Games will be swan song for gold medalist
It will be one of the final acts of her storied career as Clara Hughes carries the Canadian flag into the opening ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics, just under two weeks from now.
Moments after Canada’s worst-kept Olympic secret was confirmed – that she would indeed be the country’s flag bearer – Hughes called the honour the greatest of her sporting life.
“For 20 years, I’ve had the opportunity to be the best that I can for Canada,” the veteran athlete and gold medalist said yesterday.
“And now, the thought of walking into BC Place, that moment when all of Canada is watching, and being the one carrying that glorious maple leaf high above my head, it’s such a powerful thing,” Hughes said. “I feel so honoured.”
Had she listened to the doubters, however, the Canadian speed skater wouldn’t even be here. At 37, athletes at international competitions marvel at her age, but not in a good way. They ask how she keeps going? What they mean is: Why is she still here?
Because if there’s one thing Clara Hughes can’t stand, it’s a quitter.
Earlier this winter, a skater from another country plunked himself down beside the bubbly Canadian who is one of this country’s most decorated Olympians and began to grouse. He felt old, he was tired and he couldn’t wait for the season to be over.
Surely Hughes could relate.
She was livid. If he was looking for a sympathetic ear, he had come to the wrong person.
“I didn’t say anything because I just have no response to that,” said the five-time Olympic medalist from Winnipeg, who now resides in Glen Sutton, Que.
“I’ll hear some skaters say, ‘Oh, I can’t wait until I don’t have to train any more.’ And it makes me really mad. If you hate it, don’t do it. If it’s really that horrible, go do something else.”
Hughes had been the front-runner to hoist the flag Feb. 12 since November, topping a list that included hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser, bobsledder Pierre Leuders and others.
While some previous flag bearers have complained about the distraction of the honour and some athletes have turned it down, Hughes said she didn’t hesitate when asked “some time ago” whether she would march at the head of Canada’s 206-strong Olympic team.
“I really didn’t feel I had a choice,” Hughes said. “Deep inside me, I just knew, if I was asked, I would say yes, because this is really the chance of a lifetime.”
Nor does she think it will hinder her Olympic performance. Quite the opposite.
“I feel it’s going to be an inspiration I’ve never felt before, and I look forward to those emotions.”
Hughes’s selection was announced before an array of politicians and Canadian Olympic officials at Richmond city hall, not too far from the spectacular speed-skating oval where she hopes to strike Olympic gold for the second time.
As a Westerner who now lives in Quebec, Hughes embodies many sides of the country. She is bilingual, genial, and not a afraid to take a stand. When not in skates, she is more ambassador than athlete.
After winning her 5,000-metre gold medal in Turin in 2006, she donated $10,000 to the Right to Play, which helps underprivileged children around the world play sports even if they can’t afford something as simple as shoes.
She may be a well known public figure, but amateur athletes in this country don’t throw around that kind of cash without having to make some significant personal sacrifices on the financial front.
If anything, carrying the flag in Vancouver also helps erase the criticism that dogged Hughes in 2006, when she said publicly that she would turn down an offer to carry the flag if chosen.
Her reasons were clear – she was battling a serious chronic flu in the weeks heading into those Games, which she didn’t want to aggravate. But it didn’t stop a backlash from the likes of Don Cherry and others who scolded her and other athletes for being unpatriotic.
Heading into her fifth Olympics, Hughes has earned the right to pine for a day off. That time will come, but not before Vancouver, where she will take a few more competitive spins around the track, in the 3,000 and 5,000-metre events, then hang up her blades for good.
Her swan song will be one of the most emotional moments Canadian speed skating has seen since the departure of Catriona Le May Doan in 2003.
Much like her former teammate, Hughes will leave the sport with a trove of medals.
Her five medals span the Summer and Winter Games, starting with double bronze in cycling at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and three more in speed skating, including a gold in the 5,000 metres at Turin in 2006.
Facing life after speed skating for the first time in her career, Hughes doesn’t know what retirement will bring. She’s dabbled in broadcasting and is an activist for Right to Play, but has made no decisions.
And that’s exactly the way her coach wants it.
What Hughes will do post-Olympics is the one topic Wang Xiuli prefers Hughes not dwell on. Wang wants her skater to be free of distractions, so they find other things to talk about.
Wang was present Friday for the flag bearer announcement. Asked what makes Hughes such a great champion, she replied: “She is hard-working. She wants to do it in her heart, and she also helps other people to be a better person. I think all that makes her really great.”
At the same time, Hughes’ coach shouldn’t worry that she will be any less attentive, given the potential diversions, such as carrying the flag, at these Olympics.
After a horrific season last year, when Hughes was plagued by illness and injury and unable to find her stride, the skater is relishing a more single-minded drive toward the Olympics this year.
Hughes figures she still has work to do. The curse of being a veteran athlete is that you know exactly when you are on – and when you are not.
“After being in sport for so long, I know myself really well, and I know when my brain is functioning in a certain way, where there is just no excess baggage,” Hughes said earlier this winter.
“I only hear what I want to hear, see what I want to see. The focus is pretty intense. It’s almost scary intense.”
She pauses. “This year, I haven’t had it yet.”
Hughes points to a recent race in Norway as an example.
Standing at the start line last November, she tried to wipe dirt from her blades and instead sliced open her finger. As mistakes go, this was the speed-skating equivalent of stepping on a rake or falling into an open manhole.
Within seconds, the ice began to look like a Jackson Pollock painting, with her blood spattered everywhere, Hughes said.
“My blades are razor sharp. And as I’m wiping my blade with my finger, I said, ‘What are you doing, you’re going to cut your finger,’” she said. “Then, I was like, ‘Well, you deserved that. This is a reminder of where your focus is at.’.”
Hughes put the mistake aside and turned in one of her best performances of the season that weekend. However, because of the distraction, it was only good enough for fourth – a fate she will not accept in at the Games.
She is carrying that race in the back of her mind into Vancouver.
“I see [that race] as a valuable thing,” Hughes said. “To come fourth, that sucks. This is what you will get if you don’t focus. I feel like it was a pretty good thing to have happened.”
Hughes also knows focus is fleeting. She wants to make sure it is there for the Olympics, so she and Wang have built a training program that will have her peaking both mentally and physically this month.
“Being this many years in,” Hughes said, “I definitely have moments where I think maybe I can’t focus any more, maybe I don’t have the ability to focus. But then I think sometimes it’s almost good for me to screw things up because it’s a reminder of what it takes.”
It will matter on Feb. 24, the date she’s been carrying around in her head for months. That’s when the 5,000 metres, her specialty, will be skated.
“If I go into the Olympics and I focus on things like, well, what if I don’t win, what if I finish fourth? What if I finish eighth? I’m going to do something like cut my finger again,” she said.
Only after Vancouver has emptied out will Hughes allow thoughts of retirement to enter her head.
“There’s lots of things I’m interested in, but I haven’t thought about it,” she said, the standard line she’s maintained all season.
Then she exposes a secret: “Okay, I’ll say one thing: long-distance running. Ultra-distance running. Like, 100-mile races on trails. I’m really curious about that.”
So when Hughes finally decides to take a break, she could very well end up doing something even more strenuous than speed skating. While other skaters talk of getting old and tired, she refuses.
“Most people would say I’m nuts,” Hughes says. “But I guess I’m a creature of endurance.”
