There will be moments during February’s televised Winter Olympic Games when viewers across the world drop everything to watch the screen in quiet unity. Television makes clear what stands in front of the athlete: the competition, judges, scores, and medals. Less visible is what stands behind the athlete: an enormous, lifelong community of family, friends, coaches, trainers, physicians, and teachers who helped him or her arrive at this moment.
They, too, are a critical part of the competition, so we gathered the stories of homegrown Winter Olympians to see how their lives in Northern Virginia—varying in detail and background, but tied together by region and athletic drive—brought them to the top of their sport.
Here, we spoke to Olympic speed-skater Maame Biney about how emigrating from Ghana and growing up in NoVA with her father led her to break barriers.
Age: 22
Hometown: Reston
Sport: Speedskating, short track
Games: Pyeongchang 2018, Beijing 2022
Short-track speed-skating champion Maame Biney spends her days carving incredibly tight counterclockwise ovals on a small rink, but the life she found in Reston is broader than anything she ever expected. Born in Accra, Ghana, Biney was only 5 years old when she came to Reston to visit her father, Kweku Biney, who had immigrated to the area in search of a better life. Intending only to stay the summer, Maame fell in love with her new surroundings and told her father she wanted to live with him, even if it meant being far from her mother and brother, who remained in Ghana. Just 13 years later, she made history as the youngest skater and first African-American woman to make the U.S. Olympic women’s short-track speed-skating team.
Kweku was looking for ways to keep his daughter occupied and out of trouble when he noticed a small sign posted along Sunset Hills Road that read, “Want to skate?” Soon after Maame’s first figure skating lesson at Reston SkateQuest, the coach pulled Kweku aside and suggested that his quick 6-year-old was better suited for speed-skating. She eventually began speed training at Fort Dupont Ice Arena in Southeast Washington, DC.
Biney is thankful for the sacrifices her father made. A building engineer for Maximus, he devoted all of his free time to watching his daughter skate. “I can count on one hand the times he wasn’t at my practices when I was younger, but even those times he would still pick me up after work,” she says.
Throughout her training and competitions, Biney attended Fairfax County’s Terraset and Forest Edge elementary school, Langston Hughes middle school, and South Lakes High School in Reston, graduating in 2018. Despite her busy schedule, she managed to form close school friendships, which she still maintains, and she wedged in regular activities like senior prom. “My friends always said they knew I would achieve in competitions, and they’ve always been happy for me,” Biney says. Her favorite Reston memories are of hanging out and talking with friends while sitting on the swings at her neighborhood playground or dining at Not Your Average Joe’s at Reston Town Center. “The bread is delicious, and the dip—OMG!” Biney is currently majoring in psychology at the University of Utah, and she’s discovered she really likes driving. “I just got a new Toyota RAV4, and I’m so excited!”
One must stay focused in short-track speed-skating, where team members compete against each other instead of a clock. Groups race shoulder-to-shoulder, leaning so far left that they must glide their tipped-gloved fingers across the ice to help balance themselves during the tight heats around a hockey-sized rink. “In normal life, I’m big about having personal space, but in the sport, I’m so used to people being beside me that I don’t even notice,” she says. Biney practices between six and eight hours a day, six days a week. For Beijing 2022, she hopes to compete in almost every short-track speed-skating event.
Olympic participation has brought fame to Biney. “Yes, I enjoy it to a certain extent, but I get drained really fast and like having my own time, too. It’s cool to be supported by big brands like Delta, Panasonic, and Red Bull, and, yes, you might see me in some commercials soon,” she says with a grin.
In the meantime, Biney sometimes visits students at her childhood schools in Reston. “I love doing that because I hope to pass my determination and passion on to the kids. I want to let them know that if they work hard on something and give it time, they will achieve their goals.”
Feature image by Robert Snow/ Red Bull Content Pool
A version of this story originally ran in our February issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.
