July 22, 1996
THIS HERO WEARS A SLING
By CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
Toronto Sun
BUCKHEAD, Ga. -- Linda Jackson's battle to maintain her composure ended the instant she spotted her dad, Garth, and collapsed, sobbing, in his arms.
No matter how old we get, there is nothing like the sanctuary of a parent's embrace when your heart's been broken.
Her right arm was in a blue-wrapped sling, an unknown amount of muscle and tendon damage done there, a massive bruise just below the elbow. On her left wrist was a hospital bracelet, on the blue sling a sticker reading "Hero," the sort of thing emergency rooms hand out to brave children.
Her "Olympic dream," as she put it with touching directness, was over. It ended very early on in the women's 104-km cycling road race yesterday when one of the athletes ahead of her crashed, causing a handful of those in her wake to follow suit, Jackson among them.
In the TV footage you may have seen, Jackson's the one who goes flying over her handlebars.
Virtually all Olympic athletes sacrifice. But most of them do it when they are young and the struggle apt to seem romantic.
Mature decision
Jackson is 37. She will turn 38 in November. She is, in short, a full-grown woman who has been around the block a few times and in more style than most of us will ever know. Jackson didn't drift into cycling as a happy accident of youth, but chose it after discovering how much she liked it when she blew out a knee in a 1990 skiing accident and was sentenced to ride the stationary bike as part of her therapy.
She was also vice-president of an investment banking firm, raking in $300,000 a year, a driven creature drawn to the glamour and money of the game.
As she said yesterday, as without complaint she allowed herself to be led along a muddy hillside so the Canadian press corps could have a few minutes with her: "The last four years have been headed to this goal (the Olympics); I gave up a lot for this. It's probably one of the most disappointing days in my life."
One can only imagine what they thought, at her old firm, when she packed it all in for the grinding and lonely life of the Canadian amateur athlete, and what, if any of her former colleagues were watching, they thought yesterday when Jackson's hopes went into thin air as surely as she herself was tossed through the thick moist glue that is Atlanta's atmosphere.
Would they imagine she had regrets?
"None," she said, "but that's a lot harder to say today."
Would they wonder what she found in this gruelling sport that she didn't find in her first career?
Education
"Happiness. Passion."
Her honesty was shocking.
"It completely changed me as a person. In sport, your family is more important, your emotions are clearer, you want more down-to-earth things. I've learned a lot through sport."
There's a chance, with rigorous therapy and some luck, that Jackson's arm could heal enough to allow her to compete in the time trials here on Aug. 3.
Still, these will likely be her only Olympics.
"There are other things I want to do with my life," she said.
"Such as?" someone asked.
"Well," she said with her lovely smile, "first, I need a date, but I'd like to have kids."
It was a marvellous ride for young bronze medallist Clara Hughes, and good on her.
But whoever put that sticker on Linda Jackson's sling yesterday got it right.
There was only one hero coming out of that road race yesterday, and she never made it to the podium.
