August 5, 1996
SILENT TREATMENT
By KEN FIDLIN
Sun Sports
LAKE LANIER, Georgia - She has been something of an enigma around Lake Lanier this week.
Paddling's answer to the Sphinx.
Carolyn Brunet shunned the Olympic media attention and remained aloof from her teammates as she prepared for her 500-metre solo kayak race. There was, apparently, room in her life for one thing.
"I'm in my own little world when I'm here," she said yesterday after finishing second to Rita Koban of Hungary. "I knew I had to be ready on Aug. 4 at 9 a.m.
Call mom
"I haven't even talked to my mother for two weeks. Listen, if I don't talk to my own mom for two weeks, how can I talk to the media? In '92, I gave a lot of interviews and it became a distraction.
"I just wanted to prepare to my maximum. In a sport like mine, which gets attention only in an Olympic year, if you're not used to it, it can be a distraction."
Her silver medal yesterday was Canada's first Olympic canoeing medal since 1984. And while Brunet was all smiles afterward, she admitted she had loftier aims.
"I felt I had a shot at the gold," she said.
Indeed, she did. She led the race most of the way but was caught by the Hungarian in the final 100 metres.
In the aftermath, there was satisfaction, but also relief.
"When you have trained for more than 10 years, and everything comes down to one race of 1:50, there's a lot of accumulated stress," she said.
Brunet, who grew up in Lac Beauport, Que., is a paddling lone wolf, choosing to live and train in Europe with her Danish boyfriend Christian Frederiksen.
"I always believed I had the ability to be a top athlete but the Canadian association didn't have the coaching to get me there," Brunet said.
"I think if you ask them today, they'll say they're happy with what I'm doing. This is our only medal for canoeing and I think most of the athletes wish they were in my position."
And with Brunet's silver medal, Canada's most successful Olympic Games came to a close. Yes, the 1984 team accumulated exactly twice as many medals, but only half the world attended. They were the Bogus Games.
This time, there were 197 countries here and Canada finished in 11th place overall in total medals. If that's how you gauge a performance, then this was the best ever.
The Atlanta Games themselves were a spiritual wasteland. It was an organizational nightmare, underfunded and underplanned. The Good Ol' Boy network failed miserably.
On the other hand, the events were the best attended in history. Air rifle. Team handball. Fencing. You name it and the stands were full.
All people knew was that when an American appeared on the court, on the mat or in the ring, they were to wave little flags and chant like idiots: "U-S-A, U-S-A."
Most everyone who has attended Olympics in other countries was appalled at the beating the Olympic principles took in Atlanta. Winning was the second most important thing. Winning and being an American was the most important thing. Competing just for the sake of competition, in an atmosphere of athletic brotherhood? That notion existed only in fleeting moments that were lost.
Abandoned
Typically, these shapeless Olympic Games just seemed to wind down and, without anybody really noticing, stop. It's over? OK. I guess it's time to go home.
For me, the Atlanta Olympics came to a conclusion at about 1:30 yesterday afternoon when, during lunch, I overheard a guy from Australia describe how the bus he was riding had run out of gas.
Just like the Games of the 26th Olympiad, it came rolling to a stop at the side of the road and was abandoned by one and all.
