Hot Wheels : Moreno Going Places--on Roller Skates

No matter how far she travels, Jill Moreno can’t duck the inevitable mix-ups.

Just the other day a young man who probably should know better asked her which of the 37 Olympic Festival athletic events she was participating in.

Moreno answered.

“Roller skating, huh? You mean like this?” he said, jabbing with both his elbows.

This from another athlete no less.

“People think I do roller derby,” said Moreno, a 17-year-old student at Rio Mesa High.

Not even close.

Moreno is an artistic roller skater, which might evoke the image of a scantily clad tattooed person slaloming around gawkers at Venice Beach.

Actually, Moreno’s sport is similar to figure skating--only without ice, large crowds and big money.

As in figure skating, the athletes are graded on appearance, flow, degree of difficulty and artistic impression as they perform routines to music.

Unlike ice skaters, roller skaters train and compete in relative anonymity.

Moreno, U.S. junior singles champion, is a household name only in her family’s Oxnard residence. For that matter, fame also has eluded world champion Rachelle Hanson of Ontario, the favorite in today’s Olympic Festival competition.

There are reasons for that, of course. Figure skating is faster, smoother and more graceful. However, it is no more demanding.

Roller skaters perform routines similar in length, but their renditions include more jumps and longer combinations of jumps using equipment weighing three times more than ice skates.

Moreno is a good figure skater and might have chosen to compete in that sport were she more dedicated and if her family was able to afford the $20,000-$30,000 per year cost of training.

She started roller skating seven years ago at the urging of a friend who was starting up the competitive ranks. It wasn’t long before Moreno was the better of the two skaters.

“I was doing this for fun,” Moreno said. “Then all of a sudden it turned into this big thing.”

Even she seems a bit oblivious as to exactly how big.

In a battle between love of sport and the temptations of adolescence, roller skating may be losing out.

If she does not qualify for the world championships in Italy by finishing in the top three at the national championships in August, Moreno said she might quit the sport and devote her time to being a teen-ager.

Her situation is a classic paradox. Moreno’s goal is to compete in the world championships, yet she is not sure she is willing to commit the time that might take.

In the short term, she believes her chances of a top finish in her first nationals against top competition are not very good.

“When you’re a newcomer the judges usually don’t even consider you,” she said.

Others are offering a more optimistic view.

“Watching her today, she has the content to challenge the top guns,” said Adolph Wacker, manager of the U.S. national team and its former coach. “She’s going to compete for a medal here, possibly even a gold.”

Wacker agreed that Moreno faces an uphill climb in her effort to qualify for the world championships, but he does not entirely count her out.

“That third spot is sometimes used--in ice skating too--for a newcomer to get a taste of it,” Wacker said. “That’s where she might fit in.”

Less than two years ago, Moreno temporarily quit the sport when she felt that training was cramping her social life.

“I guess you could say I was into boys,” Moreno said. “I wanted to go on dates and talk on the phone instead of practice.”

That time, she couldn’t stay away. In June last year, three weeks before the junior regional, Moreno resumed training.

She won the regional.

Six weeks later, she was national junior champion.

Being away from skating, she said, was “fun at first. But then it got boring.”

Since then, Moreno has been training more than ever--sometimes four or five hours a day--with her coach, Karin Miller, owner of a rink in Oxnard.

Miller, who became a U.S. citizen last week, is a former German gymnastics champion who Moreno says is “like a second mother.”

The motherly side of Miller understands Moreno’s predicament.

“It’s her senior year,” Miller said. “She’s looking around, trying to figure out what she wants to do.”

But the coach in Miller would like for Moreno to continue. “She has the ability, the natural talent,” Miller said of the young woman she calls her “prize possession.”

Wacker agrees. “When she gets a little more experience, in another year or two maybe, she’ll be our next champion,” he said.

Moreno isn’t so sure. She would like to party with her friends. She would like to go dancing. She would like to begin studying to become a teacher.

In roller skating, there are no career dividends. The top three performers at nationals receive money for training costs. That’s it.

There is also the mounting pressure which she places on herself.

In the overall scheme of things, the Olympic Festival is only a tuneup for nationals.

“It should be fun,” Moreno said. “But for me there is pressure because the people here are so good. When I see that, I get nervous.”

If butterflies are a problem, it didn’t show while she was working out Saturday. Moreno seemed at ease during a particularly strong practice program.

“Her double axel is very good, better than anybody in this event, except for maybe one,” Wacker said.

He was referring to Hanson, who accomplished a skating hat trick last year by winning Olympic festival, national and world titles.

Moreno is capable of going a turn further in practice, but she has not attempted a triple jump in competition.

Others do, Miller said, “But they cheat, sometimes three-quarters or at least a half a turn.”

Triples will not become a part of Moreno’s routine until they are perfected. Her choice.

“I don’t think it’s right that people cheat them,” she said. “It just doesn’t look good. Until I get mine right, I won’t let anyone see them.”