.A personal test for speedskater Jennifer Rodriguez at Vancouver Games
As Jennifer Rodriguez stroked around the Richmond Oval on Tuesday, she knew why she was back for her fourth Olympic Games. Any doubts about her decision to return to the punishing sport of long track speedskating melted.
"I still love it," Rodriguez said. "How smooth the ice is under the blade, how quiet the blade is on the ice. It's a form of purity."
Rodriguez, Miami's one and only Winter Olympian and the first Cuban-American to win a medal at the Winter Games, will not only be racing for that elusive feeling of the perfect glide. She will also be racing for a farewell feeling of awful pain, for the chance to beat the pain and her opponents across the finish line.
At the 2010 Olympics, which commence Friday, Rodriguez is competing for two: For herself, 14 years after her improbable crossover from in-line skater to speedskater nicknamed "Miami Ice," and for her late mother, Barbara, who died June 15 at age 59 after a 16-year battle with cancer.
She and her mother inspired and pushed each other - for Rodriguez during her workout regimen, for Barbara during her chemotherapy treatments. Both went through something like torture. The agony of speedskating is similar to doing a lunge for 1,500 meters. Their mantras: "If Mom can do it, I can do it." And, "If Jen can do it, I can do it."
So it will be strange when Rodriguez looks into the bleachers and doesn't see her mother there. Barbara was watching in Nagano in 1998, after a double mastectomy, when her husband, Joe, had to give her bone marrow injections every day in Japan. She was there in Salt Lake City in 2002, when she was in remission and Rodriguez won two bronze medals. She was there in 2006, when cancer had spread to her liver, she gave herself shots in the stomach and watched Rodriguez, burned out by overtraining, finish eighth and 10th in two miserable races.
"I think about her every day, but I don't cry every day anymore, maybe because the Games are my focus," Rodriguez said. "I know she'll be along for the ride."
The Olympian
"I still love it," Rodriguez said. "How smooth the ice is under the blade, how quiet the blade is on the ice. It's a form of purity."
Rodriguez, Miami's one and only Winter Olympian and the first Cuban-American to win a medal at the Winter Games, will not only be racing for that elusive feeling of the perfect glide. She will also be racing for a farewell feeling of awful pain, for the chance to beat the pain and her opponents across the finish line.
At the 2010 Olympics, which commence Friday, Rodriguez is competing for two: For herself, 14 years after her improbable crossover from in-line skater to speedskater nicknamed "Miami Ice," and for her late mother, Barbara, who died June 15 at age 59 after a 16-year battle with cancer.
She and her mother inspired and pushed each other - for Rodriguez during her workout regimen, for Barbara during her chemotherapy treatments. Both went through something like torture. The agony of speedskating is similar to doing a lunge for 1,500 meters. Their mantras: "If Mom can do it, I can do it." And, "If Jen can do it, I can do it."
So it will be strange when Rodriguez looks into the bleachers and doesn't see her mother there. Barbara was watching in Nagano in 1998, after a double mastectomy, when her husband, Joe, had to give her bone marrow injections every day in Japan. She was there in Salt Lake City in 2002, when she was in remission and Rodriguez won two bronze medals. She was there in 2006, when cancer had spread to her liver, she gave herself shots in the stomach and watched Rodriguez, burned out by overtraining, finish eighth and 10th in two miserable races.
"I think about her every day, but I don't cry every day anymore, maybe because the Games are my focus," Rodriguez said. "I know she'll be along for the ride."
The Olympian
posted by madtom at 12:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home