Olympians
Thank you, Olympics, for a welcome distraction from the world’s headlines.
It’s amazing how sports that most of us will never even try draw people together, regardless of race, politics or creed.
We are unified in something bigger than nationhood or status, though both of those matter, but this is something bigger. Triumph. The triumph of human spirit against all odds, against its own endurance. The ultimate pursuit of a passion.
It’s the back stories of the athletes that inspire me more than their actual achievements. What it took to get here, to this pinnacle moment in their life, their career. I’m here for it. All of it.
The way it brings people together. The way we love sport, even if, like me, we’ve never played one. There isn’t an athletic bone in my body. But if debating useless facts about Canadian history while burning toast and folding laundry was a triathlon competition, let me just say, I’d proudly represent my team as captain. Put that big ‘C’ on my Roots sweatshirt.
Always a sucker for figure skating, because it’s beautiful and brave, I’ll be glued to that. Not gonna lie, I teared up watching Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier in their mesmerizing bronze-winning performance. Elegance and strength. Poetry in motion, with moves that seemed to defy gravity. It was emotional. When you learn how Gilles overcame ovarian cancer, and lost her mother to cancer, you know that moment was bigger than a medal.
I watched some curling, because my parents love that sport and I figured I should try and understand it. It’s interesting to watch. To the uninitiated, it looks easy. It is not easy, as I have come to learn and thus, I am not genetically suited to this sport.
Hockey is a big deal, naturally. I think you have to hand in your birth certificate if you don’t support it. I respect that these athletes, NHLers or not, can handle the pressure of wearing our flag on their jerseys, playing our national sport. It’s intense. So many hours at the rinks, so many sacrifices, travel and so much debt for their hockey parents to get to this world stage.
Most of us feel we can relate, even at the smallest level, which is what makes these moments so big. Dreams that unite us.
Luge. Bobsledding. Skeleton. Seriously, who grows up and decides that these insane sports looks like a good idea? I am trying to imagine what it’s like to have raised these athletes. Like, imagine being the mother who watches their child launch themselves down an ice track faster than my car can get to third gear. What kind of person chooses this life? People I’d like to party with, that’s who.
But my Olympic moment so far will be watching the video of CBC journalist Ariel Helwani randomly interviewing people heading to Olympic events. He stops a man who, unbeknownst to him, is the father of Maia Schwinghammer of Saskatchewan, who was making her Olympic debut in Milano Cortina in freestyle skiing. As the interview goes on, the father breaks down in tears speaking of his pride in his daughter, how hard she’d worked for this opportunity. Now that was a human moment we can all connect to in some way.
Good luck, Team Canada and all the families behind you.