No Olympic dream
Virginia O’Dine is the mother of Canadian Olympic snowboard cross competitor Meryeta O’Dine. She is headed to Pyeongchang, South Korea to watch her daughter compete. The women’s snowboard cross starts Thursday at 5 p.m. local time. here’s been a sticky note on my fridge for a year or so.
It says, “I will go to the Olympics.”
I remember the giggling and joking as my daughter and I performed our first positive reinforcement bit of psychology, thinking it was still too far away to reach. We knew the work that it would take to even be a contender. Was it possible? Sure, but still such a long road ahead: World Cups around the globe, training, new equipment, recovery from injury and those horrible concussions – much less trying to find a way to pay for all of this.
We never had the Olympic dream. This was not the one moment that defined our lives and drove our ambition. Every time Meryeta would return from a three-month trip overseas during the past few years, I would ask her, “Still want to do this?”
And most of the time, enthusiastically, she said yes. I’ve always tried to stick to the philosophy of do what you love, and hopefully that lesson stuck with my children.
Doing what you love doesn’t mean quitting your day job and running away to join the circus.
Doing what you love means doing it right now. (Even if you have to wait until after work, unless you’re one of the few who has pounded your life into submission and love your career.) You only have right now. That’s what we did. We did what we loved to do. And it’s taken us to places we never imagined.
“To get good, you have to leave Prince George.”
I heard this so many times over the years. It bothered me. We’ve been a part of a lot of different sports in Prince George: gymnastics, rugby, volleyball, BMX, kayaking, skiing and snowboarding.
True, Prince George is not a large city with established resources and world-class facilities. But we do have amazing opportunities, and with some work, can provide our youth avenues for success. We really are the little city that could. As a book publisher, travelling the country, I heard “You can do that in Prince George?”
I wanted to live in a place where my family didn’t need to feel like they were paralyzed by their location, like I often did growing up in a small town.
Our personal winter story started with developing a little snowboarding club at Tabor Mountain
Twhen I worked there years ago. We had great support from the Northern Edge Snowboard Club from Mackenzie, and made many snowy trips around the province together. How great to see some of these grow up and compete on the world stage. Then, along came the chance to bid for the 2015 Canada Winter Games.
What an overwhelming amount of work. With all of our contacts in the industry at the ski hill, we accomplished in two weeks what everyone was telling us normally takes a year. The legacy of the successful Canada Winter Games is priceless. Prince George raised the bar with the Northern Sport School hosted in the Northern Sport Centre. What an amazing program for our high school students. Every student who had been in the school for more than a year earned a medal at the Canada Winter Games. Read that line again. Every student.
Now we see some of their names on provincial, national and Olympic teams, both summer and winter. Even more impressive than their rankings are the skills they’ve gained along the way.
Prince George should not just be proud we’re gaining traction on the world stage, but of the opportunities we can provide and the amazing people we can say grew up here.
I’m told repeatedly that I must be so proud. Of course I’m proud my daughter is going to the Olympics. But you know what makes me even more proud? The woman that she’s become.
Only two weeks ago Meryeta was standing on a scaffolding start-gate looking down at the 15 foot drop and her brain decides it’s afraid of heights. A year earlier Meryeta had suffered a nasty concussion from a long fall, one that horrified her teammates, one that she doesn’t remember. So now, with terror and tears, she launched herself off that platform, overcoming her fears.
This is what makes me proud. When she stands up for herself in a mature, decisive manner in difficult situations, this is what makes me proud. The life skills she has learned, the experiences from the many countries she’s visited, the incredible work ethic; all of these come together in a woman who doesn’t need the Olympian label as a sole identity.
This is what makes me proud. And she’ll always be my baby girl.