Monday, February 18, 2002
Okay, last Thursday (Valentine’s Day) Alexa, David and I went snowboarding at Cypress. It had been sunny all week so we were expecting icy conditions. It was hard packed but not too bad and very quiet. We even ended up in the trees a fair bit. Anyway we were feeling confident so we decided to try out the Terrain Park. David had now got a helmet (mandatory in the Terrain Park). There was one solitary boarder in there doing the half pipe (very well). We all tried the half pipe. It was steep and icy hard. We all got a few turns in about 1/3 of the way up the side. We laughed at the patheticness of our performances but now know we can do it. Then I suggested climbing back up and trying a jump. I went first and didn’t even have enough speed to get up the jump much to Alexa’s amusement. She went next, sort of made it over the jump, landed it more or less and then fell in a clump. We cheered. Then heard a plaintive “I’ve hurt my hand”. I boarded over to her and she was in agony. We put snow on her hand but the pain would not subside. We eventually got down from the hill and into first aid. Some crepitus was detected and a splint and sling administered. I was sure she had broken a bone. Anyway we went to the pub and over a beer decided strategy. David drove us to the hospital. We dropped her off, then we went home and I changed and went back for her. It was a quiet night at the hospital and she was just coming back from her x-ray as I got there. She had a sprained ligament in her thumb. They put her in a half cast and we got home about 1:00 am. This was our romantic Valentine’s night. The ironic thing was that less than a week earlier her mom, having watched the half pipers in the Olimpics had tried to get Alexa to promise not to do the half pipe which she refused to do (being a “Hard Core Boarder Chick”). She is proud that her injury was gained in the Terrain Park and is keen to get back on the hill again (although she is looking into getting wrist guards). My little HCBC – I am very proud.
posted by John Woakes 8:57 PM
Saturday, Alexa cooked a very nice dinner. She has her TV out (shock, horror) to watch the Olympics. We watched the men's 1,000-metre short-track event. It was very amusing. Here is the text of an article about the winner.“The luckiest man at the Winter Olympics is an Australian speed skater who once sliced his right leg open and almost bled to death on the ice only to recover and break his neck.
Okay, so Steven Bradbury has had a few misfortunes. Saturday night made up for that. Saturday night was Bradbury's big payback, his windfall of falls. The young man from Camden was nothing but aces start to finish. If he had been a gambler in Las Vegas, they would have barred him from every casino on the strip. Instead, he got a gold medal, the first Winter Olympic gold medal in the history of Australian sport.
Here's how it happened: In the men's 1,000-metre short-track event, everybody fell down and Bradbury won. It happened in the quarter-final, in the semi-final and it happened again, for third time on the same night, on the last corner in the final. Everybody fell down and Bradbury won.
Short trackers have a habit of falling down and taking each other out like pins in a bowling alley. But what happened for Bradbury was beyond anything anyone had ever seen before, a fall classic that played to Bradbury's advantage until he crossed the finish line with his arms raised in victory and a crazy grin on his face.
Even on the podium, where he stood above silver medalist Apolo Ohno of the United States and bronze medalist Mathieu Turcotte of Canada, a thoroughly amused Bradbury couldn't stop shaking his head as if he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world.
"Obviously I wasn't the fastest skater out there. The nature of short track is there are a lot of crashes, but to have four guys go down all at once is not a commonplace thing."
Neither is Bradbury's short-track career, which has produced as many near-death experiences as accomplishments. At a 1994 World Cup in Montreal, Bradbury fell in a heap with Canadians Fred Blackburn and Marc Gagnon and impaled his right thigh on a skate blade. The gash was so severe Bradbury lost four litres of blood and needed 111 stitches. He said he would have died if it hadn't been for the fast work of the paramedics who treated him.
Then in September, 2000, Bradbury fell while training in Australia and crashed headfirst into a barrier, breaking the C4 and C5 vertebrae in his neck. For six weeks he wore a metal halo.
But even after two horrific injuries, Bradbury refused to pass on a sport that had taken him to the 1992, 1994 and 1998 Winter Games. Instead, he wanted one last go at the Olympics so he could "walk away satisfied." Never in his wildest dreams did he expect to walk away as an Olympic champion, the guy who stayed on his feet when everyone else was skating on banana peels; Australia's new Olympic hero, whose brilliant strategy was to stay behind the leaders in case they fell down.
"The quarter-final I ran out of legs with a lap to go and I had three guys go by me, but two of them went down so I got through. The semi-final I went in planning on riding on the back looking for accidents or collisions or something so I could sneak up. And they went down again. Same deal in the final.
"They were my tactics and they worked like a charm."
In the final, Bradbury was so far behind his rivals he could have stopped and asked for directions. He looked like a guy trying to hail a cab. Then all of a sudden China's Li Jiajun went down. Then Korea's Hyun-Soo Ahn went down and took out Ohno and Turcotte, and Bradbury cruised past thinking, 'Hang on. This can't be right. I think I won.'
Convinced he wasn't going to win a thing here, Bradbury had sent a pre-race e-mail to Ohno asking for a favour. When he isn't competing, the scruffy-haired Bradbury manufactures speed-skating boots and Ohno, everyone's favourite to win gold in the 1,000, was wearing a pair of the Revolutionary Boot Company's best on Saturday.
"I sent [Ohno] an e-mail saying, 'If you win a medal can you try and give us a mention?' But I guess I don't need him to do that now," Bradbury said.
No, the good-luck charm that skates like a man doesn't need much of anything now. His place in Olympic folklore has been sealed.”
posted by John Woakes 9:03 PM
Sunday, Rachel phoned to say that they were moving to Ottawa in a week and did I want to come for pot luck brunch. I made my cauliflower and banana salad and headed over. It was gentle chaos with dogs, kids and friends trying to talk. After that I popped over to Marion’s to get the money Steve and Pat left for me. Marion was preparing late lunch for 6. We chatted for about an hour while she cooked. We said we would have lunch this week some time. I am not sure how I feel about this. I was a bit nervous going up to the house and it felt strange not being able to talk about Alexa. Am I now regretting wanting to be friendly with her? It is definitely weird for me.
posted by John Woakes 9:29 PM
Alexa came over after I got back from Marion’s and we had glorious afternoon nooky. I love that girl. I then made wild mushroom tart for dinner. This is the same dish I tried to make on New Year’s Eve and ended up dropping it upside-down on the oven door. I managed to not drop it this time and we both thought that it lacked a certain something compared to the NYE time. Perhaps it was the champaign.
posted by John Woakes 9:48 PM
