Malvern native renews quest in skeleton

Eric Bernotas is 38 now, his life and ambition still on the downhill trajectory he chose.

The Malvern native, whose parents now live in Avondale, is once again a member of the U.S. Olympic skeleton team.

He has kept at his unusual sport with a steely determination, his standing in it sliding up and down with the passing years.

An 11-time World Cup medalist, Bernotas will be neither a favorite nor a long shot when, on Feb. 18 and 19, the men's skeleton will be contested at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

He was sixth at Turin in the 2006 Winter Games. In the three World Cup seasons between 2005 and '08, he was third, second, and fourth, respectively, in the final standings. Last season, he finished 10th.

He is ninth this season, but a leg injury that has just about healed gets most of the blame for that.

It seems that whenever Bernotas' hopes for an Olympic medal look ready to expire, he revives them with a swift run down some mountain.

On Jan. 15, for example, after a disappointing couple of seasons, he won a World Cup race in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The triumph was the Americans' first in the sport in more than two years.

"I think my journey alone and what I've gone through just to make it to the Olympics is something special," Bernotas said. "I'm pleased with the way things have developed and I hope people see that and are inspired to follow their own dreams. I'm going to keep going."

His skeleton journey didn't begin until 2002, when, after a wrong turn landed him in Lake Placid, N.Y., he first witnessed the sport. He was immediately drawn to it - athletes hurtling headfirst downhill on a sled, much as he had as a youngster sledding at Valley Forge National Historic Park.

When the 30-year-old decided to try the high-speed sport himself, it wasn't as strange as it may have appeared. For him, it was just one more obstacle to overcome.

As a youngster, Bernotas had developed a facial tic diagnosed as Tourette's syndrome, the nervous disorder ex-Phillie Jim Eisenreich brought attention to.

He went away to West Virginia University, where the embarrassment he felt as a result of the disorder didn't help him adjust. He grew depressed and turned to drugs and alcohol to help him cope.

"I went through my college years in a kind of self-medicated haze," he said.

Finally, as a fifth-year senior, he sought help. Bernotas, who played baseball and soccer at Malvern Prep, believed focused physical exertion could help. Even before he found a sporting outlet, he began to get himself in shape.

"Sports was always part of my life," said the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Bernotas. "There was something inside me that reminded me I was wasting my potential. . . . I got myself ready for whatever opportunity arose. And if nothing arose, well, then I figured it would improve my quality of life.

"The challenges of life taught me to persevere by using my talent, strengthening my character, remaining open, embracing new opportunities, and praying for the courage to follow through with action."

Opportunity arose on that fateful visit to Lake Placid.

Bernotas and his girlfriend were headed to visit friends in Vermont. They got lost, and, after seeing a sign for Lake Placid, where the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics had been held, they decided to stop there.

"I saw them training [for skeleton]," Bernotas recalled. "When I got back in the car, I picked up a magazine I had bought that morning. There was an article in it on skeleton."

Convinced that these were omens, Bernotas dived into the sport, where competitors can hit speeds as high as 80 m.p.h.

"I knew there was potential inside me that would allow me to reach for something like that," he said.

Bernotas said that when he finally made it to the top of the Olympic training course in Lake Placid, "it was a little frightening. The g-forces and the pressures were a little bit shocking. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew I wanted to get back on the sled."

He did that over and over until he was good enough to qualify, first for the national team and then for the Olympics.

Turin, he said at the time, was a learning experience. Though he was sixth, his two-run total was just 0.39 seconds shy of earning him a medal. Now another test awaits in the international spotlight.

"We have all been sliding well," Bernotas said of a U.S. skeleton team that includes veteran Zach Lund and John Daly. "We all know what we're capable of doing."

He said he would know early on his trip down Cypress Mountain if it was his time by the unconscious communication between sled and body that is the hallmark of a successful run.

"It's almost like you're trying to stay relaxed amid the chaos of the event that's going on around you," he said. "You start becoming an artist with it and you try to make music with the ice. It gets to be like a dance after a while."