After hanging up the telephone following an interview with Clara Hughes about her comeback in cycling for the London 2012 Olympics yesterday, one thought came to mind: She sounds SO ready for this new challenge.
That's the thing about Hughes: She's always got a gameplan and knowns exactly what she's doing.
Her former speed skating teammate, Olympic champion Christine Nesbitt, has seen that up close.
“I think it's really cool,” said Nesbitt from Berlin this morning. “That woman is incredible. If anyone can attempt what she's going to do, it's Clara. I think she'll be really successful. She's always been physically very gifted, but she's like a sporting genius or something.
“Mentally, she's incredible, she knows how to perform when she needs to perform, how to push herself. She knows herself better than anyone I've ever met in a sporting environment. Last time I spoke to her, I said 'Let me know where you're racing this summer.' If it's anywhere in North America, I plan to go out there and be her little cheering section.”
Nesbitt marvels at more than Hughes' ability to multi-task.
“It's cool that somebody can be like that, so meticulous and so professional and so dedicated. But then also be a real person, too,” said Nesbitt. “I think that's what I like most about Clara. I used to see this dedicated, hard working person. That's inspirational. But when you get to know somebody and their personality and knowing that they're like human. And she really has that quality. I think that's why a lot of people like her, because you can see it in her.”
Thought that Scott Regehr of CBC Radio had a neat anecdote about Hughes from her trip on her bike with husband Peter Guzman on the Dempster Highway in the Yukon years ago. Regehr mentioned how ever cars don't like going on that road and can go through five or six pairs of tires.
But then that is Hughes -- always the road less travelled.
Anyway, here's a transcript of the Clara Hughes comeback interview. Please pardon any typos.
Why are you coming back?
Hughes: “That's going to be the biggest question. But the first thing I have to say is I'm actually not coming back. I never stopped training after the Olympics in Vancouver. And I also never stopped thinking about coming back to the bike when I quit (cycling.)
“And the reason I quit in the first place, that was in 2003 in the Pan American Games in the Dominican Republic was realizing I couldn't basically do three sports at the same time, which is what I was doing for three years with speed skating, track cycling and road cycling. I hurt my back pretty badly in 2002 and that told me very clearly that I couldn't do everything and I had to make a choice.
“I guess the thing that intrigues me about cycling and has continue to intrigue me is I never felt I reached my potential in the sport. I feel especially with the last 10 years of experience preparing as a speed skater, learning and growing as an athlete, working with the best coach on the planet in Xiuli Wang and learning so much from her, the people I worked with in Calgary, the physiologists, my strength trainer, with so many people around, I feel I can do it so much better and I know exactly how I need to approach cycling to allow the race that I know I can do to happen. Just like I never gave up the dream of skating the way I skated in Vancouver at the Olympics.
“Even after winning the Olympics in 2006, I still knew I could skate better and that's what kept me going and kept me inspired. It's very much the same thing for cycling right now. I know I can be better than I ever have been and I'm so motivated and I still love training and it feels completely new and fresh and really exciting.”
In Vancouver, you said it was your last speed skating race but did you ever say you were done as an athlete?
Hughes: “No. And I never announced my retirement. I never planned to. With skating, as I want to with cycling, I just want to basically not show up for the next race, which I have done now with skating. The World Cup happened without me. Somebody won. Somebody lost. They had no problem moving on without me or anybody else for that matter (laughs).
“I was pretty careful with my words in saying I had skated my last race. Nobody really asked. It's a little bit of a difficult situation for me right now because I'm not really one to talk about what I'm going to do until I do it. I did just want to show up to races on my bike and be really fit and show what my plans are and show how serious I am and show the work I put in.
“But word kinda got out so I have no choice but to talk about it right now. I am who I am and I'm not willing to make statements of grandeur or of these lofty goals. I just want to be better than I ever have been on my bike and that's what I'm motivated to do. That's why I'm doing this and how I'm doing this.”
When did you finally make the decision to do it?
