LONDON ? The last time Mark Tewksbury looked just like that ? face bright with a ----eating grin all over it, huge head apparently close to combustion ? he?d won a gold medal.
That was on a grand day in the 100-metre backstroke at Barcelona in 1992. He was all of 24.
Now two decades older and in his first Olympics as the chef de mission for Team Canada, he was at the Aquatics Centre here Sunday when synchro divers Emilie Heymans and Jennifer Abel won a bronze for Canada?s first medal of these Games.
And in the Quebec pair the ecstatic Tewksbury saw a little bit of history being made, a tantalizing glimpse of the future and a huge psychological boost for the rest of the squad.
?Do you see me?? he asked. ?I?m electrified!?
He sure looked all lit up.
?It?s Emilie and Jennifer and amazingly, it?s also the story of our team,? he said.
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?We?ve got a four-time medallist [Heymans, the first female diver in the world to win medals at four consecutive Games] with a first-time medallist [Abel, just 20 and very much at the start of her career]. It?s what I hoped would happen: It?s a young team coming together with veterans, and the energy that can be created can be magical.?
A couple of things make the medal special ? that Abel is the third partner with whom Heymans has made it to the podium, which speaks to her adaptability and generosity as an athlete; that it?s a brilliant cap (though Heymans, and Abel, still have the individual version of the three-metre springboard to do and may not be finished yet) to a remarkable career for the Saint-Lambert native, and that the women won it only on the second day of the Games.
In recent years ? going back as far as Tewksbury?s gold, which came on Day 6, through to Beijing, where no Canadian got to the podium until a day later than that ? the medals have come slowly for Canadian athletes, with the bulk being won in the second week of the Games.
Left alone it may have remained merely a frustrating irritant for athletes, but for journalists, who collectively tend to pick any scab before it even forms, the wait meant that on or about Day 4 or 5, they drag out the old ?Canada chokes? stories ? and that, if nothing else, would genuinely ratchet up the pressure on those whose competitions were later in the schedule.
?Take the pressure off?? one of the writers asked Tewksbury.
?Takes the pressure from you guys off the team,? he snorted in reply.
He?s a chef de mission who has been a world champion, a motivational speaker, and a bingo caller, as the late satirical Canadian rag used to call TV folks. He knows from all sides what happens at the planet?s biggest stage.
Most nights at the athletes? village, the plan is for the Canadians to have an informal gathering to take note of the day?s events, but Sunday, Tewksbury said, would be a little bigger than that.
The bronze is obviously the big news, but, as he pointed out, Sunday was a good day for other Canadians, too.
The women?s gymnastics team qualified for the final for the first time in a non-boycott Olympics ? meaning when all the best athletes are actually there. As Elizabeth Black said afterwards, perhaps by way of explanation for the top-8 finish, ?I love the team so much more than individual [events]. The team is 100 per cent what we do.?
Out at the rowing basin near Windsor Castle, the women?s eights blew out of the starting blocks to win their heat. Other athletes got through qualifying rounds to the semifinals or set national records. As Tewksbury put it, ?There?s lots of good news ? it?s just a different narrative? and it can be team-altering.
He compared the agony of the Heymans-Abel win ? there are five dives ? to a ?shootout for 38 minutes.?
As for Heymans? accomplishment, he put it in magnificent perspective. ?In a sport like diving, the precision and being able to deliver when it counts, not just in one race ? that?s also amazing ? but in an event that has five dives, you?ve got to be really, really focused and not blow it at any point.?
The Canadian team has a number of three-and-four-time Olympians, including the multi-talented Clara Hughes, one of only four athletes to have won medals at both Summer and Winter Games.
She has another event this week, the time trial, and it?s her best one, giving her another shot at becoming only the second athlete in Olympic history to win gold in both Games. Eighty years ago, American Edward Eagan won gold in the four-man bobsleigh to match the one he won 12 years before as a boxer. Once every 80 years or so a stunner like Hughes comes around: That sounds about right.
On a day that turned rainy and cool (but, as the Brits repeat with the same dubious optimism that sees them swimming in the sea at Blackpool in May, with every chance of ?growing brighter?), Hughes finished 32nd in the road race.
?It was epic,? she said afterwards. ?It was awesome. There were so many people on the course. We were wondering if people would come and watch the women?s race, so it was amazing to have so much support in the pouring rain.?
And that?s what she sounds like on a tough day: With old pros like that in the house, what?s a youngster to learn but that electrification is a good thing?
cblatchford@postmedia.com
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