Kirkland’s Cooper McLeod overcomes Olympic Games setback to compete on 2026 team

KIRKLAND, Wash. — Kirkland’s Cooper McLeod is one of the country’s top long track speed skaters.

The rumors are true: he’s actually spent more time in skates than in shoes. His first time on ice was at just 10 months old.

“We had family friends that owned the skating rink in Burlington, and they were talking to my dad and he was going to go to the grocery store,” he explained. “It was right next to the rink, and they said, ‘Well, we’ll just hang on to him so it’s easier.’ And when he came back, I had skates on and fell in love with it.”

Three years later, McLeod began competing. He started inline skating at 3, then his family learned about speed skating.

When he was 8, McLeod decided to hit the ice after meeting a coach from the Puget Sound Speed ​​Skating Club in Tacoma.

“There’s an amazing coach there, Chang Ho Lee, and he is one of the best and he provides that great foundation that all of us have built upon,” McLeod said.

McLeod won his first National Championships in short track and long track when he was only 9.

After graduating Juanita High School, he moved to Utah to train with team USA.

“If you want to take the next step and become a serious athlete, this is where you do it,” he said. “So it ends up bringing a good environment of training and commitment.”

But in 2022, his Olympic dreams were shattered at the trials. He missed out on the final Olympic team by “just a hundred coupleths of a second.”

But McLeod didn’t waste time sulking, he used that disappointment as motivation.

“I like to say ‘You don’t learn anything when you win, so you learn things when you’re supposed to win and you don’t,'” he said. “If you’re supposed to do well and you fail a little bit, you have to go back to the drawing board, but that always ends up being a good thing because that’s where you know your best self is built.”

“Super Cooper” set a national record in team sprint in 2024. He won two medals at the World Championships in 25, while helping team USA set a world record in the team sprint event. And in 2026, he has qualified for his first Winter Olympics team.

“It’s a special feeling,” McLeod said. “You grow up watching all these amazing athletes over the years, all these sports, representing their country, so getting to do that and just showing people what you’ve done over the past few years and what you’re doing with your life and doing that for your country is pretty special.”