Little girl's message received : `This is it, Clara, do this for the right reason'

TURIN, Italy�Still scarred from being the only kid not picked for the choir back in Grade 3 in Winnipeg, speed skater Clara Hughes challenged herself this year by taking singing lessons.

Rating the rousing rendition of "O Canada" that she and teammate Cindy Klassen belted out atop the medal podium at Oval Lingotto yesterday, Hughes still isn't convinced she can carry a tune.

But she did not strike a discordant note in her stirring victory in the women's 5,000 metres.

This is an athlete who always seeks out inspiration. Yesterday, she wrote the word "joy" with a pen just above the knuckle on her ring finger because it was the feeling she wanted to have after the race.

As she lined up against German star Claudia Pechstein, Hughes looked into the stands and saw Rebecca, a 9-year-old girl from the family renting a home to her husband, Peter Guzman, during the Games. She was holding a little sign that read "Forza Clara." Hughes had loaned the silver medal she won in the team pursuit last week to the child, who let the 112 schoolmates in her little village take turns wearing it.

"(Rebecca) made me smile and I just looked at my `joy' on my hand and I just thought, `This is it, Clara, do this for the right reason,'" Hughes said.

One thing Hughes knew was that she'd have to suffer to win. She did not flinch at that prospect; she embraced it.

And so, as she trailed Pechstein for 10 of the 12 1/2 laps, she didn't panic. She knew chasing her was futile, that she had to follow her own plan. Not an easy thing to do knowing Pechstein had won the event at the last three Olympics, including 2002 when Hughes finished third, more than six seconds behind.

And the strong finish that Hughes told herself all week she could count on was there.

"I just thought, `Try to stay with her until those few laps and then just skate like you are running and fighting for your life,'" Hughes said. "And that's what I did. I felt like I was going to die after. My legs seized up. I still can't believe it was good enough to win. It's still a bit of a shock."

Hughes kept the pain at bay during the race by focusing on good technique and picking up the tempo. It was only at the finish that her body fully absorbed what she'd done to it. Her legs nearly buckled and it was all she could do to avoid falling face-first on the ice.

"It feels like you have about 100 horses kicking you in the legs ... all at once," she said.

She did a hockey stop and dove on to the infield, her body heaving up and down with sobs, as her coach Xiuli Wang rushed to her. Hughes would later recount the scene.

"My coach Xiuli, who's from China and is very proper, she's like, `Clara, get up, there are people here. Don't lie on the ground. And I'm like, `Xiuli, but I'm dying and I won the Olympics.' It was just funny."

Hughes did eventually get up and Klassen, who won bronze for her fifth medal of the Games and sixth overall, both Canadian records, skated over to give her a big hug and hand her a Canadian flag for a victory lap. Hughes wrapped the flag around her shoulders like a cape and carried a rose somebody handed her as she wore a smile as wide as the forest behind her home in Glen Sutton, Que.

As she stood on the top of the podium, Hughes pulled Klassen up to join her.

"I felt kind of strange up there," said Hughes, who now has five Olympic medals � a gold, silver and bronze in speed skating and two bronze in cycling. "It was interesting. I mean, I've come second or third a bunch of times, but to have won it was amazing.

"But then I turned around and I saw Cindy and I thought, `I don't want to be alone up here alone listening to `O Canada' and I'm surely not going to sing by myself, so Cindy came up there and then we started singing really badly and it was just fun."

Fun was what Hughes sought when she took singing lessons.

"I always try to improve on something that I think I'm not good at or I think I can't do very well and I try to take those things and do them better," she said. "You have to let go of your inhibitions. It's not an easy thing to do. I think because I'm good at what I do, it's easier to get caught in the trap of just being very good and not trying to go beyond that and lose that beginner's mind.

"For me, I've always tried to take on new challenges to get that beginner's mind back. Then when I go back to what I'm good at, I have a whole different perspective."

As Hughes stood outside the press conference room last night, a beatific grin spread across her face, the ink spelling out `joy' on her hand had begun to fade, but the real thing looked as if it was going to last a very long time.

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