For Julie Letai, 2022 has marked a milestone year for the 22-year-old American short track athlete, who made her Olympic debut in February and competed twice for Team USA in Beijing.
“It was one of the most significant years of my life, probably, because I feel like every little decision that I had made up until the Olympics, was with the goal in mind of making the Olympics,” Letai explained to On Her Turf ahead of this weekend’s World Cup races in Almaty, Kazakhstan. “So once that actually came, it was unreal -- that the moment that it was all coming down to was actually a reality. And to make it with like some of my closest friends, it was just unimaginable and so amazing.”
While the Massachusetts native was originally slated to only compete in the women’s 3000m relay in Beijing, she ended up also getting a start in the 1500m and finished 21st. The women’s relay team advanced to the finals but finished eighth (of eight teams) after Team USA was penalized when American Kristin Santos-Griswold was deemed to have caused obstruction during a lane change.
But the Games were still a satisfying experience for Letai, who says she felt a weight lift off her shoulders at the end of last season.
“Having gotten that accomplishment (the Olympics) done was just such a huge relief,” she says. “I felt like I could just live without thinking about anything, so that was kind of a new experience too.”
Leta carried that “relief” into the offseason, where she enjoyed several trips far from any ice including a kayaking/camping adventure in the desert and being a bridesmaid in Santos-Griswold’s wedding. She also “discovered” she was lactose intolerant, returned to college as a full-time student at the University of Utah, and she got a tattoo.
While getting a tattoo might seem like a relatively common occurrence, it became a bit of an existential crisis for Letai, who wanted to have the Olympic rings tattooed on her abdomen but was met with an unexpected case of imposter syndrome.
“We live in a world where it’s hard to know if you’re supposed to be super humble all the time, or you’re supposed to be really confident all the time,” Letai says. “It’s kind of hard to know where that line is.
“I think I’ve always erred on the side of caution, where I just want to be very humble. I don’t ever want to be satisfied with my own [accomplishments], so a lot of times I diminish them rather than just letting myself bask in the fact that I actually did something really cool.”
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But the tattoo led to a more intense period of self-examination. As a skater who initially made the Olympic team as a relay specialist and not as a qualifier in an individual event, Letai found herself doubting the validity of her Olympian status.
“I just never thought that I was going to get a tattoo in my life,” she says. “And I think that I kind of used that as an excuse, saying that I’m scared to get a tattoo. But when I thought about it, I was really more questioning if I deserve to have it. [These issues] of self-esteem and impostor syndrome were issues that I never really confronted until deciding whether or not to get the tattoo.”
“I told her she is 100 percent an Olympian, that she 100 percent deserves them (the rings),” Santos-Griswold recalls. “It’s not even a question. I think it’s something that a lot of athletes go through, in some form. Whether it’s considering yourself an athlete, or whether it’s medaling at an event, and whether you deserved it or not. Whether you got lucky; whether you did this, whether you did that -- there’s always these kinds of questions that cycle through your mind.
“And I don’t think it makes an athlete weak or worse because of that, but it almost makes us stronger [because] we can push through those feelings and those mindsets and still come out on top or make it past that.”
Which is exactly where Letai ended up on the issue: She approached the tattoo as a personal challenge – and notched another victory.
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“I thought if I did (get the tattoo), I would be proud of the fact that I allowed myself to be proud of my accomplishments. So I kind of ended up doing it as a challenge to just be nicer to myself.”
Letai’s Instagram post received a slew of positive feedback, including from her grandparents, whom she’s certain would have never approved of the tattoo without reading their granddaughter’s heartfelt admission.
“They called me, and they said, ‘We think it’s beautiful. We’re so proud of you,’” she recalls. “That kind of stuff was just really nice to hear. So, I was definitely glad that I shared that and confronted it with myself.”
As for her goals for this season, Letai says she’s trying to be easy on herself while learning to balance a full college workload and competition schedule. This weekend’s races in Almaty marks the third of six World Cup stops this season, but she’s looking beyond the next four races. Letai has a four-year plan, and it includes competing in Italy at the 2026 Olympics.
Says Letai: “For me, it’s just about taking baby steps every year, hoping that it will culminate into something really cool in four years.”
How to watch the ISU World Cup in Almaty, Kazakhstan
World Cup short track competition in Almaty will stream on Peacock this Saturday, Dec. 10, from 3-7:15 a.m. ET and on Sunday, Dec. 11, and from 3-6:45 a.m. ET.
