Young skater will be glued to Olympics

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Consider this: Three days a week, Elise Little, 8, climbs out of her warm bed at 4:45 a.m, quickly dresses and "sleeps" through the ride to the nearby Chaparral Ice Skating Rink on Interstate 35.

"That's definitely very hard, but I'm used to it now," said Little. "It's hard though, because you're still asleep when you get here. So it's hard to do your stuff when you're so tired."

The second grader is used to something else, as well. On any given dark winter morning, it's cold outside. Often as not, however, it's even colder on the rink inside the building, but after putting on her skates, Elise hits the ice dressed in a tank top.

All this started some four years ago.

"We were in Boston because my brother was sick and there was a special doctor up there," Elise said. "And when we went to the hospital, we got on a bus and I was looking at the skating rink and it was outdoors and I was like, 'Can we go there?'"

Her father agreed to take her out on the ice and the child never looked back. The lessons started; then the coach was hired. Out-of-town trips to competitions were next and those early morning trips to the rink became routine.

"You know, I think that's just born in her, you know," said Elise's coach, Shannon Ward. "I mean, some skaters have it and some skaters don't. You know, but these guys and Elise, this is when you skate; this is when the serious skaters skate."

Falling on the ice, of course, goes hand in hand with falling in love with skating and Elise has seen her share of bumps on the butt.

"She falls off the horse sometimes, but she gets right back on, never complains," said Ward.

But though Elise will have her eyes trained on the television during the Winter Olympics figure skating events, she does not necessarily have her eye on Olympic competition for herself.

"I'm not really focusing on that right now," she laughed, "so that's a long time away. So I'm just trying to improve."

On the other hand, every Olympic champion was once 8-years-old.