4Km Team Pursuit at the Sydney Olympics
by Derek Brouchard-Hall
report filed September 2000, Sydney, Austrialia
This morning, the morning of my competing in the
Olympics, I was woken by my teammate, Christian Vande
Velde. He wanted to make sure that I did not log on
to find out what happened at the bike race in Boston.
He knew that I intended to, for if my Mercury teammate
Gord Fraser won, I would get a huge prize money check
from the bonus offered for the race series of which it
was part. He said that the men's race was cancelled
and would say no more. Christian was not scheduled to
be in our team pursuit ride this morning, so he should
have been relaxed - but he wasn't. I was willing to
follow his advice and ask no more questions, until he
told me to make sure that my roommate, Tommy Mulkey
didn't either. Now I knew something was terribly
wrong. Further inquisition, in private, yielded the
horrible truth.
Nicole Rienhart, top American cyclist, US National
teaammate for years, and good friend of us all, was
killed at that race in Boston just hours earlier.
I was stunned to the point of feeling physically ill.
Soon thereafter I was bombarded by the powers that be
in USA Cycling to discuss how we should treat this
issue with Tommy. Tommy had dated Nicole recently for
over a year and was still close with her family. We
decided that it would be impossible to keep it from
him until after our race, now just hours away. So, as
his good friend, I took the job of telling him. It
was very painful.
All of us on the team knew her so well. It was not
only difficult to start thinking about our event, but
also to even want to. What would normally be a
boisterous preparation for battle was rather subdued
and sullen. We pressed on however, and got ready to
race.
Our race went very poorly. I am very disappointed and
have yet to be able to absorb what happened and why.
While I am sure that the news of Nicole's death had
some impact, I truly believe that that was not the
fundamental problem. We nearly stayed on our pace to
ride a 4:07 after 2k, but then Erin Hartwell pulled
out and we were down to 3 riders with more than 7 laps
to go. We slowed, but were still on pace to break
4:10 with 1k to go. Then I blew and was hanging on
for dear life. We lost a couple of seconds on our
last two laps and finished with a 4:12 - good enough
for only 10th place, and almost 3 seconds shy of
making the top eight. Our Olympics were over.
We trained very hard. I gave it everything I had in
the race. It was not meant to be. Why did we lose a
rider just half way through the race? Why, when I had
beent the strongest rider in training, was I not able
hold as strong as Tommy and Mariano when we went to 3
riders? Very disappointing.
My thoughts however are mostly on the death of Nicole.
Her whole family was there to see what was supposed
to be a triumphant day for her. I hope they didn't
witness the crash. Several of my Mercury teammates
did. One has said he now intends to retire from the
sport.
Now I intend to spend time with my family, especially
Roberta, enjoying the Olympics. There is much to see
and do. Despite not performing up to my team and
personal expectations, there is still much to be proud
of. Do you know what they call the team that finishes
10th of 12 teams here in Sydney? Olympians.
Derek
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