▼ HOME ABOUT INTERACTIVE RESOURCES LOG IN EN FR CINDY KLASSEN CANADA'S GREATEST OLYMPIAN MACLEAN'S CINDY KLASSEN CANADA'S GREATEST OLYMPIAN ARTICLE BY KEN MACQUEEN PUBLISHED 09/29/06 LAST EDITED 12/14/13 HOME PEOPLE ATHLETES Cindy Klassen Canada's Greatest Olympian They're heavy, they'd all say, after their deeds are done, and the ribbon is reverently placed around their necks and they've earned the right to feel the heft of it. Cindy Klassen Canada's Greatest Olympian They're heavy, they'd all say, after their deeds are done, and the ribbon is reverently placed around their necks and they've earned the right to feel the heft of it. The Canadian women said it most, for they did the lifting in Turin - winning Olympic medals at more than twice the rate of men as the XX Olympic Winter GAMES drew to a close last weekend. "It's pretty friggin' solid," crowed Chandra Crawford, Canada's bright new hope in cross-country, as she clutched her gold. "The real deal," said bobsledder Lascelles Brown, Jamaican-born and a newly minted Canadian, strutting his silver after the medals ceremony last week. And then there is speed skater magnifico, Cindy KLASSEN, Canada's heavy medal queen. She entered these Games with the weight of great expectations upon her, and she delivered. Four races, four podium finishes: a bronze, two silver, one gold. With one race left to squeeze in before the closing ceremonies, she'd already won more medals than any Canadian at a single Olympic Games. Add to that the bronze she won four years ago at her first Olympics in Salt Lake City and she is already, at the age of 26, the first Canadian woman with five career medals. And what does she say about her medals? Why, they're heavy, of course. And where will she store these treasures? "Maybe in a closet," says Canada's greatest Olympian. "I'm not sure. I don't really display things like that." And there, in a nutshell, was the challenge her support crew faced entering these Games. When the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) predicts - no, virtually decrees - she will be the golden girl of Turin, how do you nurture, protect and inspire a woman who does not worship medals, nor seek public acclaim, nor yearn for glory of the earthly sort? For coach Neal Marshall and sports psychologist Derek Robinson, the answer was to make a video. They pulled together a 20-minute montage of an exceptional pre-Olympic year, keeping the focus on Klassen's small, tight training group, which includes fellow skaters Jason Parker, Steven Elm and Brittany Schussler among others. Set to contemporary rock tunes, it shows their World Cup successes, as well as the toil, the travel, and the off-ice antics that make it all tolerable. "It's just a group that's exceptional to be around," says Robinson. Klassen is a private person, but she revealed something of her inner self when she spoke of that video during a pre-Olympic news conference in a packed Turin restaurant. "This whole year has been about growing as individuals," she said, her voice wobbling with emotion. "Not just as speed skaters on the ice [but] just learning to be better people and having fun with what we're doing." These are the things that matter to Klassen, says Marshall. "Those are good emotions." Klassen is a voracious reader of popular fiction and non-fiction, and of the Bible. The latter reminds her, she has often said, that her ability is a gift to be used respectfully. The outcome of a race, she believes, is preordained. "All I can do is use what He's given me," she told the Christian publication Living Light News. "All I can do is the best I can." She recently loaned her coach a book, Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, the true-life tale of a young man's fatal odyssey into the Alaskan backcountry. Marshall was struck by a passage which he later shared with his team. "The quote was: 'A challenge where a successful outcome is assured is no challenge at all.' " That, says Marshall, two days before the team's first race, "totally applies to what we're doing here." The video, in other words, needs an ending. One only Klassen herself could discover. Feb. 9, 3 p.m., Oval Lingotto, Turin One day before opening ceremonies. Medal favourite Jeremy Wotherspoon, in a ratty skin suit, and Klassen in black warm-ups, are among those cruising the track, trying to divine what secrets are hidden in the ice. Each moves in quiet isolation, conferring with their coaches. They try their starts, practise their corners; then, as if coiling a spring, they circle the