Christine Nesbitt a rare jewel in Canadian sports
Olympic speed skating champ walks away a champion
Christine Nesbitt announced her retirement today at the Calgary Olympic Oval.
She's just turned 30 years of age and is only now entering the prime of her adult life. There is so much ahead of her. In a sense, only a fraction of her story has been written.
Christine is a high-performance athlete, at least until this afternoon. She is that unique and precious individual that comes along only once in a blue moon.
She's a champion many times over and became the best on the face of the earth at what she undertook.
Christine has been a speed skater. For a time, faster than all the rest. A dashing demon on ice who had few peers.
A niche sport, the doubters might claim.
I beg to differ.
Nesbitt thrashed and humbled the Dutch, the Japanese, the Russians, the Chinese, the Americans and all comers. For more than a little while she owned the big rink, dominating every oval on the planet. She was the one everyone else tried to catch, and more often than not they failed, left helpless in the wake of her sparkling endeavour.
There are a lot of numbers to consider here — an Olympic gold medal in 2010, a silver in 2006, eight world championship titles, myriad World Cup medals, dozens of victories. Not bad for a child born in Melbourne, far from the heartland of her sport.
Rarely satisfied
With a Canadian father and an Australian mother, Christine grew up in London, Ont., ran cross-country in grade school and played ice hockey. Just an ordinary kid who turned out to be an extraordinary competitor once she discovered racing on the thin edge of a steel blade.
As it is with most of the best ones, she was infrequently satisfied with her performance. The dream of perfection turned out to be elusive, and there was, according to her, always another gear to shift into.
I remember running with her once on the edge of Calgary's Bow River as the spring thaw arrived. Christine stared out at the water and talked about the ebb and flow of her sport, the rhythm of what had consumed
her life so far.
"When it's right... it's peaceful," she said. There were tears in her eyes. I could tell right then that she loved skating but, at the same time, had struggled mightily to tame it.
Her achievements have been many, the stellar results unalterable, written in stone as well as the record books. And yet, because of the way things are, one could argue they've been underappreciated. She played her game, for the most part, in arenas far from home.
But here's the thing.
Since 1896, in the history of the modern Olympics, summer and winter, exactly 121 gold medals have been won by Canadian teams, pairs or individuals. Christine Nesbitt owns one of them, and has earned the
tremendously select company she keeps.
She became the Olympic champion at 1,000 metres in Vancouver in 2010. She remains an Olympic champion to this day and for all time. No-one can ever take that away from her. There is no such thing as a former Olympic champion.
As Christine retires five years later, she does so having achieved the brilliance of a rare jewel.
To my way of thinking, she is a national treasure who deserves to be admired by generations of Canadians to come