French Olympian coaches Jostes
March 9, 2018
Although she grew up skating, junior Haley Jostes has a once in a lifetime opportunity to train with a past Olympic figure skater. French Olympian Surya Bonaly, will be featured training Haley on a documentary that will be added to Netflix in upcoming months. Jostes describes Bonaly as an influential person and continues to explain all the exciting things she has planned.
“At first you’re like ‘Oh wow, I’m being taught by an Olympian, and it’s really cool’ and you kind of expect it to be a one time thing, because they’re such a big name,” Jostes said.
The Support
Jostes grew up in Stillwater with her brother, Milan, sister, Gina, and her parents Denise and Erik, who have always encouraged her to follow her dreams. Jostes and her siblings grew up learning how to skate on a pond in their backyard and all three of them went further into skating as they grew up. Although she started as a dancer, Jostes was able to switch to figure skate and was encouraged to train vigorously with the help of her parents.
“My family is very supportive,” Jostes explained. “But they have never pushed me to do anything I didn’t want to do.”
The Process
Not only has Bonaly been in the Olympics, but she currently does projects around the world to help underprivileged children and is on her way to Italy to do a TedTalk. However, through all of this excitement, if Jostes puts an extreme amount of time into skating in the next year, she will have an opportunity that not many other skaters her age will have.
“This year is kind of my big shot,” Jostes said, “because if all goes well, in January of next year, I might have the opportunity to compete in the German championships.”
The Dedication
Not only is Jostes dedicated to her figure skating, her dedication shows in all that she does and demonstrates her willingness to succeed through her grades and at school. Jostes is academically inclined and she never fails to show what she is capable of. Haley is also apart of NHS and is taking a lot of AP and upper level classes.
Loading ...“It’s a lot sometimes. I’m taking a lot of hard classes, and on top of that, every night I have to drive an hour to the rink, and an hour back,” Jostes said. “Normally I don’t get home until around 6 and then I have to eat dinner, so I don’t really start my homework until about 7 every night.”
Haley recalled a time about two years ago that she was in St. Paul with Surya and her team, and they were talking about their routine and going over final details. She was just a normal person to them and all of a sudden a big crowd of people surround them and start asking for pictures and autographs.
“I had forgotten for a second, that Surya was famous,” Jostes said. “She had become such a normal person for me to see. It was kind of crazy.”
Jostes has not taken this opportunity to skate for granted, and although she is so used to Bonaly being around, she understands the opportunity she has been given and is overjoyed to be a part of it.
“She’s become part of our rink family where everyone is connected and it’s not like one person is more important than another,” Jostes said.
