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For Olympic parents barred from Tokyo Games, a tangible joy in Paris
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the U.S. men’s eight rowing team competed in a final Thursday. Thursday’s race was a semifinal. The team will be rowing in the finals Saturday. A previous version also misstated the first name of Jack and Cindy Rusher’s son. He is Nick Rusher, not Ben Rusher. Originally moved July 31.
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PARIS - Three years ago, Jim Huske and his wife, Ying, watched their 18-year-old daughter endure heartbreak and devastation on the biggest stage in the world, and there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t wrap their arms around Torri Huske and tell her everything would be okay after she finished fourth, just 0.01 second away from a medal. They were 6,800 miles away.
“It was heartbreaking when we saw that look on her face,” Jim says.
The Huske family - like most everyone else - was barred from attending the Tokyo Olympics, as the world was in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. Those Games were held without fans, the athletes performing in empty stadiums and arenas in a made-for-TV Olympics.
The most tormented people during those Olympics may be the happiest at these. Parents of second-time Olympians who yearned to be with their children at the biggest moments of their athletic lives - to console them, celebrate with them, cheer for them, comfort them, hug them - now can do all those things while taking in the majesty of Paris and the sporting splendor of the Games.
“There’s only so much you can do when you’re FaceTiming and talking on the phone,” said Laura Woodhead, the mother of water polo player Dylan Woodhead, a first-time Olympian in Tokyo. “At one point, it kind of felt like a Netflix series. You’re watching this like, ‘I think he was here.’ It’s so much better in person.”
Jim Huske and his wife were side-by-side this week in Paris La Défense Arena where Torri, now 21, won gold in the women’s 100-meter butterfly, the same race that brought so much pain in Tokyo.
“This is the exact opposite,” Jim Huske said. “It’s the pinnacle … She’s still crying. But it was different. This was tears of joy.”
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Reunions of multiple families
Just two games into the men’s water polo tournament, parents from the United States had formed a tradition. “Let’s meet at the french fry statue,” someone said after the first game. And so they all know to gather outside the Aquatics Center around the sculpture of curved, interlocking bars stretching into the sky.
Mimi Hooper mingled and made small talk in the dusty swelter Tuesday afternoon after her son, Johnny Hooper, and his U.S. teammates had beaten Romania. When players emerged down a dirt path, they all whooped and clapped. As they trickled into the crowd, Mimi spotted Johnny.
“Here’s my boy,” Mimi said. Johnny leaned down and wrapped his arms around his mother.
In team sports, parents missed two families in Tokyo. Traveling to tournaments bonds parents as much as players. Some of them met when their sons were 12. They know one another’s quirks.
Tuesday afternoon, Laura Woodhead clanged a cowbell, passed out horns and waved a flag emblazoned with Olympic rings and the words “Allez Woodhead.” Mimi could barely speak. Laura tells her she’s the calmest parent there. Mimi said “terrified” is a better descriptor.
“I get nervous,” Mimi said. “I’m terrible. If I had a choice, I’d sit by myself.”
Traveling the world to watch their children compete at the highest level is not new. But the Olympics are different from global championships. Woodhead has ventured to three or four venues in a day, and some in her traveling party scored tickets to the men’s 100-meter final on the track.
“You get to see it all,” Laura said. “When you go to the world championships of water polo, you’re just watching water polo.”
The water polo is still the best part. When Dylan ambled past the french fry statue, he spotted a pack of high school friends who had made the trip and stood behind the American bench. “You guys were loud, bro!” Dylan said, exchanging daps and hugs. “I loved it!”
Dylan’s brother, Quinn, is in Paris as a first alternate, and his sister, Ella, was one of the last cuts for the women’s team. They can discuss strategy and how Dylan fits into the team. Laura just wanted to give him a hug.
“That’s my job,” Laura said.
After the Tokyo Games, Johnny Hooper went to work and considered leaving water polo behind. “Some people - including probably me - guilted him into it,” Mimi said, chuckling. “Like, ‘I didn’t get to go watch at the Olympics!’ He was like, ‘Okay, let me do one more time.’ ”
Some moments will remain missing, like blank pages in a book. Mimi was born in Japan, and her side of the family still lives there. She had planned to make Tokyo a transcontinental family celebration.
“My mom’s in her late 80s, and she thought this was going to be the last time she would see him in an Olympics,” Mimi said. “It was really hard. She lost that opportunity.”
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Sharing the joy and pain
No athlete reaches the Olympics alone. In the background are families who pour in time, money and support. They go to 7 a.m. swim meets and drive across the country to youth tournaments. They lift their children after disappointing losses so they can celebrate all the emotional wins.
Born in England, Terry Davison was a youth soccer coach in Inverness, Fla., when his sons became interested in rowing. “I didn’t know one end of the oar from the other,” he said with a laugh. But he turned a shack with a few broken down boats into a promising rowing club, coaching his sons in this foreign sport.
Ben Davison eventually qualified for the Tokyo Games with the U.S. men’s eight. His parents were crushed they couldn’t attend. They watched the Olympic competition from a watch party organized by USRowing at Universal Studies, saddened to see the U.S. boat finish in fourth place, just off the medal podium. Sarah Davison packed a care package that included a Benjamin Bunny children’s book they read together when Ben was younger.
