Sports

Grosse Pointe Native Should Get Ceremonial Honor at Olympics

January 29, 2014, 10:25 AM

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Lindsey Van/ (Facebook photo)

As part of its run-up to the Olympic Games, NBC on Tuesday posted an article and poll about which athlete should carry the Stars and Stripes during the Opening Ceremony.

If it’s not ski jumper Lindsey Van of Michigan, what little faith I have left in the Olympics as an institution representing sport, sportsmanship and national pride will be shattered.
 
Not to take a thing away from any athlete on Team USA. All of them, along with their families and supporters, have trained and sacrificed to levels beyond what we mere mortals might consider sane. Plus, these are the Winter games so these sports involve snow, ice and freezing temperatures.
 
Some of the team members have sustained their commitments to their sports through multiple Olympic Games, medical challenges, personal heartbreak and tragedy. All have reigned supreme in their disciplines. 
 
All but a handful, if that, will leave their sports without multimillion dollar endorsement deals, let alone any income while they’re still competing. Figure skating, alpine skiing and hockey aside, can you name any athlete on the skeleton, biathalon or ski cross rosters?
 
A World Champion
 
But as we consider which of this worthy roster should have the honor of carrying the flag for the Opening Ceremony, it’s clearly Van, a Grosse Pointe native who's a world champion, 16-time national champion and more than 50-time podium finisher in international competition.
 
No Olympic medal is on her athletic resume for a reason beyond Van’s control: Until now, women couldn't jump on sport’s biggest stage. 
 
That’s right. The Michigan native has trained and competed for more than 20 years without the Olympic Games even being accessible to her. 
 
It was dangerous for “girls,” the IOC said. They weren’t good enough. Never mind that Van held the record on the Vancouver hill for all athletes, male or female, until the gold medal-winning jump of the 2002 Games.
 
Van, who moved to Park City, Utah with her family when she was 5, was destined to lead the fight to get women to the Olympic hill almost from the first time she soared of a snowy ramp when she was 7. Within a few years, she was beating everyone, including the boys, and pictured the Olympic rings when she imagined her future.
 
It took a while for anyone to tell her girls didn’t jump in the games. She didn’t care. She loved jumping and with the innocence of youth placed her faith in the belief someone would do the right thing. 
 
Barred From Participating
 
But no one did. The 2002 Salt Lake City Games came to her home hill. She and her teammates watched their male training partners and, in one case, sibling, compete. The 2006 Games in Torino again failed to include them.
 
So when Van was arguably in her jumping prime and women again were denied for the 2010 Vancouver Games, Van spearheaded the lawsuit against the Canadian organizers. 
 
Joined by 14 other female jumpers from across the globe, she celebrated when a court ruled that yes, since the facility was built with public money the women should be included, but no, the court couldn’t or wouldn’t enforce that.
 
Reticent about media attention and the scrutiny that came with being the public face or her sport, Van was at first reluctant in the fight. But she came to embrace it. And she backed up her lawsuit with world class jumping.
 
In between competing, Van is a two-time bone marrow donor, giving up training and competition to complete the procedure when she was a match.
 
Officially named to the Olympic team last week, along with Olympic Trials winner Jessica Jerome and world champion Sarah Hendrickson, Van is a champion, pioneer, a role model, and a committed advocate to her sport.
 
And if we really want to determine who’s worthy of leading Team USA into the Sochi ceremony as the flag bearer, look no further than Van. 
 
She’s already led her team to gold medals and her entire gender to the Olympic stage.



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