September 2008

Jeff & family at the Olympics

"It all comes down to a couple minutes”

Photos courtesy of jeff mccandless

Pablo McCandless on a breakneck run down the kayak slalom at the Beijing Olympics

On August 7 Jeff McCandless and his wife Veronica took a break from Amano, the eclectic gift shop they own in Old Takoma, and boarded a plane for the Beijing Olympics. They had been anticipating the trip for four years, ever since their son, a champion kayaker, had been the last one cut in the last qualifying run for the Athens Olympics.

Even so they almost didn’t go. “We kept thinking this is the worst possible time to visit China. It will be expensive, congested, a big crazy headache,” Jeff said later, reflecting on all the mixed feelings.

For most Olympic spectators Beijing was a rat race of traffic and jammed restaurants, but, upon arriving, the McCandless gang – they took along their daughter Carolina and their son’s girlfriend Rachel Gailor – found themselves in a part of the city away from the hoopla.

Pablo at rest between races

This was the temporary quarters of the international kayakers, who rarely have the money or recognition to hang with the glamour crowd at the Olympics. Jeff and Veronica wandered about the Beijing neighborhood. They recognized no other tourists, just locals in their normal routines.

At 6:30 the next morning at a nearby park, Long Tan, they witnessed children pushing grandparents in wheelchairs and hundreds of Chinese of all ages warming up for the day with tai chi and various forms of martial arts. No one paid noticeable attention to Jeff and Veronica or anyone else connected to the world-class kayakers.

They are few in number anyway. From all of the Americas only three qualified for the 2008 games, and only one from the U. S., David Hearn of Bethesda. Jeff and Veronica’s 26-year-old son Pablo, a good friend of David, represented Chile, where he lived for eight years as a child. The Chilean kayaking association, eager to establish the sport in South America, had recruited Pablo off the U. S. team.

The Olympic slalom course

“It was a win-win,” explained Jeff. “Pablo helped give Chile a higher profile, and he had a better chance of making the Olympics for Chile.”

In the countdown to Pablo’s race on the Olympic slalom course, an artificially created series of whitewater rapids in the confinement of the venue for the games, Jeff busied himself taking photographs for an Internet scrapbook. Next to the official Olympic village, under military camouflage, he discovered a battery for a surface-to-air missile — “I guess they wanted to be prepared for anything.”

To reach the medal round Pablo had to pass a test consisting of two runs that last about 90 seconds each. “That’s what it depends on,” Jeff said. “After all the years of training, all the tremendous buildup, it all comes down to a couple minutes. No do-overs, no mulligans.”

Sister Carolina, mom Veronica, girlfriend Rachel Gailor and pater familias Jeff

Pablo’s times were good enough, but on a review he was penalized two seconds for touching a gate, which placed him three-tenths of a second out of the competition for a medal. “The Chilean officials were thrilled he came so close,” Jeff reported. “And Pablo was pretty psyched himself. He kept his head together against guys who were generally older and more experienced. If he goes back to the next Olympics he’ll be the experienced guy.”

Pablo, who negotiated his financial straits the last four years on part-time jobs and family generosity, is hoping the Chileans will come up with a few sponsors to help see him through to 2012.

It’s likely Jeff and Veronica will come along, based on the memory they took away from Beijing. “The best part, by far, wasn’t the Olympics itself. It was the Chinese people at Long Tan Park.”