Surprisingly enough my parents weren’t intending to name me Sugar! They had names picked out for me and then the day I was born in hospital, they were calling me Sugar affectionately and it just stuck. So they ended up tacking it onto the front of all the names they had for me, and as a result my full name is Sugar Raeshelle Faye Chelsea Todd.

I always really enjoyed school. I never felt intimidated or scared to reach out to my teachers. I felt like I could always go to my teachers whenever I had any sort of problem. Once I established myself as a student who was eager to learn and excited to be there, and not necessarily afraid of not knowing something, then the teacher responded really well to that sort of attitude. I think it fostered a really good learning environment for me, and looking back I am glad I had to confidence to ask for help when I needed it.

This is my first year doing Classroom Champions and it’s been fun for me to see the response from the students. Speed skating is a smaller community, so when I was growing up in skating it was easy for me to rub shoulders with the best athletes in the U.S. To have that sort of access as a kid is really powerful because it gives you this really clear and simple sense of “I can do this! This person that I look up to is a totally normal person who has worked really hard and I can do that too!” This is really relevant for Classroom Champions kids too to hear somebody say, “I’ve been where you are and you’ve got this, you can do this!” I remember hearing that when I was a kid, and it’s amazing to be that person now.

Practice! Speed skating is a very fast sport—we get going close to 40mph and that’s just on our own two legs. The goal is always to spend enough time practicing so that when you get to the line, you’re not practicing anymore, you’re just executing. I think this helps with any decision that is in the moment – like knowing ahead of time as a young person that you won’t take that drink when someone offers it to you because you’ve already decided that is not who you are.

I remember the first really bad crash I had when I was a little kid. A girl passed me on the inside, and fell, and we went into the pads together. She got carried off the ice on a stretcher. I probably had some tears in my eyes but I skated off after a little bit. It’s part of the sport. You know that if you’re able to at least stand up and get your bearings again, for the most part you’re okay. Just like in life, stuff happens and it might take a moment and get back out there. In skating, you train on how to fall. In life, you’re figuring it out as you go and that can be really hard – especially when you’re young.

If you have a sense of self and an idea of what you want to do with your life, you make decisions accordingly. Even if you don’t have a concrete end goal in mind, it’s still important to stay true to yourself and not let other people decide for you what kind of person you’re going to be. It helps to ask yourself, “Will this affect me positively or negatively, will this help push me in the direction of my dreams or is it going to get in the way and slow me down?”

All kinds of things! There’s a great big world out there full of possibilities. You can’t be worried about getting bogged down by the nonsense and the negativity. Go and chase down the things that make up your big dreams!