February 28, 1988|By DAVE HEEREN, Staff Writer
When the U.S. Olympic Trials were held last month, Tracey Damigella of Miramar was a contender for the American figure skating team. She was rated the fourth or fifth best skater in the competition, with a chance to be one of the three Olympic qualifiers.
She finished eighth and afterward Dr. Robert Voy, head of the Olympic Training Center, found her crying.
``My parents put everything into my skating and I blew it,`` she told him.
He told her she had put too much pressure on herself to win.
The pressure was real. To keep their 19-year-old daughter skating at the international level, Frank and Marion Damigella had to sell a house in Boston and a motel in South Florida. It takes close to $50,000 a year to pay for all the expenses involved in international figure skating and the well had just about run dry.
The Damigellas had been told after their daughter won a major competiton in Budapest last fall that all she needed to become an Olympic caliber skater was a good choreographer. ``We just couldn`t afford it,`` Marion Damigella said.
Olympic gold medalist Brian Boitano won the men`s championship in Budapest. Boitano and most of the other top figure skaters are partially or completely sponsored. The best East German and Russian skaters are totally sponsored by the federal government and the Americans receive corporate and private support.
The top three American women are completely sponsored and the only one of the three Damigella hasn`t beaten is Debi Thomas.
``The only thing that is keeping Tracey from reaching her goals is that she doesn`t have the support she needs to add the little finishing touches,`` Frank Damigella said.
To be a world-class figure skater, you need music and choreography. You need a hairdresser and a dressmaker, a sports psychologist, an agent, a coach, a bootmaker, ice time and plenty of money for travel expenses, public relations and blades (at $300 a pair).
``The supportive system makes a skater,`` Frank Damigella said. ``A costume can give you the edge. You really can`t compete without thousand- dollar dresses.``
The Damigellas managed the past few years by cutting corners where they could and doing as much of the work as possible. Marion puts sequins on Tracey`s dresses, for example, and Tracey answers all of her personal mail -- including proposals of marriage from total strangers.
Carole Widom of Lauderhill, a figure skating coach, thinks Damigella is just an arm movement or two away from winning an Olympic gold medal.
``She has the grace of a Peggy Fleming and the jumping ability of a Brian Boitano. If she can work on artistic impressions, she`ll have all she needs for a gold medal in 1992,`` Widom said. ``At her level she has to skate like an actress on ice.``
The problem right now is just to keep her skating. A conflict with the U.S. Nationals last month kept her from having the opportunity to make a television commercial that might have made enough money to get her through this year. A major corporation selected her to do the commercial, but she had to skate in the Nationals on the day the commercial was being shot.
Figure skaters are allowed to do commercials and to receive private and corporate sponsorship support, if it is sent in their names directly to the U.S. Figure Skating Association, 20 First Street, Colorado Springs.
Unlike the Seybolds, a husband-wife figure skating team who train in Wilmington, Del., and receive financial support from Gary, Ind., Damigella has not been receiving the support she needs to continue skating.
Because of the lack of local support, when she travels around the world for figure skating competitions, she lists Colorado Springs as her hometown.
``We would like to say we are from Miramar, Fla., but we haven`t been able to,`` Marion Damigella said.
Toni Damigella, Tracey`s sister, competed in the luge in the 1984 Winter Olympics at Sarajevo and finished 15th.
``Boston and Lake Placid both claimed Toni,`` Marion Damigella said. ``A community should know when it has an Olympic athlete.`` Toni Damigella is now a student at Nova University.
Tracey Damigella is a legitimate product of South Florida skating rinks. She skated her first step at the Polar Palace in Miami and, although she sometimes goes to Colorado Springs to take lessons from trainer Carlo Fassi, her home rink is the Lighthouse Point Ice Skating Arena.
Recognizing Damigella`s talent, management of the Lighthouse Point rink has given her the ice time she needs. She skates an average of 40 hours a week.
If she is able to continue skating, qualifying for the 1992 Winter Olympics will be one of her major goals.
``It used to be that skaters were quitting when they were 19,`` she said. ``But now they are skating a lot later. Some of them are 25 or 26. I am just starting to peak. I have a lot more to offer in skating.``
She got her first taste of the Olympic atmosphere when she accompanied sister Toni to Sarajevo.
Tracey watched Toni compete in the luge, but she spent much more time observing the figure skaters.
``I decided that this (figure skating) was what I wanted to do,`` she said. ``Most of my life will probably revolve around skating.``
TRACEY DAMIGELLA
Figure skater
HONORS: Winner of the Australian Nationals last September; winner of the Novarat Cup last November in Budapest, Hungary; second in the 1985 Junior Nationals; highest ranking No.4 in the United States.
GOALS: To win a medal in the 1989 U.S. National Figure Skating Championships; to qualify for the World Championships and the 1992 Winter Olympics.
QUOTE: ``Tracey has the grace of a Peggy Fleming and the jumping ability of a Brian Boitano. If she can work on artistic impressions, she`ll have all she needs for a gold medal in 1992.`` -- Figure skating coach Carole Widom.