Hughes: “I felt like I could make the decision for my own reasons and with a firm grip on reality. I knew clearly, too, after steeping away from the world for a month. We were up there on the Great Slave Lake, where there's nothing but one village on the east arm of it, where we paddled. I felt I was able to step away from the spotlight and step away from the attention and step away from everything I knew as an athlete and decide if this is what I wanted to step back into.
“And when I came back, I just KNEW it, I just knew inherently inside that I had no choice but to make this decision for myself. It is the right thing for me right now.
“It's a very exciting thing because I get to try to do this better and try to do this in a unique way, in my own way and to put 20 years of experience to put into this. But to still go into it, feeling I can learn and grow and improve. I am NOWHERE near my limit. I just want to see if there are such things as limits. I want to go and find out.”
What events are you focused on?
Hughes: “I'm actually preparing for two events and trying to make the team and have the races in the team pursuit and in the time trial. I have a lot of work to do to even make the team. Canada actually has some really incredible cyclists right now. With Tara Whitten, what she did at Commonwealth Games, what she's done at the world championships, has been so inspiring to watch. And there have been other riders who have been training really hard, athletes I'm sure that had an idea like me when they learned about the women's team pursuit, yeah, it's a new Olympic event and it's wide open. They've seen what the women's team pursuit in speed skating was able to do in Torino in that debut of that event. Definitely, there are possibilities there and I'm not the only one thinking this. I have to work to make this team. And that's my first goal – to make myself strong enough and fast enough to be a part of the team and see what I can contribute and see if I have something to contribute.
“I've always want to go back to the time trial. I've been thinking about that race for four years, since the year before Beijing. And then being in Beijing, doing the color commentary for CBC and being at the track and seeing these awesome events and the atmosphere there, I just loved it. It's really been my work for CBC that's also inspired me. I've had the chance to cover world championships track and road and the world championships track and road and I've watched the best athletes go at it and I feel like I can be in there. I can mix it up with any of these athletes. I have full confidence in that. In some kind of strange and bizarre way, my work with CBC has kept watering that seed of hope inside of me and that dream.”
Hughes: You've been getting testing done. What does the testing show?
“When I got back from my kayak trip, it was terrible. I was probably the worst person they tested. That was probably the worst fitness I'd been in after just running and travelling so much and literally sitting on my rear-end in a kayak for a month and a half. I was terrible. And I was in my bike touring shoes and old pedals, because we've been moving from Calgary. I couldn't find my road cycling shoes anywhere. I had these terrible 18-year-old mountain biking shoes I'd been touring all over North American in. I did some testing yesterday. I'm happy to say I improved a little bit, but I have a long way to go.
“After my kayak trip, I went down to Los Angeles, I had a really generous invitation from the national team to come down and just have some fun on the track. All the athletes were there. I'm very grateful that they allowed me to be there and basically have some fun and see if I liked being on the boards again. It was a blast. It definitely reinforced the idea I wanted to do this and I'm really excited to get back on the track again soon.”
Didn't Tara Whitten plant a seed with you as well at one point?
Hughes: “I had tea with Tara in January before the Vancouver Olympics. She was in Calgary doing some training. She was kind of like 'Do you ever think about coming back with the team pursuit?' I just said (laughs) 'Do not talk to me about that right now. All I'm thinking about is speed skating and the Olympics. Ask me in six months. Maybe I'll change my mind. It was really nice. She's just such a wonderful person and really kind and open hearted. That was really sweet. That said, this is something, I have to prove myself, I have to build my case that I'm strong enough, that I'm good enough for this. I have to make a spot on the team.
“What I've been doing particularly the last two months is setting the stage for myself, basically creating the team I need around me. The national cycling team has made huge improvements. I've watched them over the last seven years since I left the sport. I've watched them be rock bottom and in the worst shape I've ever seen them in. And I've watched them build back up since Jacques Landry has been in there. They've got some great people. Richard Wooles is running a fantastic track program. It's something that's definitely a work in progress. They have a lot work to do, but it's been tough for them because they basically have no sponsorship. They have no title sponsor. That's something that I hope changes because it can only help the programs and help the athletes. And I do believe that is going to change. There's going to be a lot more interest in the sport leading into London.
