© The Canadian Press, 2001
December 20, 2001

Hughes hopes to taste Olympic glory again

She had already tasted Olympic glory, winning two bronze medals in cycling at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. For many people, that would have been enough. But a passion for another sport burned inside Clara Hughes.

She remembered as a 16-year-old sitting mesmerized in front of her television watching the speed skating competition at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

"It changed my life, totally," Hughes said Thursday at the Canadian speed skating Olympic trials. "I saw it and something connected me to it."

After a 10-year hiatus, Hughes returned to speed skating in December of 2000, following the Sydney Summer Olympics. On Friday she'll try to qualify for the 2002 Winter Olympic team in the 5,000 metres.

"I felt if I didn't pursue that dream I would regret it for the rest of my life," said Hughes, 29, a Winnipeg native who now lives in Glen Sutton, Que. "More than anything it has become a new beginning as an athlete.

"I'm still years away from my prime as an endurance athlete. I feel like this is a new beginning."

Having already won Olympic medals and a silver at the 1995 world cycling championship, Hughes knows she has the ability to compete at an elite level.

"I have nothing to prove," said Hughes. "I feel if I'm not one of the best I don't want to be there.

"If someone beats me I shake their hand and go back to the drawing board."

A win in Friday's race will clinch an Olympic berth for Hughes. A top-three placing will likely mean she'll be added to the team later.

Hughes had already decided before the Sydney Olympics that she wanted to return to speed skating.

"My goal was to learn how to skate and see if I really like it," she said.

"My goal wasn't to make Salt Lake City.

"I know the level in Canada was much higher in the distance events. I thought it would be a miracle if it happened that fast and it happened pretty fast."

Hughes praised her coach, Xiuli Wang, for improving her technique. She also returned to the sport equipped with the determination and fitness level from cycling.

"I would say cycling gives more to skating than skating gives to cycling," she said. "What cycling gives is a huge aerobic base and a really high aerobic threshold."

While training this year Hughes posted a time that would've placed her fifth in the 5,000 metres at last year's world championships. She also was fifth in a World Cup 5,000-metre race in November at The Hague, Netherlands.

"I feel like that's my best race," she said. "I want to see where my time stands against the best in the world."

Hughes is not the first female athlete to try competing in both sports.

Sylvia Burka was a world speed skating champion and five-time Canadian title winner who represented this country at three Olympic Games (1972, 1976 and 1980). Burka was also a champion cyclist, winning three golf medals at the 1979 Western Canada Games.

Winnipeg's Susan Auch, an two-time Olympic silver medallist in speed skating, attempted to make the Canadian cycling team that competed at the Sydney Olympics last year but narrowly missed out.

Hughes began speed skating when she as 16. She switched to cycling the following year when her speed skating coach died suddenly and there was no program in Winnipeg.

Even as she trained on her bike, Hughes dabbled in speed skating.

"Whenever I had the chance I would race on skates," she said. "I didn't skate for a year, came back and I almost made the junior team.

"I did a few things here and there. That kind of kept the spark ignited in me, knowing that one day I wanted to come back."

A creative person who enjoys painting and writing in her spare time, Hughes said she's attracted by speed skating's artistry.

"It's the beauty of it," she said. "It's the most efficient, beautiful way a human can move.

"You have to be so relaxed to skate well and so in the moment. You can't think of here and you can't think of there. You have to think of every stride, being relaxed and being strong."

Hughes isn't finished with cycling yet. She hopes to qualify for this summer's Commonwealth Games in pursuit cycling and hasn't ruled out riding in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

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