Van Koeverden bounces back with grace By Rob Longley

Every mother has her worries about their children, but Beata Bokrossy was here to tell you that hers are a little different.

She feared for the day that her Olympian son, Adam van Koeverden, would no longer be able to make winning look like it was what he was born to do.

When that moment arrived, she often wondered, how would he ever deal with the failure?

“I have always, since the very beginning, worried about how he’ll cope with not winning because he just does the winning part so well,” Bokrossy said here on Saturday after her boy earned a silver medal in the men’s 500 metres to salvage something out of the toughest 24 hours of his career.

“He learned very early how to do the winning part so gracefully. I think he’s dealing with not being No. 1 just as gracefully. I’m proud of him still.”

Van Koeverden was proud too, still managing to smile when Canadian Dick Pound strung the silver around his neck in a ceremony he - and most of his country - expected would be golden.

After finishing eighth in the 1,000 metres on Friday - the worst placing of his career at the world level - van Koeverden could have curled into the fetal position and blown the 500 as well.

But all the long hours of training gave him enough of a foundation, both in confidence and ability, to rescue the Olympics he came to with such high hopes. At the finish, he was four tenths of a second behind gold medal winner Ken Wallace of Australia and a nose (.04 seconds) in front of bronze medalist Tim Brabants of Great Britain.

“I’m proud of myself, mostly just because of the stress and the pressure I’ve been dealing with over the last 24 hours,” van Koeverden said. “There’s been a lot of doubt in my mind. It’s just the kind of thing I’ve never dealt with before.”

He came here as both the reigning world and Olympic champion in the single men’s 500 metres and hadn’t lost a race in the event since 2006. Earlier in the week, he set his own world record and looked unbeatable.

It may have been a different event, but after his loss on Friday, his mother’s fears came true. Sure he had 24 hours to recuperate, but since there was no script from his past to draw on, it was a battle he admits he wasn’t equipped to handle easily.

“I tried to sleep a lot but I didn’t,” van Koeverden said. “I ended up lying around tossing and turning which is probably isn’t the best way to deal with that. I probably had four or five cold showers and that didn’t do anything. I’ve been tossing and turning for 24 hours.

“The amount of pressure that I’ve been dealing with the last six months, the mounting pressure of being a potential double gold medalist .... all of what I had done in the past didn’t matter because it’s this one that counts. And that put a lot of pressure on me.

“I was just stressed out.”

Early in the race, he looked like the usual Adam, sprinting out to a lead and at the 250-metre mark was .23 in front of Wallace. Then the fatigue and stress from the previous 24 hours kicked in and van Koeverden was in the race of his life just to get second as he was the seventh fasted in the field over the final 250.

“It felt good the first half, but the last 100 was a huge struggle,” van Koeverden said. “I didn’t have that pop that I usually do (with 200 metres remaining) but I went for it.

“I was toast, but being toast, I picked it up. I was as strong as I could be today.”

It may not have been the colour he wanted or the quantity, but with a medal around his neck, at least van Koeverden could stop beating himself up.

“He’s always such a confident person,” his brother Luke, bare chest painted with a Maple Leaf, said. “It was hard to see him down on himself like that. But Adam is amazing. He always bounces back.”

rob.longley@sunmedia.ca


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