Photo credit: Canadian Press
CLARA HUGHES MAKING MONEY FOR CHARITY
Clara Hughes is raking in the money, but not for herself.
The Olympic gold medallist in speedskating has sparked almost $400,000 in donations to Right to Play by contributing $10,000 of her own money to the organization following her gold-medal victory at the Turin Winter Games in February.
Right to Play promotes sport and play as a tool for developing children in poverty-stricken areas of the world.
“I just knew if I had a voice I had to use it and I believed that Canadians would respond and they have,” Hughes said Tuesday at Toronto City Hall. “We’re $200 short of $400,000 now and that’s incredible. We’re shooting for half a million and I’m hoping we can make that before the end of the year.”
Hughes and cross-country skier Beckie Scott, another Olympic gold medallist, returned Sunday from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where they saw first-hand how Right to Play uses sport to help children make healthy choices and improve their lives.
AIDS is a major problem in Africa. Hughes, from Winnipeg, and Scott, from Vermilion, Alta., played a game with the children called virus in which one person is on the outside of a circle of people holding hands and another person is in the middle.
The person from the outside has to try and get in the circle and break through the arms linked together. If they break through and touch the person on the inside, that person is infected.
“The whole idea is look after one another and look after yourself,” Hughes said. “The kids talk about it and the coaches ask them after ‘What did you learn about this?’
“Here the kids are taught games for fun, for fitness and for health, but in a place like Ethiopia, there’s such a problem with HIV, they’re teaching them about disease control, they’re teaching them about safety, they’re teaching them about hygiene.”
The most telling aspect of the trip for Hughes was to see girls playing games alongside boys.
“I played volleyball with a group of young girls who two years ago could not communicate because they are hearing impaired,” she said. “They’re being taught sign language and they’re playing sport.
“I had young boys tell me in Ethiopia that before Right to Play, girls weren’t allowed to play sports.”
Hughes had been an ambassador for Right to Play prior to the Games in Turin but was inspired to fork out her own money both by American speedskater Joey Cheek, who donated his $40,000 US prize money for winning gold, and also by a documentary on the organization she watched on television the morning of her race.
She won the women’s 5,000 metres in a riveting effort as she came from behind to beat runner-up Claudia Pechstein of Germany before falling on the ice in exhaustion. Hughes said she had been inspired by the joy on the children’s faces in the documentary.
“I collapsed, but I really as a human being felt alive and felt that joy inside and I saw it in those kids’ eyes,” she said. “They reminded of me of why I was there and why I do what I do;
Hughes and Scott joined Right to Play founder Johan Olav Koss, a four-time Olympic gold medallist in speedskating for the Netherlands, and Toronto Mayor David Miller to declare Tuesday Right to Play Day. The organization’s headquarters are in Toronto.
Koss said Hughes and Cheek have made a difference for Right to Play by using their gold medals as a platform to help others.
“It’s had an incredible impact,” he said.
Scott retired following the Games in Turin but Hughes has set her sights on 2010.
She began training again on May 1 and ran 20 kilometres on the treadmill Monday, just one day after returning from Ethiopia. She was back running and lifting weights at 5 a.m. Tuesday.
“It has been absolutely in insane,” she said. “You don’t win the Olympics by sitting on your rear end.
“That experience in Ethiopia gives me the experience to keep going.”
Hughes and Scott were scheduled to throw out the first pitch at the Toronto Blue Jays’ game against Boston on Tuesday at Rogers Centre and Hughes said they were both nervous.
“There’s a reason both of our sports involve the legs more than the arms,” Hughes said with a laugh.
