Vancouver Now - Siblings come from true Olympic stock

It is a story that Jamie and Jessica Gregg have heard a hundred times.

VANCOUVER -- It is a story that Jamie and Jessica Gregg have heard a hundred times.

How Mom and Dad met while both were competing for Canada at the 1980 Olympics. How neither was looking for love. How Cupid had other plans.

The details vary depending on whom you ask. But the narrative generally follows that hockey defenceman Randy Gregg was waiting in line to buy an ice cream sandwich at the athletes' village when long-track speed skater Kathy Gregg (née Vogt) walked up and introduced herself by saying they had a mutual friend.The rest, as they say, is history.

"When you see the right person, you know it," Randy Gregg says. "I was lucky enough to realize that she was the perfect person."

Thirty years later, with two of the Gregg's four kids competing in Vancouver -- 24-year-old Jamie is a long-track speed skater, while 21-year-old Jessica is a short-tracker -- their parents' Olympic love story is being retold again. Not so that the kids are on the lookout for their soulmate, but to remind them to enjoy whatever experiences the Olympics provide.

"That's what I try to tell my kids: as much as you want to focus on your event -- and you're going there for that -- the Olympics is so much more than just a speed skating event," Randy Gregg says. "To really try to absorb all that is a really great opportunity."

Having spurned an NHL offer in order to retain his amateur status, Gregg was searching for gold rather than love when he arrived in Lake Placid, N.Y., for the 1980 Olympics. Anything else -- touring around the city, socializing with other athletes, even watching other events -- was considered an unnecessary distraction.

So when the three students who were subletting his Edmonton home during the Olympics told him that they had a speed-skating friend from Winnipeg who would be perfect for Gregg, he politely passed.

Sure, he was a 23-year-old bachelor back then. But he was also fiercely patriotic. And no matter how pretty the person might be, he told himself he would not be distracted. That, of course, changed when he laid eyes on blonde-haired Kathy.

"Not only did I say hello, but I realized that she was probably the most beautiful girl there, and we ended up spending a lot of time together," he remembers. "I really fell in love with her and the commitment she had in her sport. The fact that she was training three times as hard as me, I knew she was the type of person who would commit to being a mother and a wife just as hard as she was committed to her athletics."

That commitment nearly prevented the two from allowing their love to blossom.

During the Olympics, Randy and Kathy had been all business. But once the Games were over, fate put them on the same bus from Lake Placid to Montreal. During the three-hour ride, both bonded over their individual disappointments.

"We were in a similar situation," Randy Gregg says. "She had done very well before the 1980 Olympics, but got caught up in a gust of wind that took her out of her race. And [the hockey team] struggled and came in sixth place. So we got together at a time when we both needed some friendship."

When the Greggs attended the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, a lot had changed. Randy was still playing defence for the hockey team. But Kathy, who had given birth to two boys and was pregnant with Jessica, was reduced to being a spectator.

It was a role that Randy also tried to adopt.

"In 1980, I went there to play hockey," he says. "I was so focused on doing the best that I could for my team and my country that I just spent all my time focusing on that. But when I came back in 1988, I realized that -- aside from meeting my wife -- I had missed the Olympics.

"In 1988, I took my boys to the luge and bobsleigh and I experienced the Olympic event itself, and it didn't interfere one bit with the quality of play that I had and the commitment I had to the team."

That message is being relayed to Jamie and Jessica as both prepare for their first Olympics.

For Jessica, it is a hard sell. Sure, she is looking forward to meeting Sidney Crosby and the rest of the men's hockey team. But, like her mother, her intentions are simply to introduce herself and say hello.

If Cupid has other plans, then so be it.

"I mean, who knows?" Jessica Gregg said of finding love. "You never know. Athletes are attracted to other athletes, so I guess anything can happen.

"But I'm not out there looking for love."

Siblings come from true Olympic stock

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