“See you in four years,” she promised, and such was the jauntiness of Elise Christie’s smile, and the lightness of her wave, it was just about possible to believe her. But then you saw her hobbling away, ankle twisted and heart torn, and you asked yourself: why would anyone want to go through this hell again?
The endless questions about her recklessness and state of mind. The jibes about her tactical abilities from overnight skating experts on social media. And the stinging pain of knowing that while she is a three-time world champion in short track, it means diddly-squat in the unique bear pit of a Winter Olympics.
This is something, of course, that Christie appreciates better than anyone.
Four years ago she arrived in Sochi with the tentative hopes of a nation on her shoulders, only to be disqualified three times and hounded off social media. It took her nearly two years before her mind stopped playing action replays on loop every single day.
Before Pyeongchang she bullishly insisted that she has shaken off those disappointments. Yet she found a familiar pain administered in a different way.
First came a crash in the 500m final after she had twice broken the Olympic record in her heat and quarter-finals. Then she was carted off in the 1500m semi-finals with a heavily bruised ankle and taken to hospital.
And, on Tuesday, a last brutal twist of the knife. For having passed a late fitness test, and then having appeared to have breezed through her 1,000m heat, she was disqualified.
“It’s been tough,” she admitted, with no little understatement. “Beforehand part of me was saying: ‘Don’t bother going on.’ And part of me was saying: ‘Just fight once more, give it one more try.’ But it just wasn’t meant to be.”
Christie had arrived in the Gangdeung Ice Arena in good spirits and her confidence grew further when she hit race pace in her warm-up. As she skated around the track the DJ played Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping. It soon proved prophetic. As her heat got underway, Christie tangled with the Hungarian Andrea Kezler and slipped to the floor – only to get up again after the judges called them back for a restart.
Yet those couple of seconds were costly. Not only did she aggravate her right ankle injury but she also felt a twinge in her left leg. After some running repairs to her skates she gingerly skated away in last place from the restart. But cheered on by the South Korean crowd – who have taken Christie to their hearts – she worked her way through the field and appeared to have qualified comfortably in second.
However when Christie races, nothing is ever entirely comfortable. And after a long delay, during which the judges analysed several replays, she was given a yellow card for twice making moves deemed unsafe, harmful or hazardous, which meant instant disqualification.
“When I crashed on the first start I hit my ankle and I was in a lot of pain,” she said. “I thought maybe I can’t do this now. I thought about the adrenaline and how that might take over. But it didn’t.”
“Yet I thought I made some really good moves and was quite happy that I’d managed to qualify with such a bad ankle. But I got my first ever yellow card, and I’m not really sure why.
“It’s not my decision, it’s not in my control. I have to take whatever the referee gives me. That’s that.”
After being carried off the track in the arms of her coach Nicky Gooch, it was natural to worry about her well-being. But while such an unfortunate series of events would destroy most athletes, Christie tried to keep looking on the bright side.
“I’m in a different place to Sochi,” she said. “That destroyed me. There was a lot of online abuse. But I’m a world champion and world record holder, so I’ve proved myself. I wanted to bring it home for Britain. It would’ve meant the world to me and I’m devastated that I couldn’t.”
“But it means more than a medal that people can see how hard I tried. The support from the UK is insane and the people sticking up for me on social media. It’s incredible. I was bullied as a kid and no one had my back and now everyone has my back.”
Perhaps it wasn’t quite everyone, but that is the way of the modern world.
Christie gained further credit for the way she answered every question, even while a British Olympic Association official was trying to pull her away to plunge her ankle into an ice bucket.
“I have ligament damage in my ankle and putting a skate on is not the comfiest thing in the world,” she said “And the only reason they gave me the choice is because it’s an Olympics. I’d usually been off the ice for six weeks, rehabbing.
“I might well have damaged it more but to me that didn’t matter – I’ve trained all my life for this. But that’s the way short-track goes.
Now there will be an enforced period of rest for Christie before another Winter Olympic cycle fires up again. But while all roads currently lead to Beijing 2022, when she will be 31, it may be at some point she will take stock.
Certainly, given the battering her body and mind have undergone yet again under the severest of spotlights, no one would begrudge her anything she slid away from this exciting but emotional wrecking ball of a sport before then.
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