Two days before the Olympic Ladies’ Figure Skating competition, Joannie Rochette’s parents flew into Vancouver to watch the event. Within hours after they arrived, Joannie’s mother, Therese Rochette, died of a heart attack.
Until then, Therese never missed a single one of Joannie’s competitions. Therese was Joannie’s biggest fan and greatest supporter. And now Therese was going to miss the biggest event in their lives. To say that Joannie was grief stricken and devastated would be an understatement.
Dealing with the death of someone close to you is an overwhelming situation for anyone. Dealing with the death of someone close to you and simultaneously deciding whether or not to compete in a major event — that you worked all your life for — is far beyond overwhelming. It’s unimaginable.
So 24-year-old Joannie had a decision to make — at a time when making any decision about anything was the last thing any grief-stricken human being would want to do. The Olympic Committee and the Canadian Team patiently stood by to support her in whatever she decided to do. </p?
It was her call and hers alone. Wow —
what an incomprehensible place to be.
This all happened on Sunday, February 21st. If Joannie decided to stay in the competition, she would have two programs to skate: The short program on Tuesday and then the long program on Thursday.
Joannie said, “Ever since I was young, my mom was really a tough woman. She taught me that all the competitiveness I have in me comes from her. This competition was the most important one in my life — that I’ve dreamed of since I was a kid. That dreamed started with my mom as well — we shared that since I was very young.
“The short program isn’t as important [as the long program] — I just wanted to skate. I didn’t know if I was able to do it. Honestly, I just wanted to try and have no regrets ten years from now. When I went on the ice I don’t why I could skate that program as good as I did. But when I saw the result, I just told myself that for the long program I needed to really put everything on my side because I had a real shot. If I was going to compete I might as well do it well. I knew that that is what my mom would have wanted me to do — to go after my dreams.”
Joannie decided to skate
in her mother’s honor.
And skate she did.
On Tuesday at the short program & mdash; even though she came in third — she achieved her personal best score of 71.36. On Thursday, Joannie achieved 202.64 points on her long program and won the bronze medal. Then on Saturday she performed her figure skating gala to the French version of the song by Celine Dion (Therese loved Celine Dion’s music). Joannie won the bronze medal. She was the fifth Canadian woman to win an Olympic medal in figure skating — and it had been 22 years since a Canadian won a ladies’ figure skating medal.
Joannie said, “I just went out there and did what my mother would have wanted me to do. I did this first of all for myself because my mother taught me to think of myself first. She always wanted me to be a strong person. My mother raised me up to have that strength to go through anything in life and she proved it to me by what happened here this week.”
“To be honest, I really don’t know how we got through this,” said Manon Perron, who has been Joannie’s coach for 12 years. “She needed me to be strong and she believed in me. That gave me the strength to help her.”
Click here to see her heartfelt interview right after she won the bonze medal: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/assetid=940bfb8f-392e-4593-aa75-c9c3064660a4.html?FORM=VIRE3
Simply getting to the Olympics is a major achievement in and of itself. Qualifying for the Olympics means that you are one of the best athletes in the world — regardless of how you perform when you get there.
Joannie was a world-class figure skater before she ever set foot in Vancouver for the Winter Olympics. Competing under the circumstances that she did and coming up with the bronze medal is nothing short of phenomenal. Her Canadian teammates obviously felt the same way: Because of her courageous performance, they chose her to carry the Canadian flag during the Olympic Closing Ceremony.
Here’s another wonderful interview:
Heart wrenching in the best way possible…thanks for sharing xxc