Liesel Baker, a native of Saline, is working toward the ultimate goal of representing the United States. Baker’s a USA Skeleton athlete aspiring to one day represent her country at the Olympics.
She just completed her first season competing for Team USA on the North American Cup (NAC) circuit. The Sun Times News (STN) caught up with her to ask about this unique sport she’s taking on. Over the last four months, she said she and the other athletes traveled across North America competing against other nations in eight races.
Baker went to Saline Schools her entire life and graduated in 2015. She played sports growing up, but her main two were ice hockey and lacrosse. She played ice hockey up through college, for Norwich University where they won the 2018 DIII National Championship. She also played lacrosse for Saline High School all four years.
On the NAC circuit, she had a very successful first season with a personal best of fourth place in a race while finishing seventh in the NAC overall.
When STN caught up with her she was training at the Utah Olympic Park preparing for Nationals at the end of the season. This goes along with at the same time she’s also working full time for the Kiwanis Club of Ann Arbor Thrift Sale, as the sport is almost completely self-funded.
STN asked her to describe Skeleton and what she likes about it.
“Skeleton is an individual winter sport where we start with a sprint and then load onto a sled headfirst before racing down an icy track reaching speeds to 80 plus mph under five g-forces of pressure,” she said.
She likes the speed and challenge that comes along with the sport.
“My top speed is 81.2 mph and it is an amazing feeling that I can equate only to what it would feel like to fly,” said Baker.
She said the sport is also quite challenging as they sprint full speed and then load onto a sled where they try to relax into almost a meditative state, while at the same time they are under five g-forces of pressure in some curves, “so it is extremely physically and mentally demanding.”
“Trying to improve in all areas both mentally and physically have been very fun and motivating for me as I have this constant want to get better,” Baker said of her motivation.
She found skeleton through the owner of the gym she goes to, Phil Harrington. She said she was originally interested in bobsled after watching the 2014 Olympics, and that is the sport she started training for after she retired from college hockey in 2019, that is until she met Harrington, who was a USA skeleton athlete himself. He was the one who first introduced her to skeleton and encouraged her to travel out to Salt Lake City to give it a try.
“After one week of trying, I knew it was something I wanted to commit to,” she said looking back.
And now she’s on the path to hopefully make a future Winter Olympics team.
Knowing the importance of support, anyone interested in helping her along the way can. She said with very little funding for this sport, many skeleton athletes like herself are self-funded. Her expenses include travel, lodging, equipment fees, and training fees.
She’s raising money for the skeleton season and plans on competing on the NAC circuit, which includes traveling between the United States and Canada. To help, go to https://gofund.me/f121b2d9.
Photo 1: Baker in action. Photo by Rian Voyles
Photo 2: Baker picking up speed. Photo by Jason Coleman
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