GOLDEN HUGS AND KISSES
CANADA LEADS THE STANDINGS AS CHARLES HAMELIN SKATES TO GOLD WHILE ALEX BILODEAU AND MIKAEL KINGSBURY TOP MOGULS PODIUM
A FITTING REWARD Canada’s Charles Hamelin kisses his girlfriend, Marianne St-Gelais, after winning the gold medal in the men’s 1,500-metre short-track speedskating final.
SOCHI, Russia
He raced the perfect race, then stopped for the perfect kiss — again — but a half-hour after he announced his presence at the Winter Olympics, Charles Hamelin was already moving on.
And that’s the way a champion thinks. That’s the way a cold-eyed killer thinks. On Monday, Hamelin destroyed the field in the men’s 1,500-metre short-track race at the Iceberg Skating Palace, tied a Canadian Winter Olympic record in the process and, with a gold medal around his neck and flowers in his hand, was already focusing on next day’s training.
Hamelin of Ste-Julie, Que. may be in the process of writing one of the most memorable chapters in Canadian Olympic history, but others will have to write that story. His preoccupation is with the work.
“That part is something that I never focus on,” the 29-yearold Montrealer said after winning his record-tying third career gold medal on the first day of the short-track competition in Sochi. “The work still has to be done in the 500 metres and the 1,000 metres. (Tuesday) I am on the ice at eight in the morning (for training) so I have to get back soon and make sure I’m ready.”
And he looks ready for something special in Sochi.
“I’m feeling so proud of him,” said the incandescent Marianne StGelais, his partner, the recipient of the gold-medal kiss and, herself, a double medallist in Vancouver four years ago.
“He deserves it. He’s trained so hard for that. He’s been through so much between Vancouver and Torino. It’s kind of a redemption right now.
“He said he wanted two medals but he didn’t say gold. I think he meant gold.” He certainly meant business. In Vancouver, Hamelin flamed out in the 1,500 semifinal and, in something of an embarrassment, failed to make the A final. His response? He worked like a farmer, built up his strength over the longer distance, then went out and skated the race of his life on Monday.
Hamelin was off the lead for one lap in the middle of the race but, with six laps to go, he hit a hole like a football running back and stormed into a lead he would never relinquish. Left in his wake were China’s Tianyu Han, and Victor An, the triple gold medallist in Torino who then skated for South Korea and now represents Russia. The only nervous moment, in fact, was a slight bobble in the final lap, when Hamelin appeared to be in cruise-control. But like everything else on this day, it all worked out.
“I just had a little unstable moment and after that I was like, ‘Calm down, race smooth and finish the race.’ ”
Hamelin was asked why he made his move with six laps to go.
“My instinct,” he said. “That’s what my coach tries to remind me after every race. Rely on your instinct. You have the best in the world and that’s what I did.”
“It’s hard being in the front,” said Derrick Campbell, his primary coach for the last eight years. “You use a lot of energy. But I think that’s one of the margins Charles has. He’s strong enough that he can go to the front and wear guys down.”
But he’s more than an automaton. Both Campbell and Yves Hamelin, Charles’s father and the director of the short-track program, say the difference between the Hamelin of Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi in 2014 lies in the intangibles: his experience, his veteran calm, his tradecraft.
“In Vancouver, he was just a machine, hammering off the front,” says Campbell. “Now he has a little more finesse, a little more savvy, a little more feel. He’s more complete.”
“He reacted exactly when it was time to react,” said his father.
“He accelerated at the right moment ... He reads his own feeling on the ice and knows exactly what it takes.”
This, we remind you, all took place in a race that might have been the worst of his three distances. In Vancouver, he won gold in the 500 and finished fourth in the 1,000. In two more days, he has heats in the 1,000 and 5,000-metre relay. On Saturday, he has the 1,000 final. The following Friday is the 500 and the 5,000-metre relay, in which Canada is the defending gold medallist. Hamelin’s third gold medal lifted him into a tie with short-tracker Marc Gagnon on the alltime Canadian Winter Olympic list — and you can’t help but think of what might be in these Games. Multiple golds. Maybe four medals and an unassailable place in this country’s sporting memory.