Rio de Janeiro - Bridgitte Hartley will paddle her last Olympic race on Thursday morning, and she will do so with a smile on her face. In the stands, she will have her dad watching on proudly, aware that the journey that has taken around the world takes a new twist from here.
The 2012 Olympic bronze medallist will be in the B final, the curtain-raiser to the main event. She admits that it is tough to get oneself up for the B final, because the intensity is not quite the same as the medal shootout.
“I’ll sleep on it, and I will feel better and get up for it,” Hartley smiled on Wednesday.
“I know that it is tricky, because if you do well, you feel like you could have been in the A final.”
She went back to regroup with her father James on Wednesday night, and then remembered that down as she felt, she has had her glorious ups in this game, too. And, back home in Maritzburg, long-term boyfriend Andy Birkett was watching on, fresh from his World Marathon Championships success in Europe.
“I am gutted for her. I know how hard she has worked to get to the Olympics again, and her dedication is an inspiration,” Birkett, a multiple Dusi Marathon winner said.
“I am also flipping proud of her! To make it to the Olympics is a massive achievement, and it was just a pity that our schedules meant that we were on different sides of the world competing,” he lamented.
Birkett will form the welcome party when Hartley jets back home, but for now, the 500m sprint canoeist is eyeing one final fling in the Olympics, a fond farewell to a stage that breaks as many hearts as it makes legends.
“It’s flipping hard to make it to the Olympics. Just getting here is a massive achievement. I am proud of what I have done. In the back of my mind, I always knew it would be hard to make a final.
“A medal never even crossed my mind,” she admitted.
The road to Rio has been a tough one for Hartley, training in isolation, and she fell short Wednesday, in the A semi-final. She knows only too well that it is only a few precious strokes that make the difference between agony and ecstacy.
On Thursday she will enjoy those final few strokes, and look to sign off from Rio and her Olympic adventure with a smile.
“The Olympics have been an amazing journey. London made it all worth it, and though I would have loved to do it again, it hasn’t quite worked out.”
She will always have London, and that bit of metal with five rings that were worth the pain.
Independent Media