Mellisa Hollingsworth cuts a solitary figure against a foreboding sky as the sun dips behind the Rocky Mountains.
The coyotes howl. The wind gusts. Horses gallop majestically across this dusty pasture just outside of Airdrie.
Welcome to the launching pad for Canada?s newest dual-sport athlete. Meet Mellisa Hollingsworth, skeleton slider. Mellisa Hollingsworth, professional barrel racer.
At 30, the time has come to seize the moment in the prime of her athletic powers. No regrets. No guarantees.
Her first race, at the professional level, is scheduled for Wednesday at the Grande Prairie Stompede.
?You?ve got to take some risks sometimes and just see what happens,? says Hollingsworth, one of Canada?s most beloved Olympians. ?Yes, my family is involved in rodeo. I?ve been around rodeo my whole life.
?But not at this level.?
In a rare break from skeleton training, Hollingsworth signed up for a couple of horsemanship clinics this spring held by the legendary Dee Butterfield.
Buttterfield and her daughter, Brooke Robertson, immediately noticed something different about this new pupil.
?When you?re coaching the average person, they?ll pick up this and that,? says Robertson, a former Miss Rodeo Canada. ?Mellisa focuses on the whole picture She picks up everything. She?s just so intense.
?She is so well-conditioned in the mental aspect.?
That?s not surprising considering Hollingsworth shouldered the medal hopes of an entire nation at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy and the 2010 Games in Vancouver.
In Turin, she captured bronze. In Vancouver, she tearfully apologized to her country after failing to live up to the golden expectations heaped upon her in women?s skeleton.
The undisputed favourite sat second after the third heat, pushed for the gold, ping-ponged off two walls and dropped to an unfathomable fifth.
Life carries on, both on and off the ice chute.
?If I?ve learned anything over the last 16 months about skeleton, one of my biggest strengths is driving,? she says. ?And one of my biggest weaknesses is when I try too hard. I made a huge mistake in Turin, and it worked out for me still winning a medal.
?In Vancouver, I don?t feel like it was a mental breakdown. I just focused so much on that one corner. If you?re too strong on your sled ? too aggressive ? that?s when the mistakes happen.?
Enter Rascal, an 11-year-old quarter horse with a mind of his own. Barrel racing is a two-athlete discipline. Both horse and human are crucial to the result.
One can?t work ? or win ? without the other.
?A lot of people don?t understand the woman on the top of the horse has to be an athlete as well,? Hollingsworth says. ?You have to have that core strength, balance and timing when you?re riding your horse.?
A sense of calm ? a quiet confidence ? is essential even under the most trying of circumstances. Tensing up on a skeleton sled is one thing. Tensing up on a horse is quite another.
?I think it will be really cool, the crossover,? she says. ?In skeleton, we only have eight World Cup races and one world championship race every year.
?In barrel racing, it?s going to be pressure situations all the time. When I?m on a horse, the consequences are severe. You need self-awareness about what?s going on with you. Are you grounded? Are you balanced? If you?re not, you?ll figure it out pretty quick. The horse will tell you.?
Nothing works quite like a mirror in reflecting reality ? good or bad.
?Rascal is not a pet, which is interesting,? she says. ?When I walk out to the pasture to catch him, he turns and heads in the other direction. It?s quite the game.
?Once I have him caught, he is so focused on his job. He has a unique personality where I can just throw the reins over his neck and he?ll follow me anywhere in the arena. He definitely trusts me, and I?m trusting him.
?It?s neat to watch our relationship flourish.?
Robertson predicts big things for Hollingsworth ? and Rascal ? in rodeo arena, although perhaps not immediately. Excellence takes time in any new pursuit, even for a world-class athlete.
?Mellisa has the mental side of it down,? Robertson says. ?She is so well conditioned in that area. A lot of girls can be riding the best horses and have everything going their way. But if they don?t have the mental preparation when it gets to the rodeo, everything falls apart.
?I don?t think Mellisa will be too nervous. I think she?s ready. She has put a lot into this.?
The financial commitment for rodeo, especially on the front end, is considerable. Long days of driving can amount to nothing with an average-to-poor performance. The hours are long. The money is often mediocre, especially in the beginning.
But this is about seizing a dream.
?It?s funny,? she says. ?I have a strange perspective of what is far when I fly to another continent to slide down an ice chute for a minute.
?So for me to get in a vehicle with Rascal for six hours to go to a rodeo ? I don?t think it?s anything.?
At the very least, chalk this venture up as another interesting stop for Hollingsworth on the road to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
And beyond.
vhall@calgaryherald.com
? Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
yahoo.com/mail ncis la ncis anderson cooper google i/o haagen dazs washington wizards
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.