Olympic Ice Dream Comes With A Big Price -- Mountlake Terrace Family Accepts Separation, Fees As Cost Of Success

When Ikaika Young took a lip-splitting, face-first spill onto the ice at the tender age of 7, a bloody mouth and a chipped tooth weren't the only result.

The fall would change the lives of every member of his family and eventually land Ikaika, now 14, in the Seattle area with his sister Kakani, 15, and their mother, Baya.

The three moved to Mountlake Terrace 14 months ago with a dream of the brother and sister reaching the Olympics as an ice-dancing couple. But the family is paying a high price to try to reach that dream. There's the heavy financial burden of a sport that requires constant coaching, travel and ice time, not to mention the personal cost of living half a world away from their father.

When Ikaika fell seven years ago, the Youngs were learning freestyle figure skating in the Portland area. Freestyle's jumps translated into frequent hard spills for the 7-year-old, and the chipped tooth was the final straw.

"I became a chicken about jumping," he says.

Ikaika was involved in modeling and even landed a part in a music video. He decided a broken tooth and split lip wouldn't help his modeling career.

However, Ikaika's coaches and sister would not let him escape the ice that easily.

His sister, who was showing great promise as a freestyle skater, agreed to become Ikaika's temporary partner in ice dance, which involves fewer risky jumps and is essentially ballroom dancing on ice. The two enjoyed the sport so much that Kakani eventually gave up freestyle.

"At first, it was kind of slow for me," Kakani says. "I had to be very patient with him. Now I have to keep up with him."

As the two progressed, they realized their coaches in Portland had taken them as far as they could. One of the coaches agreed and recommended Bernard Ford, a former four-time world ice-dancing champion who is considered one of the sport's best coaches.

That meant the Youngs had to make a decision - move with their father to Malaysia, where he had just accepted a new job, or split the family up and move to the Seattle area. Ice dancers from all over the world come here to train with Ford, who works with technician Sharon Jones-Baker and coach D.J. Gray.

"This is the best coach in the world right here, Mr. Ford," says Gray, a 1995 graduate of Kamiak High School who placed seventh that year in the U.S. Figure Skating Association's junior ice-dancing championships.

In only one year with Ford and Jones-Baker, the Youngs placed 10th in the novice division of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Philadelphia despite being the youngest pair there. They are competing in the North American Challenge Skate that begins tomorrow in Winnipeg.

Jones-Baker believes they have a chance to reach the Olympics in 2006.

"This is a great door to be open for them at this point in their career," says Jones-Baker, who was the 1989 world ice-dance champion and competed in the 1988 Olympics. "They've got great potential, great talent, and we've got the training."

The biggest obstacle for the Youngs remains finding ice time.

Seattle-area ice rinks charge up to $200 an hour. They practice five hours a day, five days a week.

Luckily, Ford found a summer home at Kingsgate Ice Arena in Kirkland, which has a break from its busy hockey schedule. The Youngs pay $1,600 every six weeks for ice time this summer.

Total cost of the sport for the Young family is a staggering $50,000 a year. That includes travel, costumes, equipment and coaches' fees, as well as ice time.

It's so expensive that the Youngs cannot afford the ballroom-dancing and ballet lessons instrumental to the complete training of ice dancers.

Their father, Gordon, works in Malaysia as an environmental specialist and pays for a lot of the expenses. Kakani Young hasn't been able to attract a corporate sponsor.

For the family, seeing Gordon for the first time in months will be worth every penny of the trip to Winnipeg. The family accepts the separation as the price of pursuing their Olympic dream.

The Youngs find themselves separated from their husband and father only in geography. All three e-mail Gordon daily and phone him almost weekly, always hoping that his business will bring him to the states. The Youngs flew to see him when he spent three days in San Diego in June.

After the next family reunion in Winnipeg, the Youngs will go their separate ways - dad to Malaysia, the rest to Seattle. The struggle to find an affordable practice rink will start again in the fall as youth hockey threatens to push them off the ice. The Youngs don't know when they'll see Gordon again - Christmas, perhaps.

Baya, Kakani, and Ikaika will keep sacrificing as they continue their journey toward what they hope will be an Olympic medal.