RICHMOND, British Columbia – After affixing skate guards and descending from the track infield post-practice Saturday, Jen Rodriguez stopped in the serpentine media mixed zone. It was the eve of, most likely, her last individual Olympic race. A television crew innocuously asked how she felt.
“Ready to get it over with,” Rodriguez said with a chuckle.
Standing in front of drapes, she pulled the curtain back on how unyielding a Winter Games can be, nonetheless smiling all the while. It appears Rodriguez is getting what she wanted out of this, no matter what occurs in speedskating’s 1,500 meters Sunday, which would be refreshing after four years of enduring little worth laughing about.
The disappointment of Turin, Italy, spilled into a divorce and heavy debt and the June death of her mother, Barbara, after battling breast cancer. But Rodriguez has bounced around on and off the ice here, unremitting in her determination to enjoy the experience, even happily distracted by family in the athletes’ village two nights before her signature race.
When she doesn’t have her legs on a wall for recovery purposes, she has found refuge and rejuvenation in, for once at an Olympics, kicking her feet up.