[beautiful music] - I love so many different things about skating from the freedom that you feel when you're on the ice to kind of the wind just blowing in your face.

Like, the sensation itself is unique.

[old-fashioned lounge music] [radio static] It feels completely serene.

It feels like everything else just kind of falls away, like it's just me and my skates and whatever skill, or whatever I'm doing on the ice at that point, whether it's a jump or a spin or some choreography, it just feels like it's kind of born into my body and it feels like I don't even have to think about it sometimes, which is a really unique place to be.

[upbeat jazz music] Now, that I've retired from the sport, I'm still involved in various capacities.

I think, you know, mental health is still really stigmatizing and it can be really difficult to talk about, and so the way I wanna help people, especially athletes in sports like skating and other aesthetically-based sports, is to make sure that there's a lot more education that is pushed out to kind of the lay person.

[mellow music] My name is Rachael Flatt and my home is Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

[upbeat music] - [Sports Announcer 1] And now, here's Rachael Flatt, twice the US silver medalist, then the world junior champion last year.

She was born and raised about two hours from Los Angeles, California, when she moved to Colorado when she was eight years old.

Course load at Cheyenne Mountain High School with APA English Honors.

[beautiful music] - I am originally from San Diego, California, which is a place very near and dear to my heart.

I grew up as a typical Southern California kid.

I was involved in every sport imaginable from surfing, to tennis, to swimming.

[mellow music] The reason I started skating was because my dad and I went to a local mall that had an ice rink underneath the food court and we were there, actually, to get my grandfather a birthday present, but instead of coming back with a present for him, we came back with skating lesson tickets for me.

So, needless to say, we had to go make a second trip back to the mall to actually go get the gift that time, but yeah, I completely fell in love with the sport from the first day that I was on the ice and it just took off from there.

[mellow music] So, I started skating when I was four years old, which is a very young age to start any sport, but I specialized in skating at a pretty young age too, and I ended up qualifying for my very first national championships as a novice lady at age 12 and winning, which was a huge surprise at that point, truly a dream come true.

By the time I was a senior in high school, that was when I qualified for the Olympics.

I was in several AP classes again that year.

I was of course applying to colleges, and when I was at the games, I actually found out that I had gotten into Stanford University, which is where I ended up going for undergrad, so it was definitely a challenge to balance.

I didn't have a huge social life as a kid, but at the same time, I wouldn't have gotten to where I am today if I hadn't gone through that.

So, yeah, I feel very grateful for the amount of time and effort and work that I put into that.

[mellow music] [door latch clicking] [Zamboni motor running] It's hard to describe exactly what it feels like when you're competing in your first competition.

You know, it certainly feels stressful and exciting, you know, there's a lot of combinations of emotions going on, but at the end of the day, you're there just to show what you've prepared, and have a lot of fun more than anything.

When you get to an elite level, I think the feelings around competitions change over time because there are a lot more expectations from external forces.

[upbeat music] I still think that competition was where I thrived the most.

I really enjoy, like, that sensation, the, you know, little bit of the nerves, the excitement.

For me, it was always about showing what I can do and being able to improve upon my last performance.

[upbeat music] There were a lot of times that I felt very defeated in my career for a number of reasons, but a lot of that really stemmed from not, you know, not performing the way that I wanted to, or not feeling like I had improved from my last performance, but at the same time, that also made me work so much harder when I got home.

[upbeat music] Competing in skating is very different than a lot of other sports because you have a couple of minutes on the ice and you have to perform everything perfectly.

There's no room for error.

There's no room for mistakes.

You have to be perfect when you go out on the ice and compete.

So, there's a lot of pressure and a lot of preparation that has to go into that.

[gentle music] When I decided to retire, it was kind of a long time coming at that point.

I knew that physically, my body was no longer equipped to handle the training load.

I had been injured for about four years straight, and that was really a product of all the injuries that I had.

I had to listen to my body and I had to listen to my mental state.

Went into Boston and I went into that Nationals thinking, this is my last event, And that was really exciting and exhilarating and bittersweet at the same time, you know?

I had put in so much to the sport over all those years.

It was really a triumph from, of all the injuries that I had had, of all of the setbacks that I had had, and I was able to actually leave the sport on my own terms.

So, after I finished my performances, I took my bows and I was, you know, I was crying.

It was definitely bittersweet, but when I got to the wards, as I was about to get off the ice, my coaches turned me around and said, "You have to soak this in.

Like, wave your goodbyes," and so I turned around to the audience, kind of waved goodbye, but for me, it was much more about waving goodbye to the sport and to something that I had loved so much for all those years.

[uplifting music] So, after I retired, I wrapped up my senior year, graduated in 2015, stuck around in the Bay Area to do research on eating disorders and digital mental health tools, and that was kind of the point where I decided, I really need to go to grad school to do the things that I wanna do.

I wanna be able to do research, I wanna be able to do the clinical work, I wanna be an advocate, and I wanna be able to kind of contribute to meaningful policies.

It's just an all-encompassing feeling, and skating, for me, was something that I felt like I truly had a deep passion for and a deep love for, and it's something that I keep finding myself going back to.

[uplifting music] Now, I'm able to give back in a way that I didn't used to before and hopefully make the sport better for future generations.

[uplifting music]