical music piped in through a loudspeaker.

The sound soon changes to Keely and Mero’s signature music--the themes from the movies “Blade Runner” and “Das Boot”--and their coach’s evaluation of their strengths quickly comes to light.

Nicks, who in previous years coached the team of Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner as well as Jo Jo Starbuck and Tiffany Chin, knows of what he speaks. The U.S. Olympic skating coach since 1968, Nicks himself was a world champion and Olympic skater for Great Britain in the early 1950s.

“I think there are two main reasons that they’re successful,” he said. “First, they’re both ideally suited physically. They both have great physiques and excellent strength. Someone like Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner were more artistic skaters, but these two are power skaters.

“Second is that they simply have a good rapport together. If pairs are incompatible, it usually will show up in the routine.”

Figure skating seems to be one of those sports that people pay attention to every four years during the Winter Olympics but ignore otherwise.

And, skating did receive its predictable boost during the last Winter Olympics when Great Britain’s Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean charmed the world with their ice dancing routine while winning the gold medal on Valentine’s Day in 1984 at Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Keely and Mero differ from Torvill and Dean in that their figure skating routines are closer to gymnastics. Ice dancing is more “ballroom on the ice,” according to Nicks.

World-class performances from the likes of ice dancers Torvill and Dean or figure skaters Babilonia and Gardner come only after years of practice in rinks such as the Ice Capades Chalet.

And, given the intensity of those practices, the years may also take a great physical toll including bumps and bruises from collisions, lacerations from ice skate blades or hairline fractures from falls.

Fortunately for Keely and Mero, each skater came into the sport, coincidentally enough, with an athletic background that has served each other’s career well.

At 6-feet 2-inches and a muscular 173 pounds, Mero is big enough to be mistaken for a football player, which is what he was at Redford Union High School in suburban Detroit, where he played before graduating in 1982.

Having a well-developed upper body is a necessity for Mero, having to twirl Keely about on the ice in an effortless manner to impress the judges.

And Keely, for her part, must be nimble enough to spin, twirl, jump, skate gracefully on one leg, and balance herself above Mero on a combination move--all elements of gymnastics and ballet, which Keely was heavily involved in before pursuing skating full time.

Together, the two Costa Mesa residents have proven good enough to win several regional competitions and most recently won a silver medal at the National Sports Festival in Baton Rouge, La.

They are currently training for the Skate Canada competition to be held at London, Ontario, in October, and have been making notable progress since they took a first place in their initial competition at a tournament in Paramount.

“I first got into ice skating after taking up roller skating,” Mero said. “Katy and I got together after competing against each other beforehand.

“With each passing competition, you feel much more confident. The only thing is you really have to watch is your weight. You don’t see too many overweight pairs skaters.”

That doesn’t seem as if it will be a problem for these two, given their strict training regimen. But Keely is used to that, having grown up in San Diego, where she first began aiming for a skating career since she was 15 years old.

“I knew then that I had the potential to take this a long way,” she said. “I can always go to college later. You only have so many years to skate.”

Asked how old she was now, Keely replied, “I turned 20 on Aug. 17.”

This drew a shocked look from her skating partner Mero, also 20, and someone whom she has trained constantly with for the past 18 months.

“I didn’t know that,” Mero said, with a look that suggested he was embarrassed at not getting her a present on her recent birthday.

That’s OK, Joe. An Olympic medal somewhere down the line will probably make up for it.