Four U.S. Olympians were in Shelton on Monday at the SportsCenter of Connecticut to coach a free ice session.
Kristen Santos-Griswold, Andrew Heo, Julie Letai and Clayton DeClemente started with a meet-and-greet at 4 p.m., followed by a session on the ice.
"Coming back home and trying to inspire the future generations of skaters is really fun. This isn't the biggest sport in Connecticut, so being able to kind of showcase it and get people interested and involved is really fun to do," Santos-Griswold said.
Santos-Griswold, who's from Connecticut, skated with the club in her youth. The coach she had growing up is still the head coach of the club today.
"You see the whole development where they start out where they can barely skate, and then each week they kind of get a little bit better," said David Moneypenny, head coach of Connecticut Speedskating.
Santos and Letai plan to return to the club in June to run the annual Speedskating Camp. There is an
elite camp and a
development camp.