Kelley Law breathes Oly-size sigh of relief

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This article was published 06/02/2002 (8954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

KELLEY Law had a tense moment of Olympic proportions before the start of the Winter Games Friday in Salt Lake City.

Only 19 days before the Olympic women’s curling competition was to start, the 36-year-old skip of Team Canada was testing her left ankle for the first time since badly spraining it.

At that moment, Law felt like her Olympic dream was hanging by a thread.

“It was kind of like I was standing on a cliff looking 500 metres down into a tiny pool of water,” Law recalled.

But the ankle held up during several throws and Law breathed a sigh of relief. She could resume training and her Olympics were no longer in peril.

“I’m getting excited and I get even more excited when I can go out and perform like I did,” she said.

“For awhile I was putting the Olympics at an arm’s length, saying ‘I’m not ready for you yet. Stay back there.’

“Now I can say I will be ready.”

Her rink from the Royal City Curling Club in New Westminster, B.C., includes third Julie Skinner, second Georgina Wheatcroft, lead Diane Nelson and alternate Cheryl Noble.

Law’s team has been a dominant one in Canada since the women joined forces in 1999.

They won national and world titles in their first year together in 2000, narrowly lost in the final of the national tournament in 2001 and rebounded with a convincing performance to win the Olympic trials in December.

The team’s motto is ‘No stone unturned.’ In their bid to represent Canada at the Olympic Games, the women’s attention to detail bordered on obsessive.

Personal trainers, nutritionists, a sports psychologist and training diaries were all part of their preparations.

But they could not prepare for Law rolling her ankle and suffering a second- to third-degree sprain while dancing at a cashspiel social function in Gander, Nfld., on Jan. 14.

Overcoming that required resilience on the part of Law and her teammates.

“It doesn’t matter who you are or what you take for granted, things happen and we just had to deal with it,” Law said. “We’ve been OK though.

“It really has made me focus. I’m probably more focused than I’ve ever been.”

Sandra Schmirler’s rink set the bar high for Law by winning gold in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, where curling was a full medal sport for the first time. Schmirler’s death from cancer at the age of 36 two years ago has elevated her to legendary status.

Schmirler’s teammate, Joan McCusker, has said she felt the heavy weight of expectations going into the 1998 Olympics.

Does Law?

“No. Well, yes,” she said, then laughed.

“What you need to do is perform well and what does it take to do that? We really have to go back to process. The ultimate goal is the gold in the end. That’s riding in the back of our minds. We need to take baby steps to get there.”

Canada’s main competition will come from four-time world champion Elisabet Gustafson of Sweden and two-time world champ Dordi Nordby of Norway.

Law and Gustafson meet in the first draw of the round robin on Feb. 11.

Had Law been unable to skip part or all of Canada’s games, she has an experienced skip throwing third stones for her.

Julie Skinner, a 33-year-old from Victoria, led Canada to a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympics in Albertville, France — where curling was a demonstration sport — and was world runner-up in 1991.

Skinner had the best shooting percentage of all thirds at the Olympic trials in Regina.

Wheatcroft, 36, is a two-time world champion and Nelson, 43, was the top lead at the trials.

Law says her team has picked up where it left off before her injury.

“We just keep going back to what makes us tick,” she said. “We just keep re-reading the script.”

When Law’s team earned the Olympic berth, it made the difficult decision not to enter the B.C. provincial playdowns that could lead to a berth in the national championship in February.

The Scott Tournament of Hearts begins in Brandon the day before the Olympics end.

— Canadian Press

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