Ryan Pivirotto heads to 2022 Olympics with a 'new' outlook

Jan. 29—First, Ryan Pivirotto had to rediscover who he was as a human being; it was only then he could recapture who he was as a skater.

The process began four years ago, when Pivirotto, a former East Lyme High School student who credits Connecticut with his start in short track speed skating, left the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, without ever having gotten to compete.

It culminates this week, with Pivirotto back for his second Olympic Games in Beijing. In six races at the U.S. Olympic Short Track Team Trials in December at the Utah Olympic Oval — two each in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters — he won three of them, finishing as the top American qualifier overall.

The former alternate is now the standard-bearer, one of just two men to qualify for the U.S. men's short track speed skating team.

He will race at all three distances, as well as competing in the newly added mixed team relay, beginning Saturday at the National Speed Skating Oval, nicknamed the "Ice Ribbon," in Beijing.

"That time was the hardest time, the hardest time to get out of bed, to actually try to skate and get myself to be better," said the 26-year-old Pivirotto in a recent telephone interview from his home in Sandy, Utah, before heading out to Los Angeles and then Beijing. "I'm glad I stuck around."

He called the trip to PyeongChang in 2018 "very demoralizing, very disheartening," a bout with depression which took him some time to resolve.

"I really had to take the whole summer and just get myself back to skating," Pivirotto said. "It ended up taking a whole year to get back to strength, get back to being a super strong skater. ... You finally get your dream, achieve a dream you've been working for for years and years and as soon as you get there they sweep the rug from under you and tell you 'good day.'

"It really came down to I truly, truly do love the sport and I love what it brings out in people. I also know I have more in me. I could see myself getting better, faster, stronger. I didn't want to sit and wallow and be lonely for this. I wanted to go out there and continue what I love to do.

"It was a long process. It just took a long time."

Pivirotto is now what he refers to as "the new Ryan."

He got engaged in October to Nikki Leonard, a pathology resident at University of Utah Health, and the two plan to be married in March, 2023. Pivirotto, himself, is working toward an associate's degree in information systems at Salt Lake Community College and plans to pursue his bachelor's at Utah later this year when he will have competed in what he says will be his final Olympics.

He is an elder statesman for U.S. Speedskating, the role model for others that former Olympians Apolo Anton Ohno (2002, 2006, 2010) and J.R. Celski (2010, 2014, 2018) were to him.

The 5-foot-4, 136-pound Pivirotto skates with the utmost confidence, nervous the week before the Olympic Trials but increasingly certain as the trials unfolded, bolstered by a "court vision" that has come with experience, allowing him to forsee what might happen in a race.

At the Olympic Trials, Pivirotto won one final at each distance. He took the first 1,500-meter final (2 minutes, 22.567 seconds), the first 1,000 final (1:24.402) and was second in the first 500. In the second round, he was first in the 500 (40.698), finishing first overall in the combined standings for the 500 and the 1,500 and second in the 1,000. He will be joined on the U.S. team by Andrew Heo of Warrington, Pa.

"I really wanted to make a statement," Pivirotto said. "I really wanted to make a stamp on the U.S., like, 'This is me. I am the best skater in the U.S. right now and no one is going to take that from me.' As soon as I stepped onto the ice, the first 1,500-meter was done and I won that, it was like, 'You guys are really going to have to beat me.'"

He comes with a new sense of motivation, one from within, after emerging from his dejection over the 2018 Games — "I'm not really dependent on others to motivate me. I'm self-motivated," he said. "Even if I say I'm tired or exhausted, I still find something to hang onto."

In fact, the buildup of his mental stamina is one of Pivirotto's assets.

"A lot of it was the hard work, building up my mental strength, really being impossible to crack," he said. "Your physical ability will only take you so far. Now, compared to the level of competitiveness in the world, everyone can skate below an 8-second lap. It's a huge mental game for the people who are going to make out.

"What I went through really solidified it. In every aspect, I'm a better, stronger person now."

Pivirotto describes himself as a "smiley kid." As a teenager he talked less, but now has taken to talking more again.

He was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., a hockey town, and that became his first sport. He competed for the Southeastern Connecticut Seahawks after his family's move to East Lyme in 2007 and eventually played hockey for the cooperative program at East Lyme High School.

It was during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, in which Ohno won the last three of his eight Olympic medals, that Pivirotto became transfixed by speed skating. His mother Carolyn took him to see longtime coach Dave Moneypenny of the Connecticut Speedskating Club that same year at The Rink in Shelton.

"Still skating around in circles," Pivirotto said with a laugh upon answering the phone for this interview. "All my family moved (from East Lyme), but if it wasn't for Connecticut, I wouldn't be here. It's where I started. I would love to visit my old club again."

He quickly moved through the ranks, from leaving East Lyme High to participate in a junior development program in Pittsburgh, residing with a host family and taking classes online, to the 2013-14 Junior World Team to a bid at his first Olympic Trials in 2014 when he was just 18.

Pivirotto's travels eventually became more far-reaching. He moved to South Korea to train full time with former U.S. national team coach Jae Su Chun ahead of the 2018 Olympics and he made World Cup stops last fall in Japan, Hungary and the Netherlands. He has visited Beijing for an Olympic test event.

"I'm going to do as much as you can within the boundaries that are strictly set (to protect against COVID-19)," Pivirotto said of the Olympics this time around. "This will be a completely different experience than last time. (In 2018), I made the most of it. I do wish I did more. I wish I went out and took part in the activities, but also our sport was the entire time of the Olympics."

Pivirotto favors competing in the 1,000 meters but says he has had the most success in the 500 — "sometimes the 1,500-meter feels shorter," he said. "The 500 feels like the longest, but the 500 is 40 seconds and the other one is 2 minutes."

The heats of the men's 1,000-meter event will be first up Saturday, as well as all rounds of the mixed team relay. Pivirotto will be without his family at the Games, father Scott, mother Carolyn, sister Jessica, as well as Leonard, due to COVID-19 protocols, although his family and Leonard's were able to rejoice with him at the Trials.

Pivirotto plans to make this his last Olympics, set to begin his life with Leonard — his Instagram account boasts that he is a 2022 Olympian and cat dad. But he plans to celebrate these Games as a happier, more talkative time than they were four years ago. He heads to Beijing as the "new Ryan."

Said Pivirotto: "My life is just really coming together."

v.fulkerson@theday.com