- Lauretta Brown (OSV News).
The Catholic athletes participating in this year's Games join a long tradition of Catholic Olympic athletes who have made history with their inspiring stories of faith and perseverance. Here are just a few of the Catholic stories from previous Winter Games.
“Reina Yuna” and the influence of a priest and Catholic friends
One of the most admired Olympic figure skaters of all time, Yuna Kim of South Korea, bore witness to her Catholic faith at two Olympic Games where she took gold and silver medals in 2010 and 2014. Called “Queen Yuna” by figure skating fans, Kim converted to the faith in 2008 after a chance encounter with Catholic doctors and a priest.
“I had an injury, in fact, several injuries, starting in 2006, that forced me to be hospitalized several times,” she explained in a 2014 interview with the then Pontifical Council for the Laity (now Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life).
“In the hospital I had a providential encounter with some Catholic doctors with whom I forged a relationship of trust. They quoted phrases from the Bible and the New Testament to encourage and console me, and all this helped me a lot to overcome the psychological problems I had due to the continuous relapses after the injury.”.
“I would say what impressed me most was that they didn't try to convince me,” she added. “It was a selfless act for a girl who was going through a difficult time in her life and career; they sought to give me the best possible advice, in line with their worldview.”.
“Faith in Catholicism gave me strength.”
He described the recovery process as “the most difficult time of my life,” with recurring back problems for two years; it seemed like I would have them forever. There comes a time when you find yourself at a crossroads. You wonder if it's really worth it to keep going and, if it is, where you can find the strength to keep waiting. I needed to be able to count on something or someone. Faith in Catholicism gave me all this. For me it was a completely unknown path. Neither my mother nor my father were believers. But in the hospital I met Father Lee.
“He was not only the priest at the clinic, but he was also a patient at the time, and a common destiny seemed to create a bond between us,” he said. “After meeting Father Lee, I began to understand in more detail the fundamental teachings of Catholicism; he tutored me in the Bible and the Gospels; in short, he introduced me to the faith; hence my decision to be baptized along with my mother.”.
He was baptized with his mother
At her baptism, Kim took the name “Stella” in honor of the Marian title “Stella Maris”, Star of the Sea, and told a diocesan newspaper that during the baptism she “felt a huge comfort in her heart” and promised God to continue “always praying,” especially before competitions.
In 2010 he joined the Korean bishops to explain the rosary through the example of the rosary ring he wore in the competition.
Tara Lipinski and the Little Flower
Another revered Olympic figure skater and current NBC figure skating commentator, Tara Lipinski, who won a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Games, attributed her success, in part, to the intercession of Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower.
Lipinski, whose mother, Pat, felt renewed in her Catholic faith after a novena to St. Therese, said in a 2001 interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that she liked the saint “because she didn't seem perfect, which makes you feel like you have something in common with her.”.
She identified with St. Therese's battles with perfectionism and said it was comforting to know that the saint could be “a little spoiled.”.
“She had a hard time getting into the convent, just like I had a hard time being accepted, because I was too young,” she added. Lipinski won her Olympic gold medal at just 15 years old.
Before her long program in Nagano, Japan, her coach held her statue of St. Therese while Lipinski was out skating. «I remember being on the ice and feeling her strong presence there with me,» he said of the saint. “I thought about her constantly. It distracted me from doubts about myself or technical issues.”.
“I think she's changed me as a person,” Lipinski said. “I think about her often. I think, what would she do? Her Little Way applies to everything in life.”.
A skier's Olympic ring for San Pier Giorgio Frassati
Cross-country skier Rebecca Dussault took her faith to the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, 20 years ago.
Prior to his trip to the games, Dussault married his childhood sweetheart at age 19 and credits his mother-in-law with awakening his faith.
“He really had and has a deep interior life, and that is what he continually transmitted to us: the love and mercy of Jesus Christ, and the beauty, depth and greatness of the Catholic faith,” he said. “He showed us the universal Church with such passion and constancy that we fell in love with his faith.”.
Dussault declared recently told OSV News that the Turin Games were special, even though she didn't come home with a medal. She traveled to the Games with her husband and 4-year-old son, who cheered her on from the sidelines, and used the occasion to spread devotion to the then Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati by engraving his name on her Olympic ring.
St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, canonized in September, was a passionate skier and mountaineer whose motto was well known: “Verso l'alto” (“To the heights”).
Dussault still skis and enjoys time at his property in Idaho with his eight children and two grandchildren.