“When they’re sad and your heart aches with them - I still love him the same no matter what,” said Sarah Davison, “ … Yeah, it hurts. It really does.”
The Davison booked their Paris travel plans long before Ben secured his Olympic spot. “Nonrefundable,” Terry said with a laugh. “I was sweating a bit on it. But you know, that’s it. I had my money on him.”
The American boat made it to Paris and will race in the men’s eight final Saturday at Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium, located 15 miles west of Paris.
“Try to tell Ben Davison that fourth in the Olympics is good. He's not having it,” the father said. “He was upset. But we're back.”
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Savoring what they missed
When Cindy Rusher was coming into town last week, she told her husband, “I want to slow down time for the next 10 days.” Their daughter Alie rowed for the U.S. team at the Tokyo Games, and their son Nick is now here competing in Paris.
“You realize it's a moment in time,” Cindy said, “and it's not necessarily always going to happen every four years. … I just I feel like I'm every day trying to appreciate everything that's going on.”
They know better than most the enduring quality of an Olympic memory. Both Cindy and Jack rowed at the Summer Olympics in 1988 and 1992. At both, they had their own parents. Jack’s 81-year-old grandfather traveled to Seoul, even though he was in a wheelchair.
Alie is here supporting her brother, knowing his Olympic experience will be the inverse of hers in so many ways.
“We’ve had a few discussions and just wistfully wishing what could have been,” Jack said.
The whole family began making Paris plans a year ago. They hoped Alie or Nick would make the U.S. team. If not, they figured, they’d just do a family vacation. So there’s 12 of them sharing a house in Paris this week, experiencing a non-covid Olympics together, making up for lost memories wherever possible.
“Most of the athletes have big groups of fans,” Jack says, “because I think everyone has a pent-up desire to make up for what was missed in Tokyo.”
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Better than a video feed
For the Robertses of Buchanan, Mich., BMX cycling always has been synonymous with family. They all pitched in at the bike park owned by an extended family member in the next town over, just across the border in Indiana. The arrangement was particularly sweet for Hannah, the youngest of the family’s four daughters.
“We all worked,” said her mother, Betty Roberts. “She got to ride.”
Under a blazing sun Tuesday afternoon, Betty and her husband, Rick, sat in Row 18 of the BMX stadium at Place de la Concorde, directly across from Olympic rings hanging above the freestyle course. The Eiffel Tower loomed to their right. Behind them sat Hannah’s three sisters, brother-in-law and two nephews. They watched as Hannah qualified for the medal round, trying to improve on her silver medal in Tokyo.
The family had watched then back in Buchanan, surrounded by nearly 2,000 people at a watch party in town commons. NBC had set up a two-way video feed so Hannah and her parents could see one another during competition.
“It was not quite the same. At all,” Betty said. “Here, I can go down and I can see her. There, I couldn’t touch her. You couldn’t give her a hug.”
The distance was especially hard in Tokyo. Hannah broke her foot a month before the Tokyo Games. Betty is a nurse, and she desperately wished she could have helped. “You can’t be there,” Betty said. “You can’t encourage her. You can’t see what’s wrong.”
“The last Olympics, I was going to take my dad,” Rick said. “He was suffering from cancer. He lost his battle in between. That was in the head.”
Rick and Betty were there Tuesday as Hannah dropped in. There were no nerves, only excitement. “C’mon, show me a flair!” Rick said, referencing a 180 backflip Hannah had been the first woman to execute - at age 12. Rick thrust his fist in the air as Hannah finished a flawless run, a 91.80 score.
All of a sudden, the public address speakers bellowed, “Shoutout to Rick Roberts, who is the house!” Rick laughed and tipped his cap. Darryl Nau, the stadium announcer who has become a family friend over the years, had asked Roberts if her dad would be there.
The announcement was another reminder of what they had missed in Tokyo. The BMX circuit is a “very small family,” Rick said. They chatted with a Mongoose rep and said hello to old friends. Many professionals train or compete at the bike park near the Roberts’ home, and Betty hates to see them spend money on a hotel.
“All of these women have at one point stayed at our house,” Betty said, pointing to the course.
When the horn concluded Roberts’s second run, she stopped atop a box. Betty leaned forward and screamed, “Woo!” Rick rose with his full 6-foot-3 frame and raised his hands. Roberts would later say she never spotted her family, but somehow she tapped her heart with both hands and pointed directly at them.
“I wanted to wear a Hawaiian shirt so it’d be easier for Hannah to see us,” Rick said, playfully side-eyeing Betty. “But somebody wouldn’t let me.”
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Present in the moment
The Huske family watched their daughter swim in the Tokyo Games from their home in Arlington, Va., along with her coach Evan Stiles and a handful of friends. They had traveled the world to watch her swim, and there was no way they were missing Paris.
They watched her race from the stands. The race was tight, and Huske was trailing until the last couple of mighty strokes. Jim noticed first. “She did it!” he yelled to his wife. “She did it!”
After the medal ceremony, Huske made a beeline to her parents in the stands, falling into Ying’s arms. The two rocked side to side.
“Oh, my goodness,” Ying would later say. “That's the moment that I'm so glad I didn't miss.”
Let others take in the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay. The Huskes are spending each day at the Olympic pool as their daughter takes aim at even more medals, close enough to reach out and touch.
“It’s magic,” Jim said. “There’s no other way to say it. Magic.”
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