Skater reaches national meet

Ryan Otto will represent the Wisconsin Figure Skating Club and the Upper Great Lakes Region in the 2009 United States Figure Skating Junior Championships.

Otto, a freshman at Whitnall High School, will compete the intermediate division of mens freestyle. The championships will take place in Lake Placid, N.Y., from Monday, Dec. 8, through Saturday, Dec. 13.

The annual event crowns the U.S. champion in ladies, mens, pairs and ice dancing in the first two levels of the U.S. Figure Skating competitive structure: juvenile and intermediate.

Otto recently returned from competing in the Intermediate mens freestyle in the 2009 Upper Great Lakes Regional Championships in St. Paul, Minn.

He placed fifth with his short program and first in his long program. His combined scores awarded him a silver medal and qualified him to compete in the 2009 United States Junior Figure Skating Championships.

Otto, 14, has been skating since he was 5. Hen trains primarily in Gurnee, Ill., and at the Pettit National Ice Center in West Allis.

He is coached by Janel Wamboldt and Katie Kerley. He skates six days per week, does off-ice classes and works with a strength trainer twice a week.

The Wisconsin Figure Skating Club, Inc. is a nonprofit organization and a member of the U.S. Figure Skating Association, the national governing body for the sport of figure skating.

More information is available at wisconsinfsc.org.