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Reflections, Steve Cooper after Ramone's Olympic Debut
Feb 17, 2010 / 08:33:10 AM
Ramone in action
Well we all had a big sleep-in this morning following a huge day yesterday plus a few celebration drinks last night, once we got back down the mountain after 10pm after a two hour wait for transport and all of that sort of big event fun! We also had a chat late last night over the phone with the very proud grandparents back in Australia, and we have been told that the coverage was really good and positive toward Ramone given the injuries that he carried into the event.
The media is tough on Dale
As we stood in all of the lines yesterday covered in our big Aussie flags and other crazy gear (we also had our blow-up Aussie beach balls and some friends had a big blow-up kangaroo), we got to chat with all of the Canadians who were SOOOO over the top and SOOOO happy to win their first Gold Medal on Canadian soil with Alex Bilodeau's win in the moguls event. I kept the love flowing by cheering along with them and going with the time-honoured line of that "it is a great result for the sport". The (Canadian) media over here have been really tough on Dale (Begg-Smith), actually calling him the 'villain' of the games at this stage, so that is a little tough on him and his family, though the Begg-Smiths are very resilient and we had a good long chat with his brother Jason on the way down last night and he said that Dale was very happy with the silver, as are we all.
As a parent, watching your child compete is like nothing else
Yesterday was once again an amazing mixture of nerves, exhaustion, adrenalin, fun, and in the end, just a lot of pride and happiness that the lad got down with his body intact, with a solid top-to-bottom performance that was spectacular to watch and a credit to both himself, his coaches, and the many support staff who have worked with him intensely over the past four weeks in particular, to get him to the Olympic start-gate when all of the indications a month ago that this dream was over. When you think of it like that, it is a huge team effort to get a single athlete to the start gate in any World Cup and especially an Olympics, and we have not forgotten the many sponsors and supporters and family that have given so much as well - thank you all. No wonder that the athlete feels great happiness and/or disappointment when they finish an event as the collective pressure that they experience is somewhat multi-layered and complex, but now this is done & dusted, Ramone has a big smile on his face and so do the parents and family.
Watching Ramone's training runs yesterday morning prior to the event was almost as stressful to watch as the event. He only started to do his inverts again yesterday after a month in re-hab, and when he put the third training run down and his knee buckled somewhat on the final landing, I thought that OK, enough is enough so just stop this now and get it on and going before that leg says 'take me home'. I can barely remember the actual Olympic run due to the nervous tension, and I saw the wobble/break in the middle, but when he landed the final bottom air (though again the knee buckled slightly and sent him a little forward, but having said that, a lot better than being back-seat, as the experts said that if he ever went back-seat with a torn PCL, he would not have been able to recover in the event), like all of the parents up there with children in the event, you go a little crazy and yell out something like YES, YES, and everyone around just goes ballistic which is all great. We were high up in the stands with a good and vocal group of Aussie families which also included Ramone's fellow OWIA team-mate Sammy Hall, who just missed out on Olympic selection this time around by one spot, so it was a hoot all round.
Post race
After his run, Ramone did plenty of interviews with the media and got over the initial disappointment of not making the final with a little help from his family and the many Aussie supporters at the event. As I said to him in an email this morning, "Hope that you finally had a cold beer last night, great stuff yesterday son, and just go and enjoy the occolades from all the Aussies regardless of how you think you might have done with two legs rather than one. You are an Olympian, and you are in one piece with a spectacular top-to-bottom, when you really should have been back in Aus. recovering from an operation. Thank you for all you have achieved thus far."
From our perspective as parents, whilst we understood Ramone's look of disappointment, we were very happy that he did not have to go down that mountain again in a final where all bets are off and everyone just lays it on the line, as his heart & soul would have been fine but we were not so sure on the body to survive it. The Final was just amazing to watch live (surrounded mostly by Canadians), and the last 10 skiers down were all so close that the margin for any error was zero.
Tomorrow brings some combined family media interviews in front of the cauldron for the Aussie press, and a hockey match in the evening with the Cox family (and Brittteny), and we are going to all have a few celebration drinks to toast the children on their Olympic experience. We will also get to look over the Athletes Village with Ramone on Wednesday, before we head back to Australia on Thursday. Ramone will definitely march in the Closing Ceremony and he should have a great time over the next two weeks, as all of the athletes have access to all of the events FOC, even the ones at Whistler which they transport them to.
Taking it easy now
We are definitely staying home & indoors tonight as Canada is set to go more than a little crazy with the medal ceremony with the Medal presentation for Bilodeau at the main stadium in town. It is set to be bigger than the Opening Ceremony!! If you ever thought that Australia was sports mad, you should spend a few days here at the Olympics to find out what Canadian crazy-mad is all about.
Thanks for reading, and for all of the messages of support & interest over the past few weeks that have gone to either ourselves and/or Ramone - much appreciated. I am sure that Ramone will update his bogsite over the coming days on his view of the Olympic run experience at http://ramonecooper.blogspot.com/ . It has been a most interesting time.
tags: olympic, feature, features, ramone, cooper, steve, mogul, skiing, dale, begg, smith, injury, freestyle
