MORRISON WELL VERSED IN ART OF COMEBACKS
Veteran speedskater keen to qualify for Canada for the World Cup circuit
Denny Morrison knows he has to deliver.
Next Monday, it’s a 30-minute keynote speech to business students at a Calgary hotel. But before that, and more importantly, on the weekend it’s the 1,000, the 1,500 and the 5,000 metres on the ice at the Olympic Oval.
The events are inexorably linked, because Morrison is writing the comeback story of his life. He’s doing it on the ice, where the veteran long track speedskater continues his journey back from a litany of injuries — among them a punctured lung, lacerated liver and kidneys, bruised heart, fractured radius and torn and sprained knee ligaments — suffered in a motorcycle crash in 2015, all of which was followed a year later by a stroke suffered during a bike tour.
And he is doing it at the lectern, turning his life story into inspirational messages on themes of teamwork, commitment and performance under intense pressure. The speech reflects the journey, as both are works in progress.
“It’s going to include a comeback, but as of right now I don’t know how my keynote is going to conclude, whether trials will even be a part of the speech,” he said Monday in Calgary.
“So far I’ve made a pretty good comeback, to be sitting here and to be even skating at trials, to be on the World Cup podium last year in team pursuit, all of that. But I want to make the Olympics and be eligible to win medals and set Olympic records and world records with the team pursuit, you know.”
The weekend races will determine the makeup of Canada’s team for the World Cup circuit. Morrison is focused on team pursuit, and could get a discretionary spot for that race. But he’d much rather qualify at his individual distances, and he feels mostly good about his chances in the 1,500 and the 5,000, less so in the 1,000.
“My confidence goes up and down, depending on the program a little bit and how I feel on a day-to-day basis,” he said. “It can fluctuate, I’d say, more than when I had the consistency I had in 2014 or 2015, some of the best seasons of my career.
“But that’s something I feel a little bit lucky about, that I have a decade and a half of racing at this level, to be able to understand that on race day I am here to compete, that’s what I do best, and those fluctuations will be good to go.”
He’s 32, a savvy veteran with World Cup, Olympic and worldchampionship medals galore. He knows that race day always brings intense pressure, and that because of what these trials can do — or because of his comeback — it’s heightened this year.
But he’ll use that too, on the weekend and on Monday.
“In some ways, I feel the upcoming trials competition is a high pressure point and pressure is a big part of the talk I give in the keynote, about how I’ve had to deal with pressure,” he said.
At the Sochi Olympics in 2014, teammate Gilmore Junio gave up a spot in the 1,000 metres to Morrison. He did it because he knew Morrison was better at the distance but had fallen in national trials, just 50 metres from the finish, and did not qualify.
“What a selfless thing to do, but the pressure was on me,” said Morrison. “Luckily, because of my past Olympics, I know how to deal with pressure.”
He came through and won a silver medal.
“So through the combination of pressure and dealing with failure in the past and his selflessness, it came to create this beautiful thing. Pressure creates diamonds,” he said.
“So this trials will be a highpressure competition, and I think something beautiful can come out of it, and that will be the comeback story.”
After recovering from his stroke, he began speaking fairly regularly on behalf of the Heart and Stroke Foundation, giving short talks about support and teamwork and resiliency. This is his first keynote, the first lengthy exploration of his journey and his attempts at expounding on larger themes. It’s a challenge.
But that’s what he’s about. People ask him often now why he continues the comeback. He does it because he has a platform and there is a story to write on the ice and to tell at the lectern, one that also gives voice to people with far larger struggles and much less profile than his.
“It’s because of those talks I did at Heart and Stroke events and the people I met at those events and hearing their stories and seeing what they’re going through. It puts to shame some of the stuff I’ve had to deal with,” he said.
“Mine, it wasn’t easy by any means, but it was relatively mild by comparison to some of the setbacks these people have had.
“So the question isn’t why am I still doing this — it’s how can I not?”