Hughes gives her all -- on and off the ice: Gold medalist donates $10,000 to children's charity
TURIN — Within the space of about an hour on the final full day of competition of the Turin Games, Clara Hughes of Winnipeg performed two acts that uphold the Olympic ideals as much as any.
The first, which took place on the ice, saw Hughes power her way to the gold medal in the 5,000-metre speed-skating race, the final Olympic event at the Oval Lingotto, where so many memories were etched for Canada during these Games.
Moments after she crossed the finish line, Hughes collapsed from a skate so punishing that her muscles seized up and left her unable to stand. At once in ecstasy and agony, she was simultaneously laughing and crying, still in shock at having won the fifth Olympic medal of her career and her first gold.
“I wrote on my hand ‘Joy’ because that’s what I wanted to feel from my race once I recovered of it,” she said. “And I really felt that — pure joy and happiness and the rapture of being alive. That’s what I feel right now. I feel completely alive as a human being. It’s a really beautiful moment.”
It was later on Saturday evening, once the pain had subsided and her accomplishment began to sink in, that Hughes, 33, unveiled an idea that told far more about her than the medal she wore around her neck.
For two years, Hughes has been an ambassador for Right To Play, the humanitarian organization started by Norwegian speed-skating star Johann Olav Koss that uses sport and play as development tools for children in the world’s most disadvantaged and war-torn areas.
And so when, earlier during the Games, American speed skater Joey Cheek offered to donate his $40,000 (U.S.) in Olympic bonus money to Right To Play, it started Hughes thinking.
Before a room packed with journalists eager to hear about every detail from her race, Hughes suddenly took things in a different direction.
“I’ve been thinking all week about the meaning of sport and the reason for what motivates me and why I love to compete,” she said. “In some ways, I just started feeling like I don’t really know why.”
She then described a sort of epiphany she experienced earlier during the day while watching a CBC program about Right To Play in Uganda. “I saw those kids smiling and I thought, you know what? That’s what it’s all about. Just that happiness . . . that play can give so much to the world. So much hope and so much positive energy.”
And with that, at a point when the thoughts of many medalists would understandably turn to their own futures and what windfalls might await them back home, Hughes offered to empty her bank account into Right To Play and challenged others in her homeland to do the same.
Canadian athletes don’t receive Olympic bonus money. But Hughes knew she had $10,000 (Canadian) sitting in an account at home, and she decided to give all away.
“I saw what Joey did and thought there’s no reason Canadians can’t do the same and it might as well start with me,” she said. “When I saw what was happening with Joey, I thought people are starting to get the message and this is the perfect time to capitalize, to educate people about Right To Play. It’s phenomenal.
“The chance to help others is a beautiful thing. To compete at the Olympics if it was just for myself, it’s not enough, it’s not very meaningful.”
In the few hours after Hughes’s announcement, $22,500 had come from Canadians toward matching Hughes’s donation, a figure that had grown to $60,000 by yesterday afternoon.
Another athlete, Chinese short-track speed skater Yang Yang, was also moved to donate her $10,000 (U.S.) Olympic bonus and volunteered to help the organization set up an office in Beijing.
“Clara has done an amazing thing because even small donations to us make a huge difference,” said Koss, who was stunned by the gesture when he learned of it. “Sport is so important for the physical and psychological health of youth, particularly in war-torn areas and areas of poverty.”
Koss was among those who had watched Saturday’s race, in which Hughes shared the podium with fellow Winnipeg native Cindy Klassen, who finished third.
Klassen had the day’s best time with only Hughes and Claudia Pechstein of Germany left to skate. The star of these Games for Canada had streaked ahead at a torrid pace before slowing during her final lap, fading badly as she struggled to keep her feet.
Hughes’s race was the complete opposite, staying patient before using her remarkable endurance to produce a gold-medal time during the race’s final stages.
“You could see in my last couple of laps I was really dying . . . that’s what I really dread,” said Klassen, Canada’s flag-bearer in the Olympic closing ceremony yesterday. “With two laps to go, it felt like it should be my last lap. I just wanted to stay on my feet.
“[Hughes] has worked so hard to come this far. It was an incredible race and she was strong right to the finish. I’m so happy for her.”
The sixth medal of Klassen’s career, and fifth in Turin, made her Canada’s most decorated Olympian, one ahead of Hughes, who has three skating medals to go with two Summer Games medals in cycling.
Their gold and bronze finish made it eight medals at the Oval Lingotto for Canada, where Canadian ice maker Mark Messer had buried a tiny gold maple leaf in the ice near the finish line.
The two women stood on top of the podium on Saturday, watching Canada’s flag being raised, doing their best to keep up with O Canada despite off-key voices and effervescent joy.
“I turned around and saw Cindy and thought I don’t want to be alone up here listening to O Canada and I’m surely not going to sing by myself,” Hughes said. “So Cindy came up there and we started singing really badly . . . and it was fun.”
