Archbishop Mitty student Polina Edmunds (10) earned a spot on the U.S. Women’s Olympic Figure Skating Team for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics after 13 years of training, joined by teammates Gracie Gold, 18, and Ashley Wagner, 22.

At age 15, Polina will be one of the youngest U.S. athletes to have ever competed in the Olympic Games. After watching the U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Team at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, she was inspired, and her determination to seriously pursue figure skating was ignited. Now, having finished second in her first senior national competition, the Mitty sophomore has a chance to go down in Olympic history.

“For the last four years I’ve been training and working as hard as I could, learning new elements to get to this point. I’m just so happy that all this work has paid off,” she said.

Particularly exciting for Polina is the opportunity to return to Russia, a country she has not visited since the age of two. Because her mother and fellow coach Nina Edmunds grew up approximately 100 miles from Moscow, Sochi 2014 is a sort of homecoming for the Edmunds family.

In 2010, Polina landed her first double axel – a turning point in her career.

“A double axel is the stepping stone for skaters,” she said. “The skaters who can learn double axels are set up for the triples, and once you learn the triples, you’re into the competitive ranks of figure skating.”

Upon returning to school after the 2014 U.S. Championships, she was greeted by a large crowd of cheering Mitty students, as well as a large banner announcing her success.

“I was just so surprised because I was never expecting anything like that. I was just so excited that everyone was supporting me,” Polina said.

Yet, in the midst of her athletic celebrity, Polina is still a full-time high school student committed to her academics.

“She needs to finish her homework, and she’s the same student she was before,” Polina’s mother, Nina Edmunds said. “It is a little bit hard for us to see that she’s skated hard, she’s tired, and after coming home she needs to do homework, but she can do it.”

Polina has attributed her success as a figure skater to immense technical training under her coach David Glynn, who has coached her since she was four years old. The routines in Polina’s programs at the 2014 U.S. Championships, where she qualified for the Olympics, were the most technically challenging in the competition.

“[Glynn’s] taught me incredible technique, and that’s what’s really helped my skating,” she said.

The past 11 years of training together have fostered a strong relationship between Polina and her coach.

“We have kind of a very close relationship. We joke around all the time, and it’s like a love-hate relationship,” she said.

Particularly exciting for Polina is the opportunity to return to Russia, a country she has not visited since the age of two. Because her mother and fellow coach Nina Edmunds grew up approximately 100 miles from Moscow, Sochi 2014 is a homecoming for the Edmunds family.

NBC will broadcast Polina’s journey through Sochi through their coverage of the Olympic games from Feb. 7 to 23.

This piece was originally published in the pages of the Winged Post on Jan. 27, 2014.