For Ryan Bernhard, it's been a long road back to the long track.
The 18-year-old Muenster native is wearing a silver medal around his neck these days after he and his Saskatchewan teammates blazed to a hard-fought second-place finish in long track speed skating at the Canada Winter Games.
Bernhard and teammates Axel Morin, Pieter Stoffel and Michael Wrubleski took the silver with a time of four minutes 30.56 seconds in the team pursuit event, held Feb. 16 in Halifax. A powerhouse squad from Quebec finished with the gold in a time of four minutes 23.60 seconds. Manitoba was third for the bronze with a time of four minutes 32.30 seconds.
The team pursuit is an eight-lap race over the 400m long track oval. Unlike individual long track events, where competitors must change lanes each lap, in team pursuit only the inner lane is used. The distance covered is about 3,000m.
All four skaters on a team race at the same time, usually in a tight formation to minimize wind resistance. Winners are determined based on the position of a team's third skater, so teams will often "sacrifice" one skater by having that skater sprint at a pace he can't possibly maintain, in order to get them off to a dominant start.
"I was kind of the sacrifice guy, and they used me as much as possible early on because I'm more of a sprinter," Bernhard told the Humboldt Journal. "We tried to build up as much momentum as possible, with me and Axel switching off, and Pieter (a strong middle-distance skater) in there as well. It was really windy, so that made it a lot tougher, and we tried to keep our sprints shorter. Mike was our long distance guy, and he really pulled us through down the stretch."
In individual competition, Bernard also had top-10 finishes in the men's 100-metre and 500m events. He was sixth in the 100m and fifth in the 500m. He finished 16th overall in the 3000m event, and was 18th in the 5000m.
Although he failed to win a medal in individual competition, Bernhard was thrilled just to be able to compete at the Winter Games. The silver medal in team pursuit was icing on the cake.
Head injury
Bernhard suffered a concussion while swimming last summer, and wasn't medically cleared to compete until January. By that time he hadn't been on skates for several months, and he only managed to qualify for the Canada Games barely a week before they began.
The concussion happened on June 11, when Bernhard and friends were diving off the dock at Wakaw Lake. Bernhard actually hit the lake bottom with his head. Luckily, he wasn't knocked unconscious. Luckily, he didn't break his neck.
"I knew right away what had happened," he told the Journal. "When I came to the surface I had ringing in my ears and a little blood on my face. I told my friends, 'I hit my head, I hit my head.' They couldn't believe it, because how likely is that, to actually dive and hit your head on the bottom of a lake?"
The cut on his head took seven stitches to close. But other, more troubling symptoms soon began to surface.
"After a few weeks I thought I was better, and I started training again in early August," Bernhard explained. "I was going good for about a month. But then one day after working out, I started throwing up and throwing up, and I couldn't stop. Sometimes our training can be pretty intense, but I'd never experienced anything like that before."
Persistent headaches and sensitivity to light were other symptoms. A trip to a specialist at the University of Calgary's sports medicine centre confirmed the diagnosis of post-concussion syndrome. Bernhard ended up being sidelined for four months.
"It was really tough, because I couldn't do anything," he said. "Not even jogging or riding the stationary bike or things like that, because my balance was affected, too. And with concussions, you never know how long it's going to take. I had to just try to focus on schoolwork and stuff, and just be patient and let things heal."
Bernhard was finally able to resume some stationary bike training before Christmas. But he still didn't know if he'd be able to compete at the Winter Games. The top four skaters from Saskatchewan qualify, but Bernhard - who had previously been seeded first in the province - was still unable to skate when provincial qualifying took place in late December. Fortunately, a medical bye allowed him to postpone his qualifying for another month.
It was a relief to get back on the ice again on in early January, but Bernhard faced more than a few butterflies when he finally had his qualifying skate on Jan. 28.
"In qualifying you have to skate all distances for your trial (100m, 500m, 1500m, 3000m and 5000m), and I'm not a long-distance guy by any means," he noted. "In the five k I was initially disqualified, so I had to go outside and do it all over again five minutes later. So it was jump on the stationary bike, stay warm, then get the skates back on and get out there. The second time I got the time I needed, and I just gained more confidence after that."
Bernhard hopes to build on the momentum he's now gained with the Canada Winter Games to take a run at the World Championships next winter in Japan. He'll be 19 by then, so that will be his last shot at junior competition.
"I think I'll have a pretty good shot at making it," he noted. "But it all depends. If you want to make the team, you have to have a really good trail."
Bernhard trains in Calgary under the tutelage of coaches Arno Hoogveld and former world sprint champion and Olympic silver medalist Jeremy Wotherspoon. Incidentally, Wotherspoon was born in Humboldt, although he grew up in Red Deer, Alta.
