Is 100 days enough time for Cindy Klassen's surgically repaired knees to be in prime racing condition for the Vancouver Olympic Games?
That is just one of a myriad of questions facing many of Canada's highest profile athletes as the micro-managed, over-hyped Vancouver Olympic Games is set to begin in February.
"My prayer every night is that everyone is healthy and happy," said Own The Podium's Roger Jackson, a former Olympic gold-medal winner. And he wasn't kidding about the healthy part.
With Canada playing host to its first Olympics in 22 years, it is shocking and concerning to think just how many of the highest profile Olympic athletes in the country will be playing hurt or not necessarily in ideal health in Vancouver. Just how hurt and how prepared they will be, will be determined on an athlete-by-athlete, apendage-by-apendage basis.
With Klassen, the most decorated Winter Olympian in Canadian history, a recovery is necessary from operations on both knees, and a World Cup season lost in translation. For moguls skier, Jennifer Heil, who is picked by some people to win the first gold medal for Canada just as she did in Turin four years ago, it is a recovery from a right knee injury, the same knee downhill skier Jan Hudec has to work his way back from.
Name an athlete and you can almost find the injury: With speed skater Jeremy Wotherspoon, it's his arm; for defending gold-medal cross country skier, Chandra Crawford, it's her ankle; for budding figure skater, Patrick Chan, it's his left calf. And this isn't even bringing up the flu season, and the fear about what H1N1 may do to athletes, which led to several Canadian teams choosing to live outside the Athlete's Village in both Vancouver and Whistler. That's the rub most people don't understand about the Olympics. It isn't like any other event. If you play Friday night, you don't tend to have a chance to do better the next day.
For the individual athletes in particular, you have that one shot. That one day. If your knee isn't right, if your calf isn't right, if your head isn't right, if you have some fever or flu, the dreams can evaporate in an instant.
"And we're doing everything possible to make sure nothing gets in the way of anyone's opportunity," Jackson said. "If our athletes need trainers, therapists, they will be getting the highest level of training and therapy possible between now and Vancouver. We're doing everything we can to ensure a healthy, well-rested, well-prepared Canadian team for the Olympics.
"At the moment, the good news is that everyone is coming around the way we would have expected, everyone is healthy and really strong. We hope to be peaking at the exact time of Vancouver."
This is where some of the secrets are untold. Or that's what they're telling us. Many of Canada's top athletes and top sporting organizations have altered their World Cup training seasons, forgoing competition through Christmas and January, choosing instead to remain in Canada and concentrate on training and preparation. This is where the extra money, for state of the art clothing or technologically, comes in: This is the new Canadian way of emphasizing victory.
PRESSURE
There is great pressure on making certain that the millions spent from a variety of sources, not the least of which being the federal government, translates into success on the podium in Vancouver.
The coaches, scientists, and Own The Podium people can control much, but they can't control health. They see Cindy Klassen now, skating well in the longer distances, like the Klassen of old, just not as sharp in the sprints. They believe she is ready even if she doesn't quite know herself.
"In the last year, we have had several first-rate athletes with health issues," Jackson said. "Now, one by one, they're getting healthy. It's an exciting time, with final exams approaching. You don't know what the weather conditions will be or what illness or injury there will be or who will succumb to nerves and who will rise. You just don't know."
STEVE.SIMMONS@SUNMEDIA.CA
