CTVOlympics.ca
February 26, 2010

Rochette holds nothing back to come up bronze

VANCOUVER - Shaken by the sudden death of her mother, Joannie Rochette opted to turn herself into "an ice cube" and persist in her bid for Olympic figure-skating glory, come what may, to ensure she would never regret her decision.

The bronze-medal winner told a packed news conference Friday she isolated herself from the media and others while she privately grieved for her 55-year-old mother Therese and trained intently for her short and long program skates.

"It was better for me to be away from the camera because every time I would see someone look at me with sad eyes it would make me cry," Rochette said.

"So I just wanted to get outside of it, listen to my iPhone, listen to comforting music, just make myself in a good mood to compete. For the short program . . . I just wanted to skate and compete. I didn't know if I could do it but I just wanted to try and have no regrets 10 years from now."

After a solid short program that had her in third, Rochette says she isolated herself even more and kept a low profile to focus on the long program and a possible medal.

"When I saw the result, I just told myself that for the long program I needed to put everything on my side because I had a real shot and if I was going to compete I might as well do it well."

On Thursday night, the 24-year-old Rochette finished with 202.64 points to trail Mao Asada of Japan and South Korean gold medal-winner Kim Yu-Na, who was coached by Canadian figure skating legend Brian Orser.

It was the first medal by a Canadian in Olympic women's singles since Elizabeth Manley in 1988.

Not skating this week because of the crushing emotional burden of her mother's death was out of the question, the Quebecer said.

"I know that's what my mom would have wanted me to do - to go after my dreams," she said.

"So before the long program I didn't talk because it was too hard emotionally. I just isolated myself a bit from the world and I was a bit of an ice cube - when I went on the ice nothing could penetrate me.

"At the end, when I saw the crowd stand up, I could leave Joannie the athlete and be a human being. At the end of my performance, I thanked my mother for the strength she could give me. I don't know if she was there with me, but definitely she raised me up to have that strength to go through anything in life and she proved it to me by what happened here this week."

Rochette said she expects to take part in the world championships in Turin, Italy, next month after taking time at home in Quebec with her family. But she won't make a final decision on that for another week or so.

"Right now I intend to skate in the worlds," she said in an interview after her news conference. "But I'm going to go home first and spend time with my father and family."

During the news conference, Rochette repeatedly said she owed her bronze medal to her mother, who died of a massive heart attack last weekend a few hours after landing in Vancouver to watch her daughter perform.

"When I came fifth at the world championships a few years ago, my mother told me, `You can do a lot better.' My mother gave me everything during my whole career."

Rochette was an only child and was encouraged by her mother to go into figure skating to meet other children and take part in a social sport. When coaches pointed out the young skater's talent "my mother made me fierce about my sport," Rochette said.

She also said she has become closer to her father Normand, who knocked on her door at the athletes' village last Sunday morning to tell the skater her mother had died suddenly overnight.

"My father is doing better than I thought when I heard the news. I wonder, though, how he'll do when he goes home without my mom beside him. This instantly brought us closer. When I got off the ice. I saw images of him when he was watching me skate and it was like he was watching a hockey game. He was quite into it."

The Canadian Olympic Committee said Friday that Rochette's bronze medal win has sparked a flurry of emails and letters of support for the Canadian athlete from around the world.

When Rochette returned to the athletes village Friday, she found a note and a bouquet of flowers from singer Celine Dion and her husband, Rene Angelil.

"My mother was a big fan of Celine Dion," Rochette said. "My mother sang many of her songs constantly. I want to thank her for that attention."

After the news conference, Rochette also took a cell phone call from Angelil, whom the skater said shared her grief and told her that Dion also lost her father before a major performance and had to cope with similar emotional lows.

Tributes from fellow athletes also continued to pour in Friday.

"That was amazing," Scott Niedermayer, captain of Team Canada, said of Rochette's medal-winning skate. "You can't comprehend that."