Olympian roads vary for athletes

STEVE SIMMONS

Part way through Grade 5 in Whistler, B.C., the Winter Olympics were all around him and all over his TV set, and Reid Watts wondered what it would be like to be there.

That was the dream from a very young age: to be one of those big, strong, proud Canadian athletes. “I became consumed by it as a kid,” Watts said. “I used to think about walking in for the opening ceremony. I used to think about being on the podium.”

Watts, 19, is in Pyeongchang as part of Canada’s luge team. But as his fellow Canadians marched into the Olympic Stadium, Watts was back in the Athletes Village.

The luge event began Saturday morning and Watts needed his rest. “The dream was being an Olympian,” said the luger on the rise. “I’ll always have that.”

Josh Fitzpatrick gave up on his personal dream years ago — getting to the Olympics as a track-and-field athlete.

He started a career, went to work for the Calgary Flames in the marketing department, and figured if he couldn’t be an athlete himself, he wanted to be around athletes.

One summer’s day, he set up a charity slo-pitch game. He played for the Flames team that day. He figured it was just another night of bats and softballs and maybe a little beer. Until someone on the other team asked him a question: Ever thought of trying bobsled?

He wound up taking some athletic tests, to see if he had the acumen to be a bobsledder. He did one set of tests, then another and, well, here is he at the Winter Olympics at age 29. Olympic dreams sometimes take a twist: This was his.

“This means so much to me,” said Fitzpatrick.

At home in Calgary, his fiancée Laura hosted an opening ceremony party at home, where friends and relatives, watched on a television, hoping to get a glance of their boy, Josh.

The opening ceremony has been described as the podium for those who never win medals. There are more than 220 members of Team Canada at these Games. If you count team sports, maybe 65 of those athletes are partially known, people with a chance to medal. So many of the rest are unknown except to friends, family and coaches. We remember the medal winners. Too often we forget the rest. The opening ceremony was Fitzpatrick’s climb onto the podium, his medal without an anthem.

“I’ve been watching the Olympics all my life,” he said. “This feeling, that excitement has been burning deep inside of me for a long time.

“I think of what (the opening ceremony) means to me. It means something I can share with everyone. This may be my Olympics, but this is their Olympics, too.”