Julie Letai has been determined to skate since she was two years old.
Her two older siblings used to ice skate at their local ice rink in Medfield, Massachusetts, and as the baby of the family, all Letai wanted to do was compete with them.
“My mom says one of the only tantrums I threw was just wanting to be on the ice to copy them,” Letai said.
That same conviction is the reason Letai, now age 25, is heading to her second Olympic Games in February.
Letai, who switched from figure skating to short track around age 7, never thought qualifying for the Olympics would be easy. She just didn’t realize how much her dogged personality would come in handy.
During the 2023-24 season, two years after making her first Olympic squad ahead of Beijing, Letai was hitting her stride. She consistently was advancing beyond the qualifying rounds at World Cup competitions and racing to B finals in the 500m, her signature distance. For the first time, she frequently found herself ranked in the top 10. At the 2024 World Championships, she also competed on the women’s relay squad that earned the country’s first medal in the event — a silver — since 2012.
Then came the summer of 2024.
First, she tore the labrum in her hip and developed femoroacetabular impingement syndrome, a condition in which the bones of the hip joint rub together, causing stiffness and a painful pinching sensation. The injuries required surgery in October of that year, which forced her to nearly sit out all of the 2024-25 season.
“The timing of it was really hard. I finally felt like I was good at this, and racing was super fun because I was doing well,” Letai said. “I felt like there was nowhere to go but up at the time, and then this all came completely out of nowhere and totally shut that down.”
She spent the next year in intensive physical therapy, biking when she could and using blood flow restriction devices to trick her muscles into thinking she was exercising more than she actually was.
“[We were] trying to make a small amount of training just as hard and intense as it could possibly be. It ended up being pretty grueling,” Letai said. “There were days when I was at the training center longer than the people actually on the training program.”
Then, in June 2025, she suffered a concussion just as she was beginning to hit the ice again for consistent practice. That was followed by a stress reaction in her femur and a strain in her quad later that summer.
With U.S. nationals — the event which was to decide which skaters would head to the 2025 World Tour — just over one month away, Letai couldn’t afford to adhere to the recommended recovery period, which required total rest for four weeks. Instead, she took two weeks completely off, then slowly reintroduced some reduced training regimens.
Letai put up an impressive effort at nationals in September, earning silver in the 500m and bronze in the 1000m and finishing as the runner-up for the overall title behind Corinne Stoddard, who went undefeated through her six finals that weekend.
Letai’s success gave her a bit of a morale boost heading into her first World Tour circuit in two years, but she still was nervous about how her recovery would hold up when placed in high-paced, high-stakes international races.
With an Olympic berth on the line, it was hard to hold anything back, but Letai knew she had to be smart about balancing results and her health.
“We’ve been trying to get my fitness back up, but it’s not worth it if it makes my leg fracture,” Letai said. “We [had] been taking it week by week, picking which practices [were] the key ones for me that week, and making sure I’m feeling good enough to do those.”
Letai finished the World Tour ranked 25th in the 500m and 26th in the 1000m. Though she isn’t quite back to the level at which she was competing during the 2023-24 season, her results earned her a spot on the Olympic team for Milan Cortina — one that will come with more opportunity than her trip to Beijing posed.
In Beijing, Letai only qualified for the women’s relay pool. This time, despite all the obstacles she’s faced over the last two years, she will compete in the 500m and 1000m as well.
“There’s a lot less pressure because there are no expectations, considering what I’ve been through. Anything good is something to be happy about,” Letai said. “But on the other hand, I still have these really big goals, and I still want to hit them regardless of the setbacks I’ve had.”
The physical demands that short track requires — racing around a slippery sheet of ice at 30 miles per hour, leaning so far over while rounding the oval’s tight turns that their skates sit almost parallel to the track, etc. — is nearly impossible to replicate off the ice, complicating the recovery process. But for Letai, navigating the mental battle that came with her injuries significantly was harder than the physical one.
“That’s been one of the hardest things — grieving the idea of what could have been or where I thought I was going to be at this time of the year a couple years ago versus where I actually am,” Letai said. “It’s been kind of hard to rationalize that.”
It was her persistent, competitive nature that reminded her of her love for short track and served as a motivator to keep going.
“The reason I stayed in this sport is because I wanted to see how good I can be,” Letai said. “I thought I’d kind of lost that, like I would never know how good I could be, but I just am trying to change the context of that and see how good I can get post all of this stuff and re-contextualize my goals a little bit.”
Now that she has made it through, officially punching her ticket to her second Olympic appearance, she can acknowledge the new perspective the experience has given her.
“Four years ago, qualifying for the team — it was more so this feeling of relief that I accomplished that goal. I feel like this time I’m able to feel more proud of myself because of everything I went through and all the times I almost quit.”
The last year and a half certainly hasn’t been ideal, especially given its proximity to the Olympics. However, even if Letai doesn’t perform as well as she once could have in Milan Cortina, she knows the Games will bring tons of excitement anyway.
In 2022, the Olympics were a shell of what they typically are: few spectators allowed in the stands, little socialization in the Olympic Village, intense and isolating COVID-19 protocols. This time around, Letai is looking forward to getting the real thing.
Then there’s the U.S. women’s relay team, which seems to have found its footing once again. The group — which included Letai — ended this World Tour season with one silver and one bronze across the final two World Tour stops.
Whichever way things go in Milan Cortina, Letai is thrilled to be back on the ice, healthily competing in the sport she’s loved for almost two decades.
“[I’m] just trying to keep that blind faith, that child-like hope that anything is possible still, even though it’s been hard to listen to that,” Letai said. “That’s my priority now — thinking about the ‘what ifs’ in a positive way and harnessing the underdog energy I always feel like I thrive on.”