diagnosed with Hashimoto\u2019s<\/a>, an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid gland. The next year, she was diagnosed with Lupus and mixed connective tissue disease.<\/p>\nThis will be the first Olympics for Lute. US Speedskating<\/p>\n
The news was difficult for the teenager to hear \u2014 but Lute was unwilling to let it stop her from reaching the goal she had been working toward for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have this mindset ingrained in me that I wanted to keep skating,\u201d she said. \u201cI just pushed through it, and we were able to do whatever it took to allow me to keep skating.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have everything physically, but if you don\u2019t have the mental aspect, it\u2019s going to be that much more difficult,\u201d Lute said. \u201cThat\u2019s something I\u2019ve had to learn over time, especially when I started experiencing the conditions. <\/p>\n
Lute will compete with a US team of other skaters. US SpeedskatingP<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just made me realize more than ever that I wanted to skate for myself rather than having someone push me all the time, which is, when you\u2019re younger, pretty common,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re like, \u2018This training is really hard,\u2019 and you don\u2019t always want to do it. But as you get older, I realized I do really love the sport and I want to make it work for as long as I can. The mental aspect is definitely half the battle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lute credited her parents as her pillars of support in helping her realize her dream.<\/p>\n
She added that before she gets to the starting line on race day, she plans on saying a prayer \u2014 a pre-race practice her parents passed on to her in her initial days.<\/p>\n
Lute said that when all is said and done, she will be looking forward to some rest and relaxation at home, especially after spending years of training in Utah.<\/p>\n
\u201cNew York City is still my favorite place in the world,\u201d the Olympian said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s up to you, New York, New York! The Big Apple is sending just one born-and-bred native to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[57,9,197,56,63,65,64,53274,319,53275,58,23717,53276],"class_list":{"0":"post-121597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-metro","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city-life","11":"tag-ny","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-nyc-headlines","14":"tag-nyc-news","15":"tag-speed-skating","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-tudor-city","18":"tag-us-news","19":"tag-winter-olympics","20":"tag-winter-olympics-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}