Lucas Koo, 17, loves K-pop and going really fast on the ice. He just represented Brazil in short-track speedskating at the Winter Youth Olympic Games, and has Olympic dreams.
Lucas Koo, a 17-year-old Masterman student, is a speedskater who represented Brazil at the Winter Youth Olympics. He is shown here in a hallway of his school.When Lucas Koo was 4, he stepped onto the ice for the first time, a preschooler taking speedskating lessons because a local rink advertised 10 free classes.
Koo was born in the Washington, D.C., area to a father trained as a dentist and scientist and a psychologist mother; the family lived in Rochester, N.Y., for a time before settling in Philadelphia when Koo was 6. “He said, ‘I really want to focus on speedskating. I’ll keep up my grades and I’ll give up my other sports if you let me skate,’” Park said.“When your child says something like that, you do what you can to see what happens,” Park said. She knows the family is lucky to have the flexibility and resources to make their son’s dream happen.These days, Koo trains five or six days a week, traveling to Bridgewater, N.J., most weekdays and heading back to the D.C. area to train on weekends.
Koo used to visit Brazil often, but the pandemic halted that; when he travels there during the Philadelphia School District’s spring break, it will be his first trip there in four years. The trip is happening in part for Koo to visit Brazil’s Olympic center.his scheduled graduation from Masterman in 2025, Koo is contemplating training full time for a year; he hopes to qualify for the Olympics.
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