Vancouver Olympics: When sports success is family affair

"I've watched a lot of kids fall by the wayside whose parents were – well, I felt it was more for them," says Kearney, who fought hard to play women's sports growing up. "If the passion is there, [kids] will want to do it themselves. It's their own drive that has to be the power behind it. It can't be the parents' vision."

(Women's participation is way up in Olympic sports – as we noted here yesterday.)

Passion is one thing figure skater Joannie Rochette has – along with Canada's first world championship medal for women, her silver last season.

The Olympic medal contender has long been a favorite in Canada. She is finding particular national support tonight as she takes to the ice despite the sudden passing Sunday of her mother, Thérèse Rochette, shortly after she arrived in Vancouver to watch her daughter compete.

Earlier this year, the Monitor talked to Mrs. Rochette about the challenges of raising an exceptionally talented athlete.

"Joannie's success belongs to her," said Rochette, who – together with her husband – let their daughter leave home at age 13 to pursue her sport. "As parents, we accompany Joannie in her dreams; we don't precede her."

Still, Rochette played an important supporting role – not least of all in reminding Joannie why she's in the sport at all.

"In periods of great stress, I … have the necessary distance to remind her of a rule she knows well: above all, skate for herself, for her pleasure," said Rochette, adding that it had always been their agreement that Joannie will stop when she no longer enjoys the sport. "This helps her to set aside the performances of other skaters … and others' expectations of her. It's also then a little easier to concentrate on her routine, to perform her best and with pleasure."

For some, a way to a better life

One pressure-adding factor that can be harder to avoid is economics. Olympics historian David Wallechinsky recalls watching his son's soccer games in southern France years ago. One mother who was urging on her son came from a housing project. "When she was yelling, it wasn't just for him to do his best," says Mr. Wallechinsky, who was raising his boys in Provence at the time. "It was for him to get out of the housing project."

He highlights two Olympians who represent the wide spectrum of parental roles: Eric Heiden, supported as he shied away from fame, and figure skater Tonya Harding, "whose mother beat it into her" that figure skating success was her ticket – not to mention her mother's ticket – to a better life.

Rochette couldn't have presented a more opposite example of a figure-skater's mother – one who saw value not so much in her daughter's accomplishments as in her character.

"To stand on a podium is a nice reward … but it isn't the only one, and it doesn't define the worth of a person!" she said. "After all the years of persevering, Joannie has succeeded in reaching a high level of performance and that's something that no one can ever take away from her. And if she doesn't achieve the expected results in an important competition, she will be no less the talented, funny, intelligent woman that we know."

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