July 31, 1996
Renn battles to forget past paddles
By CHRIS STEVENSON -- Team Sun
LAKE LANIER, Ga. -- There was a time, not too long ago, when Renn Crichlow would look at the five Olympic rings and see concentric prison walls.
The Nepean kayaker would see his life there, going around and around, centred on the five-ring circus, travelling the same road over and over and over.
It was Barcelona that did it.
He went to the 1992 Games as the defending world champion in the men's single-man kayak over 500 metres and didn't make it to the final.
He choked, people said. The people whose job it is to figure out why things like that happen decided he had overtrained.
Crichlow spent every night for six weeks replaying the whole thing in his mind, tearing apart, reconstructing, trying to figure out why.
He won't reveal his conclusions, because, he said, "they always come out sounding like an excuse. I paddled poorly."
But he did pinpoint eight things he would have changed in the days, weeks and even months leading up to the Barcelona Games.
The post-mortem done, he gave up paddling and went to Harvard medical school for a year, but persisting in the back of his mind was the desire to close the book on his Olympic experience on a positive note, to be able to look at those rings and smile, not grimace.
Crichlow will start the individual portion of his final Olympic Games at 9:10 this morning in the second heat of the men's K1 500 metres.
This morning, with each stroke of his paddle, Crichlow will try to sweep away Barcelona, send it all to the bottom of Lake Lanier, at least in the minds of his critics. He got his paddles wet yesterday as part of the four-man kayak team which finished fifth in its heat and now must race in tomorrow's semi-final.
"We're not the Germans," he said, referring to the powerhouse boat which led the heat from the start yesterday.
"We know that and we're realistic. Fifth is pretty good in that heat. I don't know how hard the Italians (sixth) or the Czechs (seventh) were going, but we didn't race that well either, though we did some things well we hadn't done well all year."
He almost didn't get this far. A lower respiratory tract infection weakened him, played havoc with his asthma, and wouldn't let him train the way he wanted in Australia in December.
On Christmas Day, he thought about giving it all up, how taking a year off from medical school was turning out to be a waste of time.
But his health slowly returned, he began to pick off his teammates, the same ones he used to regularly beat, but were beating him, and won two races at the Olympic trials.
"There's a billboard downtown that says, `I didn't come here to trade pins' and that's pretty appropriate," said Crichlow. "At the same time, I have a little perspective. I've definitely stopped to smell the flowers along the way.
Crichlow likes a line from a Bob Marley song -- "When one door closes, another one opens" -- and he's had an opportunity not afforded many athletes.
He's had a chance to look through that door that will open when his Olympic door closes.
He can now say goodbye to one part of his life, content in the knowledge he will be moving on to another with as much richness.
"I feel fulfilled. I don't carry that baggage anymore. I look at those rings now as what they are -- a symbol of the Olympic Games," said Crichlow.
"I've put those things to rest."
