When To Watch Smithtown Native John Daly Compete In The Olympics

SMITHTOWN, NY - A Smithtown native will be headed to the South Korea to compete in the 2018 Olympic Games.

This isn't 32-year-old John Daly's first time in the Olympics. The local skeleton athlete first headed to participate in the international games in 2010 in Vancouver where he came in 17th.

In 2014, he went once again to the Olympics, this time coming in 15th.

"Walking into opening ceremonies is kind of a surreal moment, its the moment you realize that you can accomplish a goal and a dream," he told Patch. "It's a very confident feeling."

This time, which Daly said might be his last time headed to the Olympics, he's hoping not to crash like he did during his second games.

"Walking into opening ceremonies it's kind of a surreal moment, its the moment you realize that you can accomplish a goal and a dream," he said. "It's a very confident feeling."

The Smithtown Middle School grad first got his start when his coach, whose son did luge, recommended Daly join the team as well.

From there, he tried out and participated in luge before he saw skeleton and switched over.

In addition to the Olympics, he participated in 5 different world championships since 2011.

However, this year might be his last year since Daly wants to focus on his career as medical device sales rep. Between his job and preparing for the Olympics, his says its like working two full time jobs.

A typical day for Daly includes getting up at 5 a.m. to work out 5 days a week in addition to working from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. While he says his job has been very supportive of his training, he looks forward to retiring from the sport.

"I look forward to ending my career the way I wanted to -- although I shouldn't say end because I never thought I would be going back but here I am," he said. "I think this will be one of my last Olympics but we'll see. I want to have 4 solid runs and put down the best performance I can."

This time around, he's preparing by training "smarter" and spending less time partying and more time sleeping.

"I don't have a social life at this point so I'm looking forward to that just going out and having a beer with my buddies," Daly said.

The most difficult part of training he says, is drowning out the noise and focusing on earning a medal.

You can watch Daly on Wednesday, Feb. 14 for the qualifying race starting at 8 p.m. on NBC and during the second run on Thursday, Feb. 15 starting at 12:05 a.m.

Photos courtesy of John Daly