By Steve Keating
BEIJING (Reuters) – When your father is Ken Read, a charter member of the Crazy Canucks with his name on a Kitzbuhel gondola for winning on the infamous Streif course, carving out your own career comes with added issues for sons Jeff and Erik.
Some expectations may be realised over the next fortnight on the Yanqing slopes at the Beijing Winter Olympics and others will not.
Erik, a technical specialist, will represent Canada while Jeff, a downhiller like his father, did not make the cut and will be an alternate on the Alpine skiing team.
“It’s more motivation to try and be at that level,” Jeff told Reuters. “He (Ken) doesn’t want to put more pressure on me.
“He’s got a little bit of a sour taste for the Olympics himself, but he always hopes for the best for Erik and I and definitely knows the path we need to take and tries to keep us on it but never forces anything.”
When your father is a famous athlete, embarking on a similar career path is fraught with comparisons.
Mick Schumacher, son of Formula One champion Michael Schumacher knows this, so do the sons of another Canadian sporting icon, ice hockey’s “Great One”, Wayne Gretzky.
Schumacher’s F1 story is still being written but has not got off to a promising start with the struggling Haas team.
Gretzky’s first son Ty tried hockey and ended up choosing school, middle son Trevor opted for baseball and Tristan golf.
FAMILY PATH
Some embrace the idea of following a family path and others reject it. While Jeff and Erik chose skiing, Read’s middle son Kevin took school over the White Circus.
A group of under-funded daredevils who took on the European ski racing establishment, the Crazy Canucks are part of Canada’s sporting identity chronicled in books and movies.
If there is any relief for the young Reads it is that the Crazy Canucks’ legacy is not their burden alone but a responsibility shared by every member of the country’s Alpine ski team.
“They had to learn to navigate that (Read’s sons),” said Ken, who experienced his own Olympic disappointment when a binding released 15 seconds into his downhill run at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics where he had been the gold medal favourite.
“When you’re a parent, I watch and of course there is the nervous anticipation and that never changes. You learn quickly that it is a long road.
“You look for those little wins and you realise not every race is going to be a step forward, there are steps back.
“They’re proud of what their parents did but then are trying to strike their own way.”
Charting their own courses has not been without challenges but for Jeff there has been more upside.
“The impact he and the other Crazy Canucks had is crazy, it is something we strive for,” said Jeff.
“It’s really cool to see, in Kitzbuhel the first time I went there I went up in the Ken Read gondola, that was a pretty cool experience,” he added.
“I’m still known now as the son of Ken and slowly growing to be the brother of Erik but the older crowd still knows me has Ken’s son.”
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Beijing, Editing by Ed Osmond)
