Danny O’Shea’s long road to the Olympics resulted in the top prize.
The Gurnee native and pairs skater brought home the gold in the figure skating team event. Students and staff at O’Shea’s alma mater, Saint Viator High School, cheered on his routine.
After leaving it all on the ice, pairs skater Danny O’Shea and his partner, Ellie Kam, won the Olympic gold medal with Team USA in the team event.
“It’s an amazing experience to stand out there and hear your national anthem played anytime and to have it be on Olympic ice,” O’Shea said.
The road to Milan can be traced back to the halls of St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, where O’Shea was a student, and already a focused figure skater.
Father John Eustice remembers when O’Shea transferred there his junior year.
“He was very determined, very genuine and one of the kindest people you ever would have met,” Eustice said.
Elyse Bartnicki agrees. She was a classmate of O’Shea’s and is now a Spanish teacher at St. Viator.
Bartnicki says they lost touch after graduating in 2009, but she has kept up with O’Shea’s skating career, including how he came close to the Olympics in previous years and finally, at the age of 34, how he is competing this year for the first time.
“That smile that he has on television is the exact same smile he had when he was in school,” Bartnicki said.
O’Shea and Kam are hoping to add to their medal haul in this weekend’s Pairs competition.
O’Shea is already inspiring the next generation of skaters, like Evan Neuhaus, a junior at St. Viator who hopes to make it to the Olympics in 2030.
“It was just so inspiring to see that someone went to my school, St. Viator, went to the Olympics and won gold is just, I want to do that someday as well,” Neuhaus said.
Soon, O’Shea’s name will join the list of other esteemed alumni in the Saint Viator Hall of Fame.
