Happiness can’t buy gold for Humphries or Moyse
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— They were once happy enough together, but boy, were they happy apart. On Thursday night in Korea the onceiconic team of Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse raced in the two-man bobsled final, but in different sleds. They had two gold medals together, until it was enough. On this night Humphries won bronze, with track athlete and bobsledder Phylicia George; Moyse finished sixth, riding with three-year veteran Alysia Rissling. Everyone seemed thrilled, and not just because the Moyse-Rissling pair had acquired a couple of beers.
It was like watching a divorced couple find new, fulfilling lives. Humphries was trying for an unprecedented third straight gold in the two-man; she and George were the second-best pushers in the field, but they weren’t the fastest the rest of the way, and finished .44 seconds out of first. But the 32-year-old war machine of a driver said she was happy with bronze.
“This medal is extremely special,” said Humphries, who was fifth after the previous day’s two runs. “This one’s probably the most personal one for me, the most emotional. I know how hard Phylicia and I have really had to work, and how hard our team had to work to get to this position, and we earned our bronze tonight. You know, we came out, the pressure was on, we knew we had to perform.”
Meanwhile, Moyse was like a 39year-old college freshman, and Rissling, too. They were like a comedy act: Tipping beers and finishing each other’s sentences and talking about doing this again.
“I actually never retired,” said Moyse.
“Just wait three and a half years, we’ll see,” said Rissling.
“So we’ve been making jokes (that) I’m about as done as I thought I was after Sochi,” said Moyse. “I really didn’t think I would ever be back here again.” Rissling grinned.
“You’ll come back to your soulmate, you’ll see.”
Moyse talked about the 29-yearold Rissling as a rising star; Rissling talked about how Moyse sent her sliding gear bag back to Calgary, where it was thrown in a team garage and stayed there for three and a half years before she came back. It still had marshmallows in it, clumped together and hard. Pure comedy.
“Seriously,” said Rissling. “Disgusting.”
Humphries, meanwhile, said the team decision to pick the wrong runners on the sled the day before was a problem, but they never had anything better than the third- fastest run in any heat. Germany’s sled technology might have helped to fuel their gold; the American pair were pile-driving monsters off the start, and still were slivers faster than Humphries on the rest of the course. Humphries’s genius is both her power, and then the fact that she has been the best driver in the world. She just wasn’t the fastest one here.
“I am 100 per cent OK with standing here,” she said. “We worked our butts off for this position, and like I said, it’s less about the colour, more about . . . they say it’s about the journey, and that’s 100 per cent what it’s about. Phylicia came out six months ago, and to be in this position, and know that we are able to work hard put our heads down and walk away with an Olympic medal for Canada, is absolutely fantastic in any colour.”
Canadians Christine de Bruin and Melissa Lotholtz finished seventh for Canada, but the top six was the focus. Humphries had asked Moyse to return in March of 2017; Moyse said no, but came when Rissling called.
The partnership was hard on both Moyse and Humphries, gold medals and all. They are very different people: Moyse is a happy warrior, Humphries a merciless one. Their breakup was quietly seismic, scarring, and deep.
And four years later here they were in adjacent worlds. George was thrilled; she is the first Black Canadian to compete in both summer and winter, and now has her first Olympic medal. She and Humphries delivered, on the day.
“It’s been so exciting,” said George. “To be able to call myself a summer and a winter Olympian, and now to have my first Olympic medal, and the fact that I’m able to share this with Kaillie. She sent me a Twitter message right up to the Rio Olympics saying, ‘Hey, do you want to come up for bobsleigh?’ And at first, I was like, ‘You’re crazy.’ But I’m so happy I answered the call, and came out. She’s been an amazing mentor to me, I’ve just learned so much from her, and so to be able to share this with her is amazing.”
And Moyse was as bubbly as the beer. “Yeah I’m happy,” she said. “It’s different (than gold), it’s a different experience. Being happy for two different children being born, they’re different, but you’re not gonna say you’re happier for one than the other. But . . . I’m thrilled. I have zero regrets for this year at all. If someone had said, oh you would have had a better chance at getting a medal, I wouldn’t have taken it. This is my choice to push Alysia is exactly in line with my values.”
Moyse also told the CBC, “success, to me, is about doing something with someone you want to do it with, and doing what you want to do, and how you want to do it, for the reasons that are right for you . . . so it might be strange to some people but coming sixth with Alysia is more rewarding than having potentially medalled with someone else.”
It was like watching people subtweet one another in real time. Humphries’s mercilessness is in following with Canada’s cutthroat bobsled tradition, and the 32-yearold is now the most decorated Canadian bobsledder in history, with eyes on Beijing 2022. Moyse is 39, and might sort of retire again. They’re happy now, they say. Maybe happier apart than they were, golden twice, together.