News
Editorial: A winter of champions
Scott Wagar
02/11/2014
With the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics on its way in Russia, there are a number of interesting athletes to keep one’s eye on as they compete for the Gold.
To start out with here in North Dakota, the University of North Dakota’s women’s hockey team and program will be well represented in Sochi. UND will have a total of six players who represent the university’s women hockey program. Three of the women currently play for UND, which include Michelle Karvinen, the team’s captain and forward who will play for Finland, along with Finnish forward Susanna Tapani, while Tanja Eisenschmid will play defense for Germany.
Former UND players, Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux of Grand Forks will represent Team USA and Susanna Fellner will play for Germany with Eisenschmid.
Six UND players, representing three teams is a pretty impressive accomplishment for UND and there is no doubt these girls will represent their countries and university well.
When it comes to sledding, individuals will want to keep an eye on John Farrow of Australia because his left foot is partially paralyzed. While sprint running on a track, Farrow’s twisted his ankle and he blew out his knee, which caused damage all the way to his foot. In the accident, he ruptured his ACL and LCL, along with his hamstring, broke his tibia and caused severe damage to a tendon and nerve.
To make matters worse, Farrow was in another accident during a mountain bike race where he crashed his bike and broke his collar bones, which has left him with metal screws in his collar bones and back.
For Farrow, just getting to the starting line is an accomplishment, but for him to lay face down on a really small sled, go over 80 mph in the event and pull up to five Gs on nothing but ice and curves that can take you on a suicide ride, you truly have to respect Farrow and his Olympic dream to earn Gold with his handicap.
And then, there is Yuzuru Hanyu, a Japanese figure skater who was actually on the ice training to become an Olympian when the 2011 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. On that day, as he trained on the ice and the earthquake hit, the building literally began to shake, the ice cracked under his skates knocking him down to the ice and the walls began collapsing around him. In shock, he literally crawled off the ice and out of the building. He and his family lost almost everything they owned and had to take shelter in a local gym where they slept on the floor and had to worry about radiation poison. Hanyu had additional worries because he wondered if he would ever find ice in time to keep training to reach his goal of making it to Sochi.
However, Hanyu had determination and within days he was in Tokyo skating again, while driving hours to other rinks to skate and perform in shows, just so he could keep skating and finding ice when he could train on.
Hanyu is a survivor both in life and in his sport, a survivor of natural disasters that literally killed thousands of people in and around his hometown; and, a survivor of the ice which will be evident when he skates onto the ice to compete and shows the world his determination.
On a lighter note, there are seven sets of twins competing in Sochi, which include Monique and Jocelyne Lamourex (hockey), Sadie and Erik Bjornsen (cross-county), Amanda and Phil Kessel (hockey), Erika and Craig Brown (curling), Arielle and Taylor Gold (snowboarding), Maia and Alex Shibutani (figure skating) and Byran and Taylor Fletcher (Nordic skiing).
And, on the slopes you will discover a number of siblings competing together, and, against each others. In Moguls, Canadian sisters Maxime, Chloe and Justine Dufour-Lapointe will be in the mix of Olympians, while Jossi, Byron and Beau James Wells of New Zealand will be going for the Gold in the free-style.
Olympian, Missy Franklin, once said about the Olympic competition, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” These next couple of weeks, television viewers will have the chance to watch athletes in Sochi and hear about their interesting and personal stories of making their journeys to the Olympics. Through their journeys, hopefully, we can learn and take solace in knowing that if you work hard, fear nothing and continue to move forward we can become champions in life.