A Class Act

Yesterday was the final day of the track and a very good day it was for the USA. We entered the day with five overall medals and left with ten. In eight possible races we ended up with medals in five, three of which were gold. (Erin 500m Gold -- Joey 1000m Gold -- Senior Men Relay Gold -- Junior Men Relay Bronze -- Junior Women Relay Bronze)
Jonathon and Alex also made the 500m semi-finals which is not a medal, but still a top eight finish.

One thing that kind of bothered me throughout last night and parts of today was a scenario that played out like this: At worlds you are allowed to enter four competitors on your relay team, but only three are allowed to skate. What this means is that you can have an alternate skate the heat and someone else take their place in the final which personally is a pretty good thing IMO. We had a situation where Cheex had fallen twice the night before and was stiff in the morning of the relay heat so we did the logical thing and put the fourth guy in the heat and then played the wait and see game for the final. The fourth guy happened to be me and i had no problem skating the heat knowing that the final was Cheex's race if he could skate.. I had even talked to him and we were on the same page, it didn't matter to me. None of that bothered me at all.

What bothered me was how everyone wanted to tell me how good I had skated (in a heat) and how much it sucked i couldn't skate the final. Well it got old quick and in my own belief:
-I skated five total laps, I had one good one.. two bad ones.. and two okay laps.
-I skated so good to everyone because their expectations were not high,
-My first two tags were so bad their expectations dropped before I skated a good final lap.
-And Will and Joey bailed me out when I had my two bad laps so I could even have a good one.
-And I had skated better in my 1000m (in my opinion) and thought the relay just gathers more attention.

Now I don't mind the good jobs but it's everything else that came with it. I skated the first leg (the slowest leg) and if you discount my last lap (the good one) i did not skate a very good race and I did not have my team in good position until that final lap.

With all that being said here is where the title of my post comes in:
After the award ceremony I went out to the bus and patiently waited for everyone.. I found out they were trying to find out if it was possible to gain an extra (fourth) medal to give to me. They could not but even that they tried was pretty cool to me. On the bus Will told me how they tried for a fourth medal (especially because in most sports they would have been given the fourth medal) and he gave me his podium stuffed animal thing even after I tried to give it back, which showed class from him but wasn't necessary. Then back at the hotel Jake said Cheex wanted us to go down to their room where Cheex tried to give me his gold medal from the relay but there was no way I would accept that. But again it takes a LOT of class to even offer something like that. Then Joey wanted me to at least take the champion's jersey (claiming he didn't need it because he already has so many, haha) which took a lot of class as well. It's that type of behavior that proves a Champion is not someone that just wins races.

P.S. If anyone finds a video of the last lap of the relay final let me know because it is one of the best laps I've ever seen.