This is a young woman mourning the death of an Olympic dream, and her grief is still raw. Mellisa Hollingsworth stayed in bed until five o'clock on Saturday afternoon. She could not sleep. She could not stop crying.
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The death of a dream
- February 21, 2010 8:52 PM |
- By Joe O'Connor
Story provided by
Every athlete dreams of winning a gold medal at the Olympics, but only one athlete per event gets to win. And we, the people, watching them here and at home, get to move on to the next race, to the next great Canadian medal hope -- to the next big hockey game.
We, the people, get to forget.
It is our athletes who carry our permanent scars, and their pain is heartbreakingly obvious. You could see it in the tears hiding in the corners of Robbie Dixon's eyes after he fell in the men's downhill, hear it in Lyndon Rush's voice after he crashed in the two-man bobsled, and know it by meeting Mellisa Hollingsworth, and listening to her speak.
This is a young woman mourning the death of an Olympic dream, and her grief is still raw. Hollingsworth stayed in bed until five o'clock on Saturday afternoon. She could not sleep. She could not stop crying.
The tears were still evident Sunday morning, welling up as she spoke to reporters about what had been lost. Hollingsworth had never been quicker off the start than she was in the fourth and final heat of the women's skeleton event Friday night. She had been sitting second, but gold was the only medal she wanted. This is her country. It was her moment. She was going for it.
And then it was gone. One tiny mistake, the kind the two-time World Cup world champion only ever makes in practice, sent her sled careening into one wall, and then the other, killing her momentum, and pushing the Albertan off the podium and all the way back to fifth place.
"It's haunting," Hollingsworth says. "It's sad. It was an entire season, an entire career -- this big buildup for that moment -- and to hit a wall."
It was a nightmare. The 29-year-old sat in the finish area afterwards, wishing for a do-over, wondering what happened, asking herself: why me? Nathan Cicoria, her coach, approached. Hollingsworth wanted to know her starting time. 4.93 seconds, a personal best -- the best of any competitor on the worst night of her life.
"When he told me, the tears haven't stopped," she says.
On Friday, Hollingsworth apologized to the nation for letting us down. On Saturday, while she lay there in bed paralyzed with sadness, the email messages came pouring in. There were some 500 in all, at last count. Many were from complete strangers, with all of them saying essentially the same thing: that she had made us proud. That she was an inspiration. That she had nothing to be ashamed of.
"Every word of support, every hug, it has helped," she says. "It has showed me who we are as a country, and it makes me so proud."
When Hollingsworth finally did pull herself out of bed on Saturday, with the help of her family, it was to attend the medal ceremony for skeleton.
"We made the decision to go to the medal ceremony as part of the healing process and closure to watch Amy [Williams] and Kerstin [Szymkowiak] and Anja [Huber] be presented with their medals," says Hollingsworth, the tears welling up again. "And that was really difficult."
Canada's grand plans to own the podium at the Olympics have turned to slush in Whistler's snowy mountains. With the plan, and the added funding, there was added pressure to perform. Hollingsworth says she welcomed that pressure, and that she worked to heighten our expectations by winning seven of eight World Cup events this season.
"I wanted to do everybody proud. I wanted to stand on top of that podium. I wasn't ashamed of that goal," she says. "I was excited to be the favourite."
Duff Gibson, the skeleton champ in Turin, spoke to the grieving Olympian at Canada House on Saturday night. He told her his Olympic gold medal was just one medal, and that everything Hollingsworth had done -- the two world championships and all the World Cup wins -- was something remarkable. Something he envied.
"To hear words like that from someone who performed at an Olympic Games means a lot," Hollingsworth said. "But at the same time, this is the moment that I was dreaming about seven years ago, when we heard when we were going to be the host nation -- to stand on top of that podium -- and it is crushing."
And now, while the country looks away, and forgets, and looks toward whatever event is next, Hollingsworth will be left looking inward. And forward. She is determined to compete in the 2014 Olympics. Her start time has never been faster. And there is a gold medal she wants to chase.
About the Author
- Joe O'Connor Joe O'Connor is a roving sports feature writer with an open-ended beat. He joined the National Post in 2002, and has spent the past seven years bouncing from sport to sport, offering fresh perspectives and delivering unique stories wherever he goes. Whether it has been getting Don Cherry to open up about his love life; George Chuvalo to talk about heartbreaking loss; or racing down the side of a mountain with former Crazy Canuck, Dave Irwin, the veteran Postie chases a story wherever it leads. Before joining the newspaper he was a two-time silver medalist at the National Magazine Awards. Vancouver will be his first Olympics.
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