oval, building momentum, their muscled legs holding them at impossible 49-degree angles as they attack the outside turns. The effect, at a full speed that tops out at close to 65 km/h, is almost eerie. Only the flash of blades and faint click of hinged clap skates ruin the illusion that they have achieved a form of silent, wingless flight. Klassen is an exception even among this elite group. She is known not only for explosive speed and strength, but for her endurance and versatility. In an era of specialization, she can sprint and she can power through the pain of a five-kilometre race. She toughened herself playing elite AAA boys hockey in Winnipeg. (Indeed, until McDonald's signed on a month ago, the Winnipeg Minor Hockey Assoc. was one of her few sponsors, donating some of its 50/50 pots to the cause.) Klassen turned to SPEED SKATING only after the crushing disappointment of missing the cut for the national women's hockey team headed for the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano. For a time, coaches complained she skated like a hockey player. No more. Even if Klassen's face was hidden, Marshall would know her from the swing of her arms, the tilt of her body, the ankle flicks at the end of each stride. "She looks strong to me, that's how I describe her," he says. "They're solid movements. It flows, but you can see this power behind it." An American coach sidles up to Marshall and complains, sotto voce, his lunch is drying out. Could he wrap his sandwich in one of those silly Canadian skin suits? Marshall's eyes never leave the track. He pauses a beat, then says the front of the Canadian suits are really quite attractive. "Too bad the back is the only side you're going to see." By the genteel standards of Canadian speed skating, that's as close to trash talk as you get. After months of pre-Olympic media exposure, Canada's long-track coaches have put their athletes in a protective bubble, banning all media interviews until after their events. They're hoping to lessen the distractions and lighten the load of expectations. As if. Time was Canadian Olympic expectations were managed by not having many. Think Calgary in 1988, a great show that produced just two silver and three bronze for the host country. By 2002, the COC was demanding more. The athletes delivered a record 17 in Salt Lake City, fourth among nations. The ante was upped again in 2003 after the 2010 Games were awarded to Vancouver. An "Own the Podium - 2010" program was established, adding $110 million to sports funding. New goals were set: third place in Turin; first place, meaning at least 35 medals, in Vancouver. The time for rewarding mediocrity is past, says Cathy Priestner Allinger, who won a speed skating silver at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria. She's in Turin as senior vice-president of sport for the 2010 Games. She wants great things here from the long- and short-track program. "We're expecting a lot of medals from it," she says. "But, you know, they're expecting medals, too." In designing Own the Podium, organizers looked at what the world's top performers had in equipment, research and "performance enhancement teams" of massage therapists, technicians and sports psychologists. "Almost 100 per cent of our winter sports in Canada had less," says Priestner Allinger. They found another glaring weakness: debilitating doubts among even elite Canadian athletes that they were world class. Changing attitudes became a priority, she says. "We've got to get an identity for winning and not being embarrassed, or feeling like you're bragging, because you want to be No. 1," she says. She detects a more bullish Canadian attitude at these Games, she says. Even in Cindy Klassen, in her quiet way, Priestner Allinger says with a grin. "You don't have to be arrogant to say you want to be the best at what you're spending every day - hours and hours a day - trying to perfect. They're giving up everything else in their lives for their sport. If they can win a medal because of that, they shouldn't be embarrassed to say they want to." Feb. 12, Oval Lingotto Women's 3,000-m. Bronze. Jake and Helga Klassen are blessed with four children, daughters Cindy, Faye and Lisa, and son Cary. All were active in sports and music and the parents often had to split up as they rushed around Winnipeg, fulfilling their roles as chauffeur, fan and parental support unit. Then one Sunday afternoon, after all those kilometres, broken skate laces and restorative hot chocolates, it comes down to this: Row 3, Sect.