‘We saved the best for last’
Duhamel, Radford’s unforgettable exit
Hometown Glory was the name and the aim of the program, and the dynamite Canadian pair of Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford delivered a superb rendition on the most glorious stage their sport offers its players.
Duhamel is from Lively, Ont., Radford from Balmertown, Ont. Their hometown supporters were surely revelling in glory as the veteran skaters capped their season and a solid eight-year career together with an Olympic bronze medal. The bauble wipes away the pain of Sochi in 2014, when they finished seventh.
“I remember leaving Sochi so disappointed,” said Duhamel. “I remember going outside and seeing my parents and my husband and crying out of disappointment. Today, I was like ‘I don’t care what I do, I refuse to cry because I’m disappointed when I get off the ice.’ That was really the mission. For me, I feel this completes it because I got to have my Olympic moment. That was the only thing I felt was missing in my career.”
Their trophy case is stuffed: this bronze joining back-to-back world championship gold medals, Olympic team event gold, a Grand Prix final title, seven national championships. They will skate straight into retirement and pro tours, eschewing the world championships and all the practice that event would entail.
“We don’t ever have to do a quad throw again,” Duhamel said. “We landed the last quad we tried. That makes me happy.”
It makes the history books, too, as the first successful quad throw at an Olympics. It typifies the precision of their season, and stands, on one foot, and in stark contrast with all that went wrong in 2017.
“All of last season was disappointment after disappointment after disappointment,” said Duhamel. “It’s not fun to live your life feeling disappointed and lost. This year I don’t think we ever felt disappointed or lost. I think we felt we were on a mission.”
And regardless of colour, an Olympic medal was going to be mission accomplished.
“I couldn’t have dreamed it that much better,” said Duhamel. “I could have dreamed it without my hands down on the triple Lutz, but we came to the Olympics and just delivered four amazing performances — four out of four — and I can’t believe that we did that.”