New Jersey Siblings Make It to Vancouver Olympics Via Japan and Georgia

One sister skates for the country of Georgia, the other sister and a brother skate for Japan. Both train in New Jersey.

LONG JOURNEY: Georgia's Allison Reed and Otar Japaridze compete in the Figure Skating Ice Dance free program, at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver during the XXI Winter Olympics, on February 22, 2010. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images

VANCOUVER—One sister skates for the country of Georgia, the other sister and a brother skate for Japan. Both train in New Jersey and live in the United States.

In the international world of elite athletics, it is not unusual for an athlete to change countries so they can compete or get better training conditions. It’s just unusual to have three Olympic athletes in one family competing for two different countries while living in another.

Allison, Cathy, and Chris Reed are in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics competing in ice dancing, a type of ballroom dancing on ice without the leaps, spins, and overhead lifts of regular figure skating.

Though competitive on an international level, all three Reeds fell short of the elite ranks of U.S. ice dancing and got their ticket to the Olympics via international affiliation.

For Allison, a shortage of male ice dancing partners brought her to Georgia, or rather the Georgian Consulate in New Jersey. After competing solo for a time, she connected with Georgian ice dancer Otar Japaridze and she said the country rushed her citizenship and got her a passport.