This is an interesting and very in-depth article about Charles (Olivier Jean is a party animal? Who would have guessed?)
Speed skater Charles Hamelin on track to explodeSoft-spoken speed skater saves boldest statements for ice
Dave Feschuk / February 2, 2010 / Toronto Star
Short-track speed skaters, the good ones at least, find it best not to over-analyze their lots in life. The finishing order of their sport's biggest races, after all, can be as predictable as a crash landing, complete with body contact of sinister motivation and head-scratching disqualifications.
Handicapping the madness is madness. So maybe the reason Canada's Charles Hamelin is among the relative favourites to win an impressive haul of medals at the Vancouver Olympics is that he hasn't spent a moment of the past four years torturing himself with questions of, "Why me?" and "What might have been?" Hamelin, after all, was dubiously bumped off the podium in the final of the 1,500 metres at the Turin Games in 2006. The Olympic rookie from Levis, Que., led the race with a few laps to go and he looked in good shape to make a sprint for a medal.
But he was knocked off-stride by a Chinese skater who, perhaps not by coincidence, cleared the way for another Chinese to earn the bronze. And though the offender from the People's Republic was disqualified, Hamelin's lost momentum couldn't be calculated and instead of taking a stab at gold, he fell back to fourth place.
"If I don't get bumped, I'm definitely going for gold," Hamelin philosophized after the race was over. "(But) that's the game sometimes."
Four years on, at age 25, the game has treated him to kinder outcomes of late. He is Canada's best short-track competitor, the reigning world champion in the 500 metres and the world record-holder in the 1,000.
He has won a handful of medals over the most recent World Cup season, including Canada's first gold at 1,500 metres in more than a decade.
And depending on the way the fates treat Hamelin on Feb. 13, the first day with medals on the line in Vancouver, his turn in the 1,500 could give him a shot at being the much-ballyhooed first Canadian to win Olympic gold on home soil.
Not that he is spending much time asking, "What if I'm the one?" He will compete, after all, in all four of the short-track disciplines, the 500, 1,000, 1,500 and the relay (the latter of which saw him earn his lone Olympic medal, a silver, at Turin); Kalyna Roberge, Canada's best women's short-tracker, is the only other Canadian who has qualified for all four events. And as Marianne St. Gelais, Hamelin's girlfriend of three years and a fellow member of the Olympic team, will tell you, "The biggest part of (Hamelin's) success is in his head. He only thinks about what he needs to do on the ice."
Indeed, what makes him strong also makes him something of a relatively inscrutable subject. While teammate Olivier Jean, another of Canada's medal hopefuls, is an out-and-out attention seeker, a tangled nest of dreadlocks offering up party-time confessions – "If I drink one, I usually have 10 or 12," Jean said a while back, adding that he has kicked the booze habit in the lead-up to the Games – Hamelin is soft-spoken and often short of quotable verbiage in English and in French.
St. Gelais, though she is more than five years younger than her boyfriend, said she had to take the initiative in their relationship.
"I made the first move. He was really shy. And when he was talking to me, his face was red and he was stuttering," said St. Gelais, giggling. "He's shy, but not on the ice. On the ice, he's another man. He's not the same Charles. I think that's why he's good. On the ice, he's another man. Off the ice, he's a normal, quiet person.
Francois Hamelin, Charles' 23-year-old brother who is also a member of the Olympic squad – their father, Yves, is the sport's national director and the Olympic team leader – said his older sibling's status as the steeliest of competitors comes from his ability not to clutter his mind with concern.
"I'm a stress person," Francois said. "So I try to be like him and try to relax."
Added Jean: "Compared to me, Charles doesn't ask too many questions. I'm often doubting. ... Charles gets there, gets the job done. He's really, really confident doing that."
The confidence comes with an acute knowledge of his chief rivals, among them South Korea's Lee Ho-Suk and the U.S.'s Apolo Anton Ohno. And Hamelin, whose other teammates on the men's squad include three-time Olympian Francois-Louis Tremblay and Guillaume Bastille, has his layers. He's an enthusiastic visual artist, spending much of his free time drawing manga, the Japanese-style comics. He drives a sporty red car known as a Mazdaspeed3 and speaks quietly of a love for speed. He occasionally unzips his racing suit to reveal nipples menacingly perforated by shiny metal skewers.
And he disputes the notion that his results in Vancouver will come down to the occasionally soul-piercing whim of the skating gods.
"I think, on the ice, you can show people the real way you are, the real you," Charles Hamelin said.
"When I want to go in front (of the pack), it will not take a long time. I will be in the front. It takes a corner, or a straightaway and I'll be in the front. ... I'm an explosive guy."
