Giving Athletes the Right to Play in 2010
Last week, the story broke in Canada that the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) was not going to allow the international humanitarian group Right to Play (RTP) have a presence in the Athlete’s Village during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver/Whistler, Canada. I have been a vocal and active supporter of RTP for years and it came as a major disappointment. I understand that business is business, and the necessity of ‘protecting the brand’, but I just couldn’t believe that VANOC and RTP could not find a middle ground.
Since 1994, Johann Olaf Koss has had a presence with the Olympics, first as Olympic Aid, and then with Right to Play. They have always been welcomed into the Athlete’s Village to expose athletes to a charity group that holds the ideals of the Olympics close to heart. Not to mention using sport and play as the powerful tools they can be for what has grown to be over 600,000 children in 23 countries in the world on a weekly basis. Bettering the lives of these children and allowing them a fighting chance within the reality of the lives they are born into are important things in my books.
I’ve had the opportunity over the past few years to travel so some of these places (Ethiopia, Ghana and the occupied Palestinian territory) and see the impact on many, many young people. I have seen the programs shift the direction of countless young lives. These images have been imprinted into my psyche. They drive me each and every day in the privileged world that I move within; the world of sport at the highest level.
You see, it’s easy to lose perspective when all you do is train, look after yourself and focus on improving. I have a massive team of people around me literally holding my hand at times, making sure I am okay. This is not the real world. For me, I look to the children that Right to Play has engaged and continues to engage for inspiration. It is not enough for me to just think about myself and how good I may be. I need more than this. I have always felt a necessity to make it more than just plain winning.
Enter, Right to Play. Back in Torino, that little booth they had in the village we called home for almost a month was like an escape from the mundane reality of eating, sleeping, training and counting down the minutes until race time. It was an un-stimulating environment for me and I longed for more. I needed inspiration.
Each time I went to see the folks at Right to Play, I thought of the documentary I’ve seen over and over again of Johann Koss winning all of his gold medals back in the 1994 Winter Olympics in his home country of Norway. What inspired me about Johann was not his brute strength, or beautiful skating, but what he did after his races. How he dedicated his winnings to the children of Africa that he had visited the year prior; the children who had no outlet to play; the children who had lives devastated from war; the children that put it all into perspective for him in his races, and who he brought to the forefront in those Games.
As the Games moved forward in Torino, I watched American speed skater Joey Cheek do much the same. Joey donated $40,000 in prize money to Right to Play, and challenged American business’ to match his generosity. He raised over a million dollars from this gesture; all for the kids.
And then finally, it was my time. In the week before the race, my teammate Kristina Groves and I discussed Joey’s donation. We questioned ourselves, wondering if we would do the same if we received prize money from our government like other countries such as the USA did. That is, if we were to win. I wondered what I would actually do.
This question was answered the morning of my race when I turned on the little TV with its CBC feed in my apartment in the Athlete’s village. I wanted to just to pass the time and not think about my race later that day. Little did I know that what I was about to see would change my mindset like nothing else had ever managed to do. Onto that little screen came a scene from a world away- it was children, many of them former child soldiers, in Uganda, and they were taking part in sport programs funded by none other than Right to Play. I learned the devastating stories of the horrors many of the children lived; and then saw them transformed while playing. Their pain turned to joy as they took part in all the games, and I saw the infinite possibilities and beauty of sport. It brought me back to being a child and reminded me clearly of what I had to do that day.
Play, with joy.
If these children could find joy in their suffering- surely, so could I. I knew the pain I would have to endure later that day would seem monumental in the 5000m of skating I had to do before reaching the finish line. However, it suddenly seemed so easy compared to what these children had lived through.
Joy.
That’s what I wanted, and that’s what I got. I wrote this word on my hand and looked at it over and over again as the race approached. I even looked at it when standing on the start line.
Anyone who saw that race will know it about killed me. I’m still not sure, to this day, how I found that strength inside to skate those last few laps and come back from the insurmountable deficit that was established, compared to my competitors. I can’t help but think it was the inspiration I got from seeing those kids, that day.
Had Right to Play not been in the Athlete’s Village, I don’t think Joey Cheek would have been inspired to do what he did; I don’t think it would have occurred to me to do what I did had I not been inspired by him. I, myself, made a $10,000 donation to RTP after my race- an amount that Canadians turned into close to half a million dollars in return. I received letter after letter from Canadian children, offering their piggy-banks to help the kids who ‘couldn’t play like them’ and thought ‘wow, these kids are connecting to the human condition!’. All, because of Right to Play.
I sincerely hope that an agreement can be made and that RTP and VANOC can meet somewhere in the middle. I can’t imagine an Olympics without the Right to Play folks, quietly doing their thing. They helped me move mountains on the day. I know I am not the only athlete who was inspired to do so by the actions of such a fantastic and fundamentally important group.
Something will be missing if they are not there. Indeed.
