Going For Gold

Watching so much of the Olympics in August was a wonderful way to celebrate the ways in which people find and groom their specialized and particular skills to the very height of competitive excellence.

Seeing how hard world-class athletes work to maintain their precarious competitive edge made me think about all those athletes who, over eighty years ago, found their hopes dashed by war.
The Olympics in 1940 were canceled. So were the Olympics in 1944. For many, their Olympic dreams never materialized again. Some were called to serve during those long years; others died during the conflict. Still more felt they were no longer competitive twelve years later when the games resumed again in 1948.

They were known as the “Games of Redemption.” But for many, their chance at Olympic greatness was gone.

One athlete, in particular, felt the sting of that first cancelation harshly. Her name was Gretchen Fraser, and she felt certain her time would never come again.

Gretchen Kunigk was born in Tacoma, Washington, but she didn’t learn to ski until she was fifteen. She loved the rush of the downhill and trademark pigtails flying and would ski all out.
In 1938, she met her future husband, Don Fraser, while they were on their way to an international ski race in Sun Valley, Idaho. Gretchen and Don married in 1939, and both made the 1940 U.S. ski team. But then their plans fell apart. The games were canceled.

Don joined the Navy, and when the Sun Valley Resort closed in 1942, Gretchen was at loose ends. The resort later became a convalescent hospital for injured Marine and Navy veterans.
Gretchen spent the remainder of the war years teaching the veterans how to ski. In the summers, she taught swimming and horseback riding but didn’t have much time to train or hone her skills.

Finally, Don was home, and the war ended. He encouraged her to keep training, and by 1948, she made the team. No one thought she had much of a chance, though.
After all, no American athlete had ever won a medal in a winter event.

But she won, leaving many in the crowd watching the slalom events that day in St. Moritz, wondering, “Who was that?” Most considered her “too old, too American, too inexperienced.”

Regardless of public opinion, she had that competitive spirit and drive. And she knew what she was capable of. Many people have since speculated that she should have had a much longer career but was denied unfairly by the times. She could have competed in at least two more Olympics.
However, Gretchen retired from Olympic competition after the 1948 games, never having the opportunity to compete again.

Many athletes today can compete in not one or two but multiple Olympics. Gretchen was more practical about her win and its meaning.

“After all,” she said, “It’s great to win a medal but it is what you do with it afterward—how you use that medal to impact the world—that is even more important.”

She lived that belief, coaching and mentoring the next generation of championship skiers and always focusing on the importance of rehabilitation.