Raising the Flag

by Julia Drake

Frances DAFOE Bogin’49 has countless treasured memories from her years as a competitive figure skater. Among the most vivid recollections are those involving the sights, sounds and emotions noted while representing Canada on the winners’ podium. “It is truly an awe-inspiring moment when the flag is flying behind you and they’re playing the national anthem,” says Frances, who earned a Silver Medal in the 1956 Olympic Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, with her partner, Norris Bowden. Her other trips to the podium included a first-place skate in both the 1954 and 1955 World Championships in Oslo and

Vienna respectively; and second-place finishes in the Worlds in 1953 (Davos, Switzerland) and 1956 (Garmisch, Germany). In the 1952 Olympics in Oslo, Frances and her partner placed fifth.

Sailor Martha HENDERSON’87 also knows the rush of excitement an athlete experiences in the Olympics. With the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing not far behind her, Martha says two memories stand out. “After our first day of competing (in the Yngling Class, three-woman keelboat race), we were in second place,” she says. — continued on next page

“To see our names up on the top scoreboard was an absolutely incredible experience.”

Because she was sailing in Qingdao, 700 kilometres from Beijing, she couldn’t make it to the opening ceremonies, but participating in the closing ceremonies with her teammates — and all of Team Canada — was a moment Martha will treasure forever. She finished the competition with an impressive 13th-place overall standing.

Christilot HANSON Boylen’65, the most successful dressage competitor in Canadian history, was only 17 when she made her Olympic debut. In 1964, the official age for senior competitors was 18, but Christilot received special permission to compete in dressage in Tokyo. “As soon as I arrived, I realized I was way over my head, but the bottom line was to learn from the experience for

HAVE WE MISSED ANY OLYMPIC ATHLETES IN THIS ARTICLE?

If so, please contact Tanya Pimenoff, Editor, The Read, at tpimenoff@branksome.on.ca with some details, and we will follow up. We wish to acknowledge all of Branksome Hall’s talented alumnae athletes who have excelled at many levels in many diverse sports. We salute all of our athletes!

the next time, and that I did!” says Boylen. At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, she placed sixth in the Grand Prix equestrian event. “It was also the hardest personally, since my horse, Gaspano, had been injured, and we nursed him through that Olympics without the preparation I would have liked to have,” says Christilot. “It was the first time I made use of sport psychology to help me through the problems. It was one of my best tests, where I had a real sense of ‘flow’ and slow motion — something many athletes report when giving a peak performance.”

Christilot has since competed in numerous Olympics — Mexico, Münich, Los Angeles and Barcelona. She won Gold in the “Moscow alternate,” in Goodwood, England, in 1993, and is the only rider to have won three individual Gold Medals in the Pan Am Games.

Yet one of her greatest triumphs was attained in the grueling Hamburg Derby, a special competition in which the top three riders are required to ride each other’s horses through the same routine. “You get five minutes to get used to the horse belonging to your competitor, as they do with yours,” she explains. “It is very exciting, and a real test of a rider’s ability to immediately ‘find the buttons’ on a horse completely unknown to him and also to ride it accurately through a Grand Prix-level test.” She earned one first-place finish and two second-place finishes in that competition over the years.

Alexandra (Alexe) YEUNG’89, a competitive c yclist, has different, but equally vivid memories of her time in the Olympic spotlight. “Mountain biking doesn’t get the same attention as many other sports,” she says. “So, at a regular race, there would be one to two cameras on the entire course.” But, when competing at the Sydney

Olympics in 2000 for her birth country of Hong Kong, she saw 20 cameras at every twist and turn, and “you realize the whole world is watching.”

Now, Alexe is putting her Olympic spirit to work in Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. An Environmental Engineer, she is working on ways to “green” the Olympics, through such measures as water conservation, increasing the use of renewable energy, and developing new recycling programs.

The introduction of sustainability is just one example of how the Olympic Games have changed over the years. Christilot recalls that, in the 1960s, Canadian dressage was just beginning to earn attention. “There was no backup help, no trainer and no team manager,” she says. Today, competitors enjoy enormous support.

Likewise, in the 1950s, competitive figure skating “was a different world,” says Frances. Then, skaters competed outdoors, in sub-zero weather, and that meant poor ice conditions. Ironically, ice that is too cold prevents blades from gliding optimally. “It was like skating on Coca-Cola.”

In Vienna, Frances skated on artificial ice in a blizzard, and snow had to be removed from the rink after each routine. With little space for the shovelled snow to be stored, the rink surface “got smaller and smaller” with every cleaning. “With judges sitting on chairs on the ice, one misstep and a skater could knock over a whole row of them!”

So, what are the lessons that these outstanding women can pass along from their personal experiences? When obstacles stand in your way, “you either cross them or fade out and let your passion go,” says Frances, who became passionate about design. For many years, she was a costume designer for CBC television as well as the Charlottetown Festival and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

“You have to be able to believe in your dream and what you want to achieve, regardless of what happens,” echoes Martha. “We were always encouraged at Branksome to try new things and to pursue whatever it was that was important to us.”

“All successful people, not just athletes, have focus,” says Alexe, whose training regimen and competitions have forced her to miss the weddings of many friends. “You must make sacrifices, but, because you have focus, you don’t look at the things you’re giving up as sacrifices.”

“I think top achievers in many fields

Humour & Fun

probably have many similar characteristics, not all of them always positive,” observes Christilot. “There has to be a certain sense of doggedness and sheer mental and physical strength. A good athlete or entrepreneur goes on unperturbed with negativity around him or her.” And she credits Branksome’s athletic program for giving her “the key elements of team spirit and striving for excellence.”

Today, Christilot applies that drive as a trainer and coach. Recently, “after slowly bringing back a horse who had been hurt, and operated on in 2005 — and he was still only walking the whole of 2006 — I finally was able to return him to top form in the spring of 2007, where in his first competition, he won the Grand Prix and the Special,” she says.

Enjoyment is an important element of success, too, it seems. “If it’s not fun, it’s not worth doing,” adds Martha, who now has the 2012 Olympics on her mind. I

Julia Drake is the new Director of Communications and Marketing. Her background includes experience as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and public relations consultant. For the past five years, Julia was Director of Communications at Upper Canada College.

—