Joannie Rochette secures emotional Olympic bronze

Figure Skating Vancouver 2010 Post a comment

Posted: Friday 26th February 2010 | 5:37

From James Toney, Sportsbeat, in Vancouver

WHEN is a bronze worth as much as a gold? When it's worn by Joannie Rochette.

COURAGE: Joannie Rochette secured her place in Olympic history with the most emotionally charged figure skating bronze of all-time, secured just four days after her mother passed away (Getty Images)

Courage and bravery are words that have been too liberally bandied around at these Olympics but give me a slight but resilient figure skater with an iron will over a stoked or bummed snowboarder any day.

Every Olympian has a tale to tell, with stories about triumph over adversity common place.

But Rochette stands to scrutiny with them all and just four days after her mother Therese suddenly passed away, she produced a performance that will go down in the history of these storied Games.

Lying third after a flawless short program, Rochette took to the ice knowing that the judges would afford no marks for sympathy in her free skate.

And for exactly four minutes and seven seconds, the Pacific Coliseum collectively held its breath and willed her through every lutz, axel, salchow and step sequence of the most public tribute possible to her mother.

The layman might initially struggle to take to a sport where a degree in advanced mathematics is required to understand its scoring but it would be difficult to find anyone not moved by this performance or cheered by its result.

It wasn't perfect but you could forgive Rochette for that - and it didn't make it any less brilliant anyway.

When she was done, concluding her routine with a blur of a flying sit spin, grief finally started to overwhelm her and the tears slowly started to flow. She was not alone, even the jocks in hockey shirts were dabbing their moistened eyes.

The 12 young skaters, who had all just discovered a new idol, that were charged with picking up flowers and gifts thrown onto the ice, spent almost as long clearing the surface as Rochette had done skating.

The 24-year old was embraced by long-time coach Manon Perron as she waited to receive her marks. Rarely has skating's so-called kiss and cry zone been more appropriately named.

"I feel proud and the result did not matter," said Rochette.

"I'm happy to be on the podium. It was a lifetime project for me and my mum and we achieved that."

In time history books will record Rochette's third place as if it was a sub-plot to the performance of Korea's Kim Yu-Na, who will earn a reported one million dollars from her sponsors after taking gold.

Kim dazzled for sure with a routine that was so brilliant it defied superlatives but Rochette proved it maybe was possible to share top billing at the greatest show on earth.

As Rochette made her way backstage, a throng of Korean media waited, sometimes not so patiently, for their star.

Kim's coach, Brian Orser, has said travelling with his charge was like living with Princess Diana.

But on an emotional night that forcibly yanked at the heartstrings, there was only one queen of people's hearts.

Canada have made so much of 'owning the podium' at these Games - it's ironic that this bronze, forged in tragedy, could be their defining moment.