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SALT LAKE CITY -- At the foot Anderson-Foothill Library sits an Olympic memorial. It's called the Children of Light, showing that kids - their inspirations and dreams -- are a part of the Olympics.
Timi Earl,15, and Lizzy Maxwell,16, were barely old enough to remember the Olympics in Salt Lake City, but the two skeleton sliders from Utah have dreams of competing in the games that once came through their state.
"I don't really know anyone who wouldn't love to be in the Olympics," Earl said.
The girls were the only American girls to make it to the Youth Olympic Games last month in Innsbruck, Austria. Now they're sharpening their skills at the Winter Sports Park in Utah. It's the same track where Timi saw the US women's bobsled team win gold 10 years ago.
"We had to hold Timi up on our shoulders so she could see because she was so little," said Jenny Jones, Earl's mother.
Jones isn't sure, but the Olympic spark may have been lit that day.
"I'd like to think it was, that it had something to do with her wanting to compete and represent the United States," Jones said.
Earl didn't actually ride a skeleton sled until she was 12 years old. The first time out, she whizzed by her mom at 56 miles an hour in what Jones describes as a blur she barely recognized as her daughter.
"I was a little nervous to try it, but after I did it I just loved it and I wanted to come back and make the team," Earl said.
Now her runs clock 78 miles an hour. Most kids wouldn't have a chance of doing this, even once, let alone often enough to have a shot at the Olympics.
"No, I never would have, because the only other track in the United States is in Lake Placid, New York. So, all the way on the other side of the country," Maxwell said. "So if this whole facility wasn't here, we probably never would have gotten into this."
