RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, April 10, 2021 - The
average 9-5 worker probably wouldn’t have minded
a year off, as has been the involuntary
sabbatical of Heather Bansley and Brandie
Wilkerson over the last 16 months. Nor would the
average 9-5 worker probably have minded an
extended – and open-ended – stay in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, home to many of the most
beautiful beaches in the world and the most
talent in beach volleyball, as Bansley and
Wilkerson are.
Then again, most 9-5 workers are not Bansley and
Wilkerson. And their job? It’s not exactly a 9-5
one.
Problem was: they couldn’t go to work.
A month ago, that finally changed, when Doha,
Qatar, hosted the first four-star event in which
women were able to compete, marking the first
time in more than a year that the Canadians have
played in a tournament.
The first time they’ve been able to go to work.
“Finally,” Bansley said, “we were able to do
our job.”
Theirs was a job done well. Bansley and
Wilkerson finished ninth in Doha, losing a
three-set battle with fellow Canadians and
eventual silver medallists Sarah Pavan and
Melissa Humana-Paredes. Was ninth the result
they ultimately desired? No, not really. But
just to compete again, to play in a match with
refs and lines and rules and stakes and
consequences, was a win in and of itself.
“It’s so different to compete,” Wilkerson said.
“You just try not to get too mad at yourself for
making these little mistakes.”
Such was the universal sentiment following Doha:
the thrill and exhilaration of competition was
suddenly, for every player in the field, a bit
foreign. Heart rates skyrocketed. Prize money
and Olympic points were back on the line. A
simple error suddenly felt bigger, more
consequential.
Such are the tricks the mind plays when you
haven’t competed at the world-class level in
quite some time. And Bansley and Wilkerson
certainly remain one of the best teams in the
world.
They are still very much the team who
barnstormed the opening stretch of this Olympic
qualification period, with successsul outings in
Las Vegas, Chetumal and, though it didn’t count
for Olympic points, a p1440 event in San Jose
that featured a field replete with many of the
world’s best.
That torrid start, and consistently high
finishes since, has put them in an enviable
position: sixth in the provisional Olympic
Rankings. While a bid to Tokyo is not
guaranteed, it is likely they will qualify,
regardless of what happens in the next five
events in Cancun, Sochi, and Ostrava.
But ah, that would be forecasting, planning,
projecting, “and if the past year has taught us
anything,” Bansley said, “it’s that plans can
change.”
So for now, we won’t plan, or project, or
forecast. We will do nothing of the
prognosticating sort in this bizarre, Covid era
of life.
“I know it’s cliché,” Bansley said, “but we’re
really just taking this one tournament at a
time.”
It may be cliché, but clichés are clichés for a
reason, and to take it one tournament at a time
is really all any individual or team can do at
the moment. So they’ll continue training in Rio,
where they’ve been for several months because
Canada remains one of the more locked down
countries in the world. They’ll hit Cancun for
three weeks – “that’s the plan anyway,”
Wilkerson said with a laugh, because we know
what happens when you make plans these days –
and where they go from there, they aren’t
entirely sure.
Maybe back to Rio. Maybe to Hermosa Beach,
California, where a lengthy list of the top
American teams, among a few other federations,
are currently training. Wherever they end up,
whatever plan winds up materialising at the last
minute, they’ll be smiling, as always.
Happy once more to finally have a job to do. |