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The Mighty Have Fallen: Olympic Pressure Takes a Slippery Toll

Source: Maclean's
Date: February 24, 1992
Author: Brian Orser

Copyright 1992 Maclean Hunter Limited

Brian Orser has returned to the Olympics -- as a journalist. Orser, the Olympic double silver medallist and former world champion who is now skating professionally, is covering figure skating for Maclean's at the 1992 Games. In an exclusive account, the native of Penetanguishene, Ont., describes the enormous pressures of performing on the Olympic stage. His report:

The Olympics is the ultimate high-performance situation. The intensity of the Games magnifies the emotional highs and lows for the athletes as well as the staff. To prepare for the event, many members of the Canadian figure skating team worked closely over the past season with sport psychologist Peter Jensen. The Olympics, said Jensen, "is the only event that I have ever been to that lives up to its billing." That proved to be the case last week, when skaters under pressure produced performances that ranged from near-perfect to deeply disappointing. Canadians Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, despite a sub-par outing, did win a bronze in the pairs. But Canada's other figure skating medal hope, Kurt Browning, suffered an Olympic low, falling to sixth place in the men's event won by Ukrainian Victor Petrenko on Saturday. And on a night when the skating was certainly not great, the judging was even worse than the skating.

There was no question in my mind that America's Paul Wylie, who won the silver, was the best in the long program, no matter what the judges said. He was extremely polished from start to finish, a total package, and he had the audience in the palm of his hand. So did Canada's Elvis Stojko, who finished seventh -- he was completely robbed. He pulled out a performance that was worthy of the Olympics. It was the perfect example of rising to the occasion. It was also poor judging.

As for Browning, my feeling all week, from the time he got off the plane to the second he finished skating, is that he did not have that killer instinct. He is one of the best skaters in the world, there is no doubt about that. But he just was not himself. He had to deal with a tremendous amount of pressure -- at stake were big-time bonuses from corporate sponsors, a huge burden to put on a skater. They face enough fears at the Olympics already: the fear of falling, the fear of stepping onto the ice while billions of people are watching.

And behind the scenes there are other problems, seemingly small things that can have a powerful impact. One of the skaters' main concerns in Albertville was the tiny backstage area. The space is about the size of three living rooms combined, and it has to accommodate all the skaters, their coaches, team leaders and medical staff, as well as television crews. Another concern was the noise level. The back-stage area was directly below metal seats where 9,000 fans were stomping their feet, especially for the French skaters.

During such an intense time, focusing your attention is critical. The skaters have to be able to find space when they need it, whether it is in the boiler room or the Zamboni room -- some small area they can make their own. During the pre-Olympic figure skating event held in Albertville last November, Browning was preparing to go on to the ice when cables from television cameras wrapped around his legs and knees as the crews circled him. As Kurt put it: "It was very aggravating."

Mourning: But it is far worse than aggravating when, once the performance begins, key mistakes occur. At those times, skaters tend to think: "I'm no good, I'm lousy." The athletes go through the basic stages of mourning. Initially, they are upset, angry, overwhelmed. Then, they come to some form of acceptance. The whole idea is to look for perspective, to get away from the initial negative response and tell yourself, over and over, "It's one element in the program. I've had hundreds of lands on this jump. I've been skating clean run-throughs of my program all year." It is a complex process that each athlete handles differently.

For Brasseur and Eisler, Isabelle's fall on the side-by-side double Axel in in the original program last week was a severe blow. It left the pair in third place, with 48 hours to recover before the final program. I spoke with Jensen about Brasseur's mental state. Women skaters have a much harder job than the men, he said. They are, as he put it, "the period at the end of a sentence." As a result, the woman feels a lot more pressure -- and that pressure tends to get channelled into one element. For most of the women in the pairs event, that element is the double Axel. During the first day, Brasseur got to the point where she began to feel, "All right, I'm over this, let's get on with it." By the next day, the day of the final program, the fight was back. The morning of the free program, Peter asked her: "Did you find something, did you get in touch with soomething?" She looked Peter in the eye and simply said yes.

But the pair had a tough time with their free program. Eisler conceded afterwards that the Olympics is much more stressful than the world championships. Knowing how well they can perform, I believe they fell victim to that overwhelming pressure -- until you experience it yourself, words cannot explain the feeling of being gold-medal contenders stepping onto the ice. On a positive note, Brasseur and Eisler can apply what they learned to their training over the next two years, heading to the Olympic Games in Norway in 1994. They indicated that they were seriously considering staying amateur until then. And as time passes, the idea of possessing an Olympic medal will sink in.

Other Canadians had reason to be proud of their pairs performances, as well. Christine Hough of Waterloo, Ont., and Doug Ladret of Kitchner, Ont., became one of the crowd favorites with a sensual and seductive original program. Their marks, however, did not reflect their achievement, so the audience booed. After their innovative final program, the pair finished ninth overall. The third Canadian team, Kris Wirtz of La Prairie, Que., and Sherry Ball of Brossard, Que., performed a perfect original program and a very good free program. Their 12th-place finish was a great showing for a young, talented team in their first Olympics.

Adversity: Browning, however, making his second Olympic appearance, carried the burden of great expectations. And he quickly faced the adversity of an early fall, missing his first jump in the original program, a triple Axel. He was visibly upset after that performance. At those moments, all you really know is that it happened and it happened fast -- one second you are up, then suddenly you are down. Watching from the stands, I thought he may have done too many triple Axels during the six-minute warm-up. Whatever the case, Browning, sitting in fourth place, faced an uphill battle to overtake the leader Petrenko. The next day, Browning still looked shaken at his practice session. "I feel like I was beaten up last night," he said. And in the long program on Saturday, he could not recover his championship form. However, Stojko, from Richmond Hill, Ont., was superb, and Michael Slipchuk, from Edmonton, made a strong ninth-place showing despite pulled muscles in his shoulder and neck.

The skating action continues this week, when Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay, the dynamic Quebec-raised brother-and-sister team now representing France, go for ice-dancing gold before the home French crowd. I know how they feel, having competed in Calgary in the 1988 Games. Last year, Paul Duchesnay asked me what it was like skating in your home country. My only reply was: "Just enjoy every minute of it." The key is to channel all your extra energy in a positive way to keep focused on the job at hand. Later this week, the women skaters will focus on their own tense competition. The main contenders are Americans Kristi Yamaguchi, Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, along with Japan's Midori Ito. Canadian champion Karen Preston, competing in her first Olympics, will be trying to crack the top 10.

A few hours before the men's short program on Feb. 13, I sat with Brian Boitano and discussed what each of us had been doing four years ago -- before the much-ballyhooed Battle of the Brians. Boitano told me that, while riding the bus to Calgary's Saddledome for the short program, he was so nervous that he was shaking inside. He remembers doing meditation exercises to help him relax. When that failed, he came to the conclusion that the jittery feeling just might help his reflexes to be a little quicker. While Boitano was trying to relax, I was walking outside McMahon Stadium looking at the Olympic flame, which for me was an inspiration. From there, I went by bus to the dome, staring out the window visualizing my program and repeating the jump combinations over and over in my head.

Now, it was four years later, and another group of skaters were preparing in their own ways for their big moment. Both Boitano and I were overwhelmed with the fact that our era was ending -- and a new one was beginning.