Skeleton gold medalist with dyslexia honors family as third generation Olympian

From The NY Daily News:

VANCOUVER - Two or three times a day, the only skeleton gold medalist the U.S. has ever had takes a leisurely walk around Lake Eola in downtown Orlando. Keeping him company is his baby daughter, Taylor Grace Shea. He's moving about 80 mph slower than he did in his athletic prime, but that's fine with Jim Shea (pictured).

"I'm a stay at home dad right now, and I really like it," Shea said by phone from Florida.

Shea, 41, was one of the transcendent stories of the Salt Lake Games eight years ago, not just because he spoke openly of his learning disability (dyslexia) and the struggles he had when he started in the sport, sleeping in bobsled sheds all over Europe, using fifth-rate equipment and $200 to his name, but because he was the country's first third-generation Olympian.

In 1932, his grandfather, Jack Shea, won two speedskating gold medals, not far from his Lake Placid home, the first American to win two golds in a Winter Games. In 1964, Jim Shea Sr. competed in Innsbruck, Austria in the Nordic combined. And 38 years later, along came Jim Jr., by then one of the elite skeleton racers in the world.

It was a sweet family story that suddenly turned tragic, when 91-year-old Jack Shea – the oldest living Olympian - died from injuries suffered in a motor-vehicle accident weeks before the Salt Lake Games were to begin.

Jim Shea read the Olympic oath at Opening Ceremonies, and then competed in skeleton. He had a slight lead after the first run, but was narrowly behind just meters from the finish of his second run. It looked to be a silver medal, for sure.

And then, somehow, Shea made up time in those final meters. He crossed the line. He saw his coach holding up one finger.

By .05 seconds, Jim Shea was an Olympic gold medalist and when he jumped off his sled, he took off his helmet and pulled out his grandfather's funeral card.

"I think my grandfather had some unfinished business down here," Shea said. "Now he can go up to heaven."

The triumph was a goosebump moment for the ages, and would make Shea a popular speaker on the motivational circuit, something he still does when he and Taylor are not walking around Lake Eola.

Shea and his wife, Kellee, an emergency room physician, feel inordinately blessed, not just because Taylor turns 1 today, but because the heart problems she had for several months have abated.

"I'm in a really good place," Jim Shea said. And what about Taylor Grace Shea becoming a fourth-generation Olympian?

"Everybody asks me that," Shea replied. "I'm just happy she's smiling."