“But I basically had to look into what was going to be available. I know what it takes to prepare, what it takes to step into an Olympics with a fighting chance, with any hope. I'm basically creating that situation for myself. I have always gone about things the way I guess you could say Own The Podium tried to do it. I've always done that for myself. I 've never settled for what's there.
“So what I did is I built a business proposal with a budget and everything I could think of and I met with a couple of people in the business community who are backing me and supporting me in this. (can't name them) It's just somebody who's interested in the way I do what I do and wants to be a part of it. One of my sponsors actually added some dollar signs onto my contract specifically for this budget and taht was Cold FX. I've been really fortunate with the sponsors I've had that have been so supportive of me. Bell Canada has been fully on board. They've known about this since March. And also Natura, my other sponsor, the soy milk company out of Quebec. I basically have everything I need to try to do this.
“And then I had to find a coach. I'm working with Chris Rozdilsky. He's out of Montreal and he works with Premier Studio and Power Watts. I talked to a few different people. I really liked Chris because he has so much potential as a coach and he reminds me a lot of Xiuli when I started working with her in that there was this phenomenal coach that not a lot of people had heard of but has the full potential to be great but just needs maybe the right athlete to work with. He's working with some really good athletes already, but he's someone I feel has a lot to prove and he has passion and motivation and attention to detail the same way I do. It's been really fun to get to know a new coach and establish the trust and relationship. I feel like I made the perfect choice.”
Another medal would put you clear as Canada's most decorated Olympian. Any motivation there?
Hughes: “None. Honestly, everything I've done, I've done it from the most organic place. If I ever thought about winning medals, I think I would have failed miserably. I just have always gone for being better than I ever have and being totally inspired to find that place in that race and that mindset and that energy that brings me to that race and that's what I want here.”
So many comebacks don't work out. What makes you confident you can do this?
Hughes: “I don't see it as a comeback first of all. It's me continuing the path I've been on. I'm not finished yet.”
Is Sochi going to be next?
Hughes: “No. I've always gone by my gut and I knew when I skated my last stride across that line and looked up at the clock and had the satisfaction of finishing the race of my life the way I always dreamed of skating in Richmond, I knew that was it, that I would never skate another stride in competition. “And I dream of having that race on the bike when I roll across the line and I look at the clock and I think back to what the race was and I think 'That's it. That was IT. I'm done.'” (laughs)
“I didn't know as a cyclist how to prepare properly, how to focus properly and how to be 100 per cent accountable for my results and my process going into a race. It's something I learned as a speed skater: How to focus on one day, one chance, one time, you'll never live this again, what are you going to do? I think I mastered that as a speed skater. As a cyclist, I still was kind of all over the place. I don't think I ever trained properly, either. I look back at the training I did, it was ridiculous most of the time. I know NOW how to train. I know EXactly how to work intelligently and with incredible work ethic, but first and foremost with intelligence. That's what Xiuli taught me in speed skating and Dr. (Dave) Smith taught me in speed skating. That's what I want to bring into this and I found the right person in Chris in order to achieve that with everything – with equipment, with everything, I never had it dialed in. And I will have it dialed in with this. And it's exciting to think about this. It can be done better and I know how.”
Obviously, the age thing doesn't faze you?
Hughes: “No. Jeannie Longo, at 51, just finished fifth at the world championships. I don't think I need to say any more than that. Dara Torres, the swimmer. There's so many examples of 'older' female athletes. I mention those two because I'm younger than them. (laughs) Also, I know where I'm at. I know where my numbers are in the lab. I know how strong I am and I have lost nothing. If anything, I've gained so much because I have the confidence and the ability to focus now that I never had as a young athlete. Plus, I have the physical strength and capacity.”
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