The Last Word
MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun
Sherraine MacKay is on the line from Budapest, where she has just come back from the opera.
Opera is one of her passions, along with trumpet playing, fly fishing, basketball and, ah yes, becoming the female master of the epee and winning an Olympic gold medal for Canada next summer in Athens.
From here on in, Sherraine MacKay will be known only as Sherraine.
I know only one Sherraine. Soon enough, so will you.
Sherraine is funny.
Sherraine is articulate and winning.
Sherraine is impossibly good.
Sherraine will be one of the top Canadian stories in Athens this summer, maybe the best Canadian story of the lot.
She is 28 and from Brooks, Alta., but she spent several years in Ottawa, kicking the beejeebers out of anyone in her way in the under-17 National, under-20 National and university level.
She will compete at a World Cup event in Prague this weekend and has won three such events over the past two years.
Sherraine moved to France nearly three years ago where she teaches English as a second language and studies under acclaimed French coach Daniel Levarasseur.
BEST IN THE WORLD
"I knew if I was to be the best in the world," she said flatly, "this is where I had to go."
Never mind that a Canadian has never won an Olympic fencing medal, or that Sherraine's current standing as the world's No. 3-ranked woman in the epee is a continuing breakthrough.
Someone will succeed 32-year-old Laura Flessel-Colovic as the epee's dominant athlete.
And Sherraine plans on being that someone.
"To dominate, you need one third defence, one third offence and one third counter-offence," she said. "All three elements have to be there and I'm not at that level yet."
But soon?
"Two, maybe three years."
Ah, Sherraine, you're not supposed to say that.You can think it, but you're not supposed to say it.
"Forget that. That's way too Canadian. Look, I'm not telling everyone how good I am, there are no guarantees.
"I've competed at the Olympics in Sydney. My goal is to win, and to win, you have to dominate."
Sherraine has always spoken her mind. It's what landed her in the sport in the first place.
When she was 11, she noticed a coach at the Brooks school where her Dad served as principal. He was a little guy, maybe 130 pounds. He was balding but impossibly wiry and vital. The coach's name was Alan Nelson.
One day Nelson was walking by Sherraine.
"Hey Skinny," she yelled.
When she heard of this, Sherraine's mother was mortified. "You have one week to apologize to Mr. Nelson," she said.
Sherraine was just trying to get his attention. Sherraine stalled for six days, apologized to Mr. Nelson on the seventh, and then asked if she could join his fencing team.
When a foil tryout conflicted with a basketball tryout, Sherraine switched to epee, an event with a lighter foil where the entire body is a target area.
Now Sherraine might have been just another good athlete, another face in the crowd, had another occurrence not pushed her into a different mindset.
She was at a World Cup event in 1998 and in warmup, she approached a couple of fencers and asked if she could warm up with them.
"It's a courtesy," she said. "Usually, the English speaking fencers warm up with the other English-speaking fencers, the Europeans warm up with the Europeans and so on."
They turned her down.
"What I took from that is they didn't think I was good enough to warm up with them."
Mistake. Sherraine finished in the top eight at the event. "All of a sudden, all my nervousness was gone."
It seems for good. Good for her.
