Saturday, February 23, 2002
Weight too heavy for Martin
By TERRY JONES -- Sun Media
OGDEN, Utah - Tommy Salo and Kevin Martin should share a beer or two when they return to Edmonton. They have Olympic nightmares to share, one shot for which they'll be remembered forever.
The difference for Martin is that it's his favourite shot.
Draw to the four foot to win.
It's a shot he makes in his sleep.
"I couldn't wait to get down to the other end and and throw it," Martin said.
But with King Harald of Norway watching in the stands, Martin made Paal Trulsen king of the curling world for the next four years by gassing the gold medal game, 6-5.
"It's almost unbelievable. Everyone thought Canada should win," Trulsen said. "This feels terrific. Unbelievable. We never thought we would win gold."
For Martin it'll always be an inch. If he was just an inch lighter.
"The guys yelled 'heavy' right away," Martin said of the out-turn. "I didn't know how heavy. It was just a little bit deep. Less than an inch and it was gold."
Martin says he'll survive this.
"I'll be fine," he said. "Obviously, we wanted to bring home the gold. But I know I'm going to cherish this. It's not the colour of the medal for me right now. It's that I just hate that I missed that last shot. I've just got to get that last one out of my mind. If I can get past that, I'll be okay."
It's not fair. The other three guys on his rink were the guys who gagged on this game. They're the reason Canada is leaving without a curling gold medal. They were the guys who swallowed the olive. Martin was just the guy who missed the last shot.
But that's not the way Canada or the world likely is going to remember it.
"The three of us in front of Kevin didn't show up," lead Don Bartlett said. "If it weren't for Kevin Martin, we wouldn't have had a chance. I'm proud of my skipper for holding us in there."
Third Don Walchuk said he was guilty, too.
"I put my skip in a lot of glue and he fought through it," he said.
Again and again, Martin had to make big shots just to blank ends in the beginning of the game. There were so many rocks in play, it looked like a high school game. Most of them in prime position in the house were Trulsen's yellow ones.
Carter Rycroft was the biggest problem. The 24-year-old who curled a first-rate 85% in the tournament, came up empty in the first five ends, curling 55% and putting Walchuk and Martin in trouble behind him.
He was the guy who didn't come through and he knew it.
"I'm crushed right now. It's my own funeral, our own funeral, the way we played," said Rycroft, who throws second's stones. "It's an open wound right now."
Martin didn't think his rink let him down.
"I thought they showed a huge amount of courage to come back like that and set me up with that easy shot to win the game," he said.
But it's the last shot which will be the freeze frame from this game and it will haunt Kevin Martin for the rest of his life.
It wasn't just that he missed the shot, it's that it was there for him to seize the moment and make all his international disasters disappear.
But now Martin has failed five times, twice at the world championships, once at the world junior, once when curling was a demonstration sport at the Albertville Olympics and now in Salt lake City with the biggest audience in the history of curling watching around the world.
But they're not going to throw their brooms in the Ogden River and quit the game. Not even Bartlett, who is 41 and has been holding on to be a world or Olympic champ.
"I'm not retiring until I win a world or Olympic championship," he said. "I should, but ... "
They left the rink and headed to receive their silver medals at Olympic Plaza, trying to adopt Walchuk's philosophy.
"I'm proud to be a Canadian and to have won another medal for my country," he said. "I'm not going to be hanging my head."
It's the right attitude. But will it be Canada's attitude?
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