Homegrown hero the readers’ choice

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This article was published 19/06/2020 (1957 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sports Showdown featured gold medallists, Stanley Cup champions, Grey Cup heroes, curling legends, and a long list of fan favourites.

But out of the 32 athletes included in Sports Showdown, the Free Press sports department’s March Madness-style bracket to determine who readers think Manitoba’s greatest athlete of all time is, only one could reign supreme.

It started on May 15 and after five rounds, 31 matchups and nearly 16,000 votes, Free Press readers have chosen cyclist/speedskater Clara Hughes as the cream of the crop. Hughes faced Winnipeg Jets icon Dale Hawerchuk in the Final Showdown this week and came away with a 788-336 victory.

“It brought back so many names,” Hughes told the Free Press from her home in Canmore, Alta.

“I was like ‘Oh my God, Dale Hawerchuk!’ Growing up when I played community sports, you always wanted to wear No. 10 and someone always took it because of Hawerchuk.”

Growing up in Elmwood playing soccer, hockey and softball, Hughes didn’t always get to call first dibs on wearing No. 10, but she got the numbers she needed to win Sports Showdown. Coming out of the Olympics region, Hughes squared off against fellow cyclist Tanya Dubnicoff in Round 1. After a convincing victory over Dubnicoff, Hughes beat soccer star Desiree Scott by 282 votes. Her toughest opponent came in the Excellent 8 as paralympic swimmer Tim McIsaac, who was coming off an upset win over speedskater Cindy Klassen, had momentum on his side with a huge backing of supporters. But Hughes, the only athlete to ever win multiple medals at both the Summer and Winter Olympics, proved to be too much to handle as she escaped with a 422-404 win. Then in the Fantastic Four, Hughes went up against a household name in Jonathan Toews, but the Chicago Blackhawks captain proved to be no match as the six-time Olympic medallist prevailed with 44 more votes to advance to the final against Hawerchuk, who beat Blue Bombers superstar Milt Stegall in the other semifinal.

“I’m really honoured and this is just really sweet. I didn’t know about it (until) my mom wrote to me and said ‘Hey, I don’t know if you know about this’ so I checked it out and I couldn’t believe all the amazing people in there. There were a lot of hockey helmets, too, so I couldn’t believe I made it as far as I did,” said Hughes, who was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.

“It’s a pleasant surprise and I guess I have to say I’m just chuckling a little bit because I do know how much hockey means (to the city), especially being a Winnipegger and losing the Jets and finally getting the team back. I’m kind of like ‘Wow, this is a big deal.’”

Hughes, 47, was excited to go toe to toe with Hawerchuk, but it’s the Sports Showdown athletes she competed and trained with during her career, as well as the ones that were role models for her, that makes this honour extra special. Hughes made her Olympics debut at the 1996 Atlanta Games, where she won bronze medals in the road race and time trial. Her other four Olympic medals came on the ice, highlighted by a gold in the 5,000-metre race at the 2006 Turin Games. Hughes’s six combined medals are tied with Klassen for the title of Canada’s most decorated Olympian.

“I was on the Olympic team with Cindy Klassen when she won five medals in one Olympic Games. I saw not only what it took on the days at that time, but the preparation that went into that. I was teammates with Tanya Dubnicoff when we were at our home Pan Am Games in Winnipeg. I didn’t get on the podium at that time and she won at home. I was also there when she won her world championship title in Norway and saw how much that took and her force of a personality,” she said.

“And of course, I was inspired by Susan Auch. She fundamentally helped me find my way as a speedskater when I came back to the sport at 27 and was always inspired by the way she went about things and her beautiful skating technique. There’s just so many people in there… I’m just like ‘Oh my gosh, these amazing people.’ It’s not just about sport, it’s what you do and who you are as a human being. So much of this list represents athletic excellence, but it’s also a list of human beings that have impacted society and the community… I’m pretty honoured and I’m stoked, but I’m also just really in awe of this whole list of people.”

With Hughes excelling on the world stage in two sports, and her incredible humanitarian efforts as a mental health advocate and involvement with a non-profit organization called Right To Play, there’s no question voters got it right. But Hughes recalls her early days in sports and admitted she never in her wildest dreams imagined she’d go on to become one of the country’s most decorated athletes. Hughes retired from speedskating after the 2010 Vancouver Games, where she won a bronze in the 5,000 metres. But it was two years later in London, when she had her final race, when she realized what she had accomplished in her career.

“When I came in fifth place and didn’t make the podium, I was like ‘Oh my God, I just had the best time trial of my life and I finished fifth.’ That’s as good as I was on the day. In my head I was like ‘I can’t believe I actually won six Olympic medals,’” Hughes said with a laugh.

“Like it’s so hard to win an Olympic medal and I was like ‘I actually did that six times?’ It really made me experience so much gratitude for the stars aligning, all the work I had put in, being healthy on the day, not being injured, and just being good enough. I was like ‘Wow, I actually did that six times.’”

Hughes and her husband Peter Guzman have been all over the map, as they’ve lived in Quebec, Calgary, California, Vancouver and Utah before settling down in Canmore seven years ago. Her competition days are over, but the endurance athlete in her is still there as her new passion is long-distance hiking. Since she started five years ago, Hughes has hiked nearly 20,000 km. But regardless of where Hughes lives or where her next hiking adventure is, she hasn’t forgotten and will never forget where her story began.

“Winnipeg is such a beautiful, multicultural place. A hard place, but a very, very from the heart real place that my roots will always, always be planted in.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Eighteen years old and still in high school, Taylor got his start with the Free Press on June 1, 2011. Well, sort of...

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