KC Boutiette (born April 11, 1970) is an American

speed skater Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. ...

from

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

, and a four-time Olympian. He was first of the wave of

inline speed skaters Inline is commonly used to mean "in a line", "aligned" or "placed within a line or sequence". Topics that feature "inline" in their names include: * Inline citation (here meaning "within a line of text") * Inline engine * Inline hockey * Inline ...

who made the transition from inline to ice in order to have a shot at going to the Olympics.

Biography

In 1993, he showed up at the

Pettit National Ice Center The Pettit National Ice Center is an indoor ice skating facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, featuring two international-size ice rinks and a 400-meter speed skating oval. Located adjacent to Wisconsin State Fair Park, the center opened on January ...

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

, Wisconsin, looking to improve his technique on inline skates, but ended up earning a spot on the team that would be sent to the

1994 Winter Olympics The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games ( no, De 17. olympiske vinterleker; nn, Dei 17. olympiske vinterleikane) and commonly known as Lillehammer '94, was an international winter multi-sport event held fro ...

Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the municip ...

, Norway. Although he had been a champion inline speed skater for years, Boutiette at that time had no ice speed skating experience at all. Nevertheless, within a few months he made the team. Although Boutiette has never won an Olympic medal, he demonstrated to other American inline speed skaters that the opportunity was there if they would give it a shot. Following in his footsteps were

Apolo Ohno Apolo Anton Ohno (; born May 22, 1982) is an American retired short track speed skating competitor and an eight-time medalist (two gold, two silver, four bronze) in the Winter Olympics. Ohno is the most decorated American at the Winter Olympics ...

Derek Parra Derek Parra (born March 15, 1970) is an American Inline speed skating, inline skater and speed skating, speed skater from San Bernardino, California, who graduated from Eisenhower High School (Rialto, California), Eisenhower High School in Rialto, ...

Jennifer Rodriguez Jennifer Rodriguez (born June 8, 1976) is a Cuban-American speed skater. She started her career as an artistic roller skater, winning multiple national championships and placing second and third at world championships. Later she switched to inl ...

(Boutiette's ex-wife), and

Joey Cheek William Joseph Cheek (born June 22, 1979) is an American former speed skater and inline speed skater. He specialized in the short and middle distances and won Olympic gold in 2006. Currently Cheek is a media entrepreneur. Accomplishments Cheek' ...

, who won seven medals at the

2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), was an internation ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, Utah. After 2002 he went out and hand-picked another former inline skater,

Chad Hedrick Chad Hedrick (born April 17, 1977) is an American inline speed skater and ice speed skater. He was born in Spring, Texas. Hedrick revolutionized the inline speed skating world with his unique technique, called the double push, or DP. During his ...

, who went on to win three medals at the

2006 Winter Olympics The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially the XX Olympic Winter Games ( it, XX Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February 2006 in Turin, Italy. This marked the second t ...

Torino Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. T ...

, Italy, after switching to ice skating in 2003. Now almost half of the Olympic team were inline skaters for whom he paved the way. Boutiette skated in the team pursuit in the 2006 Olympics. In the Netherlands, Boutiette participated as a

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...

speed skater for several years and in this period he won the Six Days of the Greenery twice in 2003 and 2004. He wore the Brussels sprout suit for ten days in between 2003 and 2005, the second in ranking after Cédric Michaud. In total he won 23 speed skating marathons on artificial tracks. He also was the leader in the Essent Cup for two days, wearing the orange suit.Oranje leiderstrui
schaatspeloton.nl

Children

K.C. Has two children, one by the name of Braam, and one by te name of Brooke

Records

World records

Source: SpeedSkatingStats.com

Personal records

References

US Speedskating profile

External links

*
KC Boutiette at SpeedSkatingStats.com
*

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boutiette, Kc 1970 births Living people American male speed skaters Speed skaters at the 1994 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 1998 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 2002 Winter Olympics Speed skaters at the 2006 Winter Olympics Olympic speed skaters for the United States World record setters in speed skating Sportspeople from Tacoma, Washington