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Winning Summer Games gold is an incredible moment, but an end as well as a beginning
For a Canadian athlete, claiming a gold medal at the Summer Olympics puts you in a very exclusive club. Canada has earned only three gold medals in each of the last four Summer Games, so those moments do tend to stick in the memory for Olympic fans as joyous, celebratory occasions. As Paul Hunter points out in an excellent Toronto Star feature that has him talking to plenty of former gold medalists about their experiences, those podium-topping moments are awfully memorable for the athletes involved as well, but not always from a completely positive standpoint. For example, Carolyn Waldo, who competed in synchronized swimming with partner Michelle Cameron in 1988, told Hunter that the taxi ride she and Cameron took to the broadcast centre for an interview following their gold-medal performance was anything but ebullient:
"You'd think we would have been laughing and talking, just euphoric. If anything, I think people would have been shocked by our demeanor in the back of the vehicle because we didn't know what to say. It was like, 'Now what do we do with our lives?'" Waldo recalls.
"You really come down. At least that was my experience. It was like being hit with a ton of bricks after that elation of being so high. Then you get really low. It was also bittersweet because we knew it was the end of our career."
Gymnast Kyle Shewfelt, who won gold in 2004 in the men's floor exercises, shared some of those same feelings and said his gold made him question what to do next:
"There's such a buildup for years and years and years … then when it does actually happen, the way you envisioned, all of a sudden there's a little voice on your shoulder that says, 'Okay, you did it, now what?'" he recalls.
That's not to take away from the incredible experience of winning a gold. Shewfelt described it as "joy beyond what joy could ever be imagined to feel like," while 1992 swimming gold medalist (and current Canadian chef de mission) Mark Tewksbury said it was "completely overwhelming emotionally." There are links to the past and to the future, too; Shewfelt thought back to when he started gymnastics at age six and to all the gold-medal-winning Canadian Olympians across sports he'd watched growing up, while Larry Cain, who claimed gold in 1984 in the 500-metre canoeing event, wanted the anthem to end so he could go and thank everyone who'd helped him along the way. 2004 gold-medal cyclist Lori-Ann Muenzer still tears up every time she watches a Canadian wind up on the top of any Olympic podium:
"There's just so much pride, sometimes it's extremely hard to speak. I usually hope there's a box of Kleenex around," she said. "You know the work that's gone in. You know the time. You know the commitment. You can imagine the sacrifice. The average person just can't fathom that load. You just feel proud."
However, despite all that national pride and triumph, Shewfelt's internal question of "now what?" is one that looms large for most gold medalists. This isn't like big professional sports, where most players' careers go on after a championship and some even cash in on the free-agent market. Sure, there are increased sponsorship and business opportunities out there for Canadian gold medalists, but "Olympic athlete" tends not to be a financially lucrative career path even after claiming gold. Moreover, the quadrennial nature of the Games makes the decisions about the future much harder; yes, there are world championships and such to focus on every year, but most athletes try to end their careers with an Olympics, so many have to decide soon after the Games if they want to stick with it for another four years or walk away on top. There's also the sentiment ascribed to Alexander the Great by everyone from John Calvin to Hans Gruber, weeping because there are no more worlds to conquer. Winning an Olympic gold medal may well be a mountaintop experience for Canadian athletes, but sooner or later, you have to come down from the mountain.
