Clara Hughes Named Canada's Olympic Flag Bearer
In what many are saying is the most apropros selection in years, Clara Hughes was named as the person who will be leading Canada’s Olympic team into BC Place Stadium at the Opening Ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.
Clara Hughes is an accomplished athlete, a humanitarian, an environmentalist. an excellent role model and a proud Canadian. Based on these attributes and many more, it was announced in Vancouver on Friday that Ms. Hughes will lead Canada’s 206-person strong Olympic team as the flag bearer for Team Canada.
After declaring “This is without a doubt the greatest moment of my sporting life”, the only athlete in the 114-year history of the modern day Olympics ever to win multiple medals in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, beamed at the cameras and posed in front of a huge Canadian flag.
The 37-year-old speedskater and cyclist, won 2 bronze medals at the 1996 Atlanta, USA Olympic Games in cycling. Hughes also competed as a cyclist at the games held in Sydney, Australia and after those games, Hughes switched to her original sport, speedskating. It has been widely reported that she fell in love with speedskating after the 1988 Olympic games held in Calgary, Canada.
In 2002, Hughes won a speedskating bronze medal at the Salt Lake, USA Olympic games and then in 2006 at the Turin, Italy Games, she won a gold medal in the gruelling 5,000 meter speedskating race and a silver medal in the women’s pursuit.
It was after the Turin games, that Hughes made the extraordinary gesture of donating all of her personal savings at the time, $10,000, to a charity called “Right to Play”. Right to Play is a humanitarian charitable organization whose stated mission is:
To improve the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the world by using the power of sport and play for development, health and peace.
Hughes publicly urged others to follow her lead, and in the wake of her personal donation, she was able to help raise over $400,000, a record amount for Right to Play. Hughes has also made several more donations since then and has also done outreach work via trips to Africa and the Middle East working directly with children in “poor and troubled areas.”
Hughes was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba and currently lives in Quebec. She is actively involved in the environmental group, Nature Conservancy of Canada, Quebec Region. She has helped raise funds for the preservation of the Sutton Mountain Range.
Make no mistake. Clara Hughes is not a saint. In her words:
“I want young people to realize that when they look at us as Olympic athletes, sometimes we look larger than life, but many of us have histories. Many of us have gone in bad directions and had lives that aren’t storybook beginnings. They might look like a storybook ending but the beginnings can be pretty rough.
For me it’s really important to show young people you can turn your life around. It’s just the most crucial thing is to look for some kind of inspiration, something that means something to you that you can focus on. When you have that gift, and you have that mind set, you can do anything.”
At age 16, Hughes was a pack-a-day smoker, who used to run away for the weekend to party with her friends. She had not progressed into hard drugs at that stage, but was drinking alcohol and using what she describes as “soft” drugs. The year was 1988, and one day, Hughes was channel surfing and saw Gaéten Boucher valiantly skate one last time for Canada at the Calgary Olympics. She was hooked and with the support of her mother, managed to turn her life around to where she is today.
Clara’s message to Canadian youth, and to youth all around the world: “I want people to be inspired that I’ve always strived for excellence and I’ve always gone beyond what anybody ever thought I could do, what I thought I myself could do.
And I’ve allowed myself to be inspired, kept my eyes open and my senses open to inspiration around me. I’ve had people inspire me in my life that really showed me that is the way to live and I’d like to show that to people.”
Hughes plans to retire after the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.
