Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

A natural flag-bearer

By: Editorial

Posted: 02/1/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

WHEN Clara Hughes leads the Canadian contingent into the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies on Feb. 12, she will enter the stadium as an unlikely Olympic athlete but as the natural flag-bearer for her team and her country.

As a teenager, Ms. Hughes seemed more destined for a life of trouble than of Olympic triumph. She was in the process of taking a wrong turn into the world of alcohol and drugs until a kind of intervention occurred. During the 1988 Calgary Olympic Games, she tuned in to watch Gaetan Boucher speedskating.

She has never looked back. Captured by the beauty of the movement, she made it carry her into becoming the extraordinary Olympic athlete she is today.

Since that epiphanic moment, Ms. Hughes has, out of hard work, natural ability and her irrepressible human spirit, crafted a career that is unusual in the exemplary quality she has imparted to it.

Vancouver will be Clara Hughes' fifth and last Olympic Games. She is one of only a few athletes who have competed in the summer and winter Olympics -- she is a cyclist as well as a speedskater -- one of just four and the only Canadian to win medals in both.

In all, she has won five Olympic medals -- two in cycling, three in speedskating -- including speedskating gold in the brutal 5,000-metre event at the Turin games.

She stands second in the medal count among Canadians only to teammate and fellow Winnipegger Cindy Klassen, who has six.

It is not just on wheels and blades that Ms. Hughes excels, however. Unlike so many star athletes, for whom getting a grip on the process of living seems to be a problem, she excels at life, as well.

Even on television, the strength of Ms. Hughes' personality and her humanity comes across. She is heavily involved in humanitarian activity, particularly with the charity Right to Play.

The gold medal she won at Turin brought with it a hefty cash bonus from the Canadian Olympic Committee and she gave half of it to charity. She is committed year-round, on and off the ice, to making a better world.

After she carries the flag at the front of the Canadian team, Ms. Hughes will take to the ice. One can only hope many young Canadians who watch her skate will be inspired to pursue their own athletic dreams. And one can only hope all Canadians, as they watch her life, will be inspired to the more humble but much harder goal of caring more for the world around them.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 1, 2010 A12

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