“If you can play sports with a clear conscience and at the same time build the kingdom of God, then you have truly achieved a certain greatness,” he emphasized.
A speed skater turned Franciscan sister
Kirstin Holum was a rising star in the speed skating world at the Nagano Winter Olympics. Her future looked bright as the youngest junior national speed skating champion at age 17. She placed sixth for the U.S. team in the 3000 meters and seventh in the 5000 meters.
Her mother and coach, Dianne Holum, was a speed skating legend who won a gold medal at the 1972 Munich Olympics. She was also a devout Catholic who emphasized the importance of faith.
His vocation, in Fatima
He paid for his daughter's pilgrimage to the Marian shrine in Fatima, Portugal.
It was there, at the age of 16, that Holum perceived the meaning of his vocation and the “powerful experience of perceiving the presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament”.
Instead of continuing his speed skating career, Holum decided to join the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal in the Bronx borough of New York City after finishing college.
Later, at the invitation of the Bishop of Leeds, she was sent to open a new convent in England. “I was asked to be part of the first group of sisters sent as missionaries,” she told the NBC in 2018.
She said she has no regrets about the path she chose.
“I didn't feel in my heart that I was going to skate the rest of my life; I knew there was more to life than the sport,” she said in an interview with Catholic News Service. “I never regretted that decision. I think it was just a grace from God that led me to something more.”.
“The excitement and the joy of competing and being successful, even just doing your best, is a great thrill,” she told NBC. “But it was always a fleeting joy: you're on to the next event, so you get nervous about that.”.
“I think, deep down, we all long to be great and do something great,” he added. “It's only when you fully connect with God's plan for you that you find the peace to do something great, whatever it is.”.
Field hockey coach and priest sets an example of forgiveness
It was an improbable scene at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria: a Catholic priest coaching the Canadian team was hit in the face by a broken field hockey stick thrown by a Swedish player.
Father David Bauer, still bleeding from the blow, ordered his players not to retaliate against Sweden's Carl-Göran Öberg, as he did not want to take penalties in a close game won by Canada.
Father Bauer returned to the stadium the next day to watch the match between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. He invited Öberg to sit with him, conveying that he bore him no grudge.
Although Canada finished fourth that year, Father Bauer was recognized for his sportsmanship in response to the Öberg incident.
Vocation to the priesthood
Brother of Boston Bruins star Bobby Bauer, Father Bauer was a successful junior field hockey player in Canada in the 1940s. However, instead of entering the world of professional field hockey, he pursued a vocation to the priesthood with the Basilian order and began teaching at St. Michael's College in Toronto and later at St. Mark's College at the University of British Columbia.
Taking a holistic approach to coaching, Father Bauer said, “If you can improve the child as a person through the virtues of field hockey (courage, judgment, prudence, fortitude, teamwork and fair play), he will improve as a field hockey player.”.
Father Bauer received the Order of Canada in 1967 for his contributions to field hockey. He passed away in 1988 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989.
The ‘bobsledder’ who stays on track with prayer.
Curtis “Curt” Tomasevicz, a historic gold and silver medalist in bobsleigh at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, said in a 2018 interview that his Catholic faith is what keeps his life on track.
“If I wasn't Catholic, I think my life would be the equivalent of a bobsledding accident,” said . “Being Catholic allows me to be clear about my priorities and to know that, despite what most people say, sports competitions are ephemeral and one should not measure one's self-worth by them.”.
“My first crash, which lasted so long that I was able to pray three and a half Hail Marys before the sled stopped, was very shocking,” he recalled, “but I had to charge back and not let fear get the better of me. It was also a strong reinforcement that I never pray to win, but that everyone would compete to the best of their abilities and that no one would get hurt.
Bobsleigh: “I did not allow him to become a god to me”.”
“At the end of my career, I had a void to fill because of my departure from bobsleigh,” he emphasized. “I had gotten used to planning everything around the sport, so there was a big transition when it ceased to exist. It reinforced how important it is for me to be Catholic: to be part of the Church that Christ founded for our well-being.
I was very motivated to be the best bobsleigher I could be, but I didn't allow it to become a god for me. If I had allowed it, the transition would have been devastating instead of challenging.‘.
Now, Tomasevicz has returned to the Winter Games in a new role as sports performance director for the U.S. bobsled team in Milan.
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Lauretta Brown is culture editor of OSV News. You can follow her at @LaurettaBrown6.
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