(Based on the
book “Breaking Through My Limits: An
Olympian Uncovered”,
copyright 2012, by Alexandra Orlando)
As related by Ms. Orlando (prior to the
2004 Olympic Qualifiers):
In a performance sport, you have to want
to be noticed, and go out there and show them that. In these early years of battling my weight, I
lost that special part of me, that fighter.
Every day at the hotel of whatever city we happened to be in that week,
Kiev, Paris or Moscow, there would be special room for everyone at the
competition with buffets of food. Any
time I came close to the buffet table, the eyes would be on me. I would scan the room seeing who was in
there, how they were related to me, and if they knew our coaches or would rat
me out. I stuck with lettuce and maybe
some meat. There were days when I was so
hungry that I would sneak a small piece of bread into the pocket of my Canadian
tracksuit jacket, sweating over the anxiety of getting caught.
At the end of the year, my mother would
find stale pieces of crumbled bread in my jackets. Something that once seemed normal was so
horrific to me now. I would sew snacks
into the lining of my suitcase should anyone ever come to my room unexpectedly. I became so crafty that I had a whole system
down of how I was going to survive. I
would starve myself for them; and it took years to admit it, but I did. Not only did I turn to coffee, but gum
too. This should have been a dead
giveaway to people, but I don’t think they wanted to believe it; and if they
did know, what were they going to say? I
had wanted one thing my entire life, and my weight, one of the worst issues a
teenage girl can have, was the only thing standing in my way.
I was going to lose that weight in
whatever way I could, and my teammates watched me do it. They were the ones that really saw what
happened behind those closed hotel doors, our makeshift homes. They saw the real me. Those girls – Yana, Carly, Stef, Ali, Demi,…
– you got me through it. You held my
hand through the lowest part of my life, you wanted my dream to come true as
much as I did, and you are all my beautiful sisters.
It was a vicious cycle that I seemed
caught in for years. I think
back to that scared little girl alone in my head. I was trying to be so strong, and knew that
this weight issue was the reality of my sport.
I chose this life. No one was
forcing me to be there. My parents just
wanted me to be happy. Never in my life
did they push me to continue, and if anything, there were times when I’m sure
they would have welcomed my retirement.
Both 2005 and 2006 were rocky years for me where I was nowhere near the
shape I should’ve been in. I couldn’t
compete, and it was as if my head shut down my body. Negativity coursed through my veins, my
self-confidence plummeted, and I dreaded walking off the floor after my event
to face “them”.
At this level, it’s not just you and
your coach anymore. It’s you
and all the judges, gymnasts all around the world, your sport’s entire
organization and the Olympic Committee in Canada – the people who are giving you
money because you were supposed to be able to perform. Every mistake you make is observed, analyzed,
and thanks to technology, replayed over and over again. Rankings and scores are flashed the second
they happen, and broadcast into homes across the globe. Chat rooms and international Web forums
scrutinize every gymnast, and I could never get the courage to look. My weight had become an international
scandal. Forget that I was one of the
best rhythmic gymnasts out there, that didn’t matter. The size of my thighs was way more important.
At my lowest, I would always be sent
away for weeks at a time to compete and train in Europe, with only coaches for
company. I remember feeling like I wanted to run away
and never look back. The minute I sat
down in the front seat of the loaded car, with my mom starting the very
familiar drive to the airport, I turned into this miserable, sour thing. I knew exactly what I was walking into, and I
didn’t know if I was strong enough to get through it. Behind closed doors, thousands of miles from
those people who could protect me, I felt hopeless. My life was in other hands – what I did, what
I ate, where I slept. It was all
carefully planned so that I would be whipped into shape no matter what the
cost.
In some small town in France outside of
Paris, or some Eastern European city, I would live day in and day out in my own
little dungeon in my head.
My coach would push me until I cracked, until I found that fourth wind
out of pure anger and spite, wanting to show her that I wasn’t weak, that I
could do it and wouldn’t give up. Those
breakthroughs, those hours of pure adrenaline and raw drive to keep my legs
moving – they were the best times of my life.
The satisfaction of knowing that you could push through was better than
any medal.
If I’d had a different body, I may have
reached even greater heights, and I truly believe that. My weight brought any success I had a little
notch back down, with more pressure mounting up. I dragged it around with me, felt it in my
legs and my heart. I would have
nightmares of feeling paralyzed, and awake in the middle of the night in cold
sweats, imagining myself so heavy that I couldn’t move, so big that no one
could bear to look at me. It’s a
horrible feeling to get out of bed in the morning and have to strategically
pick out what to wear to hide yourself from people. No matter how I would create an illusion that
I was thinner, if my face didn’t thin out, then no one would believe it
anyway. These are weeks of my life that
I’ve blacked out from my memory, pretending like they never happened.
(to be continued in Part E)
copyright 2014, Anne Shier. All rights reserved.
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