Sticking with it:Olympian Karen Furneaux brings message to local junior high school students
JASON MALLOY
The Truro Daily News

TRURO – The pigtailed eight year old had visualized the routine in preparation of her first gymnastics competition, and finally the moment had arrived.

The nervous little girl stepped up and started her routine on her favourite apparatus – the bars.
“Everything was going great, just as I had pictured it in my mind, until I got to the hardest part in the routine, which is the handstand. As I kicked up to the handstand I let out a fart. A huge fart,” said Karen Furneaux, describing how everyone in the gymnasium, including friends and family, heard.

“I wanted to run out of that gym and never, ever come back. It was so embarrassing.”
But the Waverly native stuck with sports and has no regrets.

“Today, as when I was eight years old, I have a dream and that dream is to compete my best at the Olympic Games,” she said.

Furneaux, a two-time world champion and Olympic kayaker, was in Truro on Wednesday to speak to students from Bible Hill and Truro junior high schools. The motivational speaker was brought in through a partnership with the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame and Truro Sport Heritage Society.

She grew up five minutes away from the Cheema Aquatic Club and began kayaking when she was 12. Always goal-oriented, Furneaux wanted to make the provincial team for the Canada Games but ended up being chosen to wear the Maple Leaf as a 16-year-old at the world junior championship in the Czech Republic.

“I achieved something much greater than I imagined,” she told the students. “I always set really high goals for myself ... I remember saying I want to go to the Olympics one day.”

Her first Olympic experience in Sydney, Australia was a disappointment as the 85-kilometre-per-hour wind gust caused numerous delays before they were able to get the final race in. The team was expected to medal but finished fifth.

“I remember crossing the line and feeling totally empty,” she said. “That wasn’t my Olympic dream.”
Disappointed for a good 15 minutes, Furneaux knew she was better than the performance and decided to continue to train for the next Games.

She has learned valuable lessons through losing and turned them into positives.

“When you lose that’s when you find who you are and what you’re made of,” she said.

The countdown is now on for Beijing this summer – 197 days as of Wednesday – but must first qualify at this spring’s Canada selection trials and the Hemispheric qualifier.

jmalloy@trurodaily.com