ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996 TAG: 9609190041
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
HE'S ONLY 21 YEARS OLD, but he's already made a worldwide impact in his chosen sport.
Keith Turner may never be an Olympic champion. He may never even get a chance to compete in the Olympics.
Even without an Olympic medal, he's satisfied knowing he's one of the best in the world when it comes to whipping around an oval on a pair of in-line roller skates.
The 21-year-old Roanoker reached the pinnacle of his racing career this past week when he won four medals - three gold and one bronze - at the World In-line Speed Skating Championships in Venice, Italy.
Turner won gold in the 300- and 500-meter races and was part of the U.S. 10,000-meter relay team that rolled to gold by 18 seconds over the closest competitors. Turner bagged his last piece of jewelry by finishing third in the road race.
His collection of precious metal is significant because it may be the closest he ever comes to winning Olympic neckwear. Roller skating never has been an Olympic event and it is doubtful it will be during Turner's competitive career.
``It would be nice to have an Olympic gold medal to go with my world medals,'' said Turner, who has skated for 13 years. ``I'd like to go to the Olympics. If I don't, I've still gone as high as you can go because the same people were at the world championships who would be at the Olympics.
``When you've got the top 42 countries in the world [at the World Championships], nobody's missing out.''
Turner traversed Venice on wheels and by water. When not competing in front of nearly 15,000 spectators, he was taking in the sights along Venice's narrow streets and canals.
``It was cool,'' he said. ``To get somewhere, you could rent a water taxi or take a gondola. You could walk easily, because the streets that weren't covered by water were so narrow, a car couldn't pass through them. They were only 3 or 4 feet wide.
``I ate so much over there, all kinds of pasta. Going to the clothes shops was kind of funny. Older-style clothes are really big over there. Short pants, no baggy stuff. People's pants don't touch their shoes [the pants are] like high-waters.''
Then again, those streets are covered by water.
If the World Championships are Turner's high-water mark, he'll be satisfied even as he continues his training regimen of skating around the Roanoke Civic Center parking lots, doing laps at Victory Stadium and wheeling toward the Mill Mountain Star.
``Training's really tough,'' said Turner, who wasn't able to return to Virginia Western Community College this fall because of a month-long session at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
``I train 10 months out of the year or more,'' said Turner, who works as a cook and supervises other activities at Discovery Zone in Roanoke County. ``You have to, because the competition over there [in Europe] is unbelievable.''
The U.S. Amateur Confederation of Roller Skating (USAC-RS) has tried to get roller skating into the Olympics for nearly four decades. Hopes are slim the sport will be added by the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia.
Even if roller skating never makes it into the Olympics, which has added beach volleyball and mogul ``hot dog'' skiing in recent years, Turner plans on competing until at least 1999, when the Pan American Games come to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
``He's definitely one of the top speedskaters in the country by far,'' said Andy Seely, a spokesman for the USAC-RS. ``He's easily the best sprinter in the country and one of the best in the world. He has an elite status.''
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. World champion In-line speed skaterby CNBKeith Turner skates during a Festival in the Park race in June.
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