Before taking to the ice for practice, IndySpeed teammate Duree Brown shows Brooke a warm-up technique using a “turn belt.” Pulling against the belt simulates the g-forces of the tight turns at speed on the ice and works the muscles used.
CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE skates at the age of 3. When her parents, Jon and Ann Derheimer, adopted her from Vietnam, she was underdeveloped.
“
People act like (hockey)
They put her in group figure skating
is a football game. For
lessons with hopes of strengthening
speed skating, you don’t
her legs and improving her balance. It worked. They just didn’t realize she’d like it so much. Ann could tell Brooke loved skating
have to worry about people getting in your
after she competed for the first time.
way or people hurting
“I was so worried because she was so
you. You just get to do
little, and she was competing on the full ice. But she got off the ice, and she was beaming. It was then that I was like ‘oh my, she’s kind of hooked.’” Quinn, who is also adopted, tagged along to Brooke’s practices and loved watching the older hockey players working out. He tried hockey, but his
laps.
”
Quinn Derheimer
parents quickly realized it wasn’t for
he complained about the other skaters
Becoming ‘Mighty Quinn’
bumping into him, Ann said.
Quinn’s transition into speed skating
him. Though he enjoyed skating fast and doing drills, when he got off the ice,
“People act like (hockey) is a football
happened by chance during a public ses-
game,” Quinn said. “For speed skating,
sion at Perry Park Ice Rink on Indianap-
you don’t have to worry about people
olis’ south side. While practicing in his
getting in your way or people hurting
hockey skates, Quinn followed a couple
you. You just get to do laps.”
skating laps in speed skates and tried to mimic their moves. The couple — future
20
FEBRUARY 2018
Brooke appears to bristle at instructions from her IndySpeed Coach Cindi Hart at the start of another series of drills. PHO TO S BY RI CHARD G . BI E V E R
coach Cindi Hart and her husband, Ken — quickly noticed him and brought him a pair of speed skates to try. “The next thing we knew, he was keeping up with us,” Cindi said. “He’s this little phenom with all this potential and talent.” Three months later, he competed in his first competition — the Land of Lincoln invitational — and won every heat in his meets. He was 5, competing against 6-, 7- and 8-year-olds. A competitor’s parent soon nicknamed him “Mighty Quinn,” a reference to a 1989 movie and song from the 1960s. At later competitions, competitors’ families quickly began recognizing him. “I remember standing by the glass, and I could hear two or three different parents talk about ‘that little guy from Indiana.’ I was just beaming,” Ann said. Like her brother, Brooke tried speed skating, too, and loved it right away. She continues to figure skate and switches back and forth between the two sports. “When I first got on speed skates, it was a little hard,” Brooke said. “But now that I’ve gotten a little better and know how to center myself better, it gets a little easier each time we learn something new.”