April Shin

Injuries

At the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway, she competed in the team relay event with a broken wrist. She suffered the fracture after falling in training during the week of the competition. She had to wear a cast for six weeks. (Athlete, 02 Feb 2017; isu.org, 20 Feb 2016)

Reason for choosing this sport	"When I was nine I went to a school skate night and I had no idea what speed skating was. My neighbour was speed skating and his mum was talking to my mum, and they told us that an Olympic skater from Korea is coming to coach so we should try it out. I started skating and kept going. I fell a lot but then got better every day."
When and where did you begin this sport?	She took up short track in 2007 in Silver Spring, MD, United States of America.

Memorable sporting achievement	Competing in the 1500m A final at the 2015 World Junior Championships in Osaka, Japan. (Athlete, 05 Dec 2019)
Most influential person in career	Her mother. (Athlete, 05 Dec 2019)
Hero / Idol	US short track skater Julie Letai. (Athlete, 05 Dec 2019)
Sporting philosophy / motto	"If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got." (Athlete, 02 Feb 2017)

www.facebook.com/april.shin.9

Other information

EYELID SURGERY In 2018 she underwent double eyelid surgery [blepharoplasty], a procedure that creates a crease in the upper eyelids. Previously her eyes were easily irritated and could become swollen. "If I slept and it was just a little bit swollen, that eyelid would just disappear and sometimes my left eye[lid] would keep the crease and my other eye[lid] would go away and I would just have wonky-looking eyes, which I've dealt with for a few years now. I just thought it was time to get something a little more permanent. It was just really frustrating having to wait like two hours in the morning for my eyes to settle down." (YouTube channel, 07 Jan 2021) FIRST COACH Her first coach was Korean short track skater Kim Dong-Sung, who won gold and silver at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano. She credits his influence on her early career. "He was a strict coach and everyone was really scared of him. So every time he told me, 'Good job', it made me so happy and made me want to skate more. He moved away to Korea and I told him that I'd made the junior team and he told me I did good and then said, 'Your next goal is the Olympics so keep skating hard'. It made me so happy." (City of Rockville Rockville 11 YouTube channel, 03 Apr 2013)