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Thursday, February 25, 2010
(CNN) -- Things were good for Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette in the weeks before the Winter Olympics. She had a 2009 world silver medal. Training was going well. And, she told her agent, she had her confidante and source of strength by her side.
"'I have my mom,'" agent Dave Baden recalled Rochette saying to him at the time. "'At this point, I know what to do, and I have my mother.'"
"She's been training for this all her life, so the only thing she needed to get to that next level was the strength she got from her mother," Baden said.
That strength, he said, is helping her pull through the Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, even though her mother is now gone.
Therese Rochette died Sunday of a heart attack in Vancouver at age 55, Canadian Olympic officials said. Joannie Rochette opted to stay in the games, and two days later stirred a crowd with a courageous performance that earned the third best score in the women's short program.
Therese Rochette died Sunday of a heart attack in Vancouver at age 55, Canadian Olympic officials said. Joannie Rochette opted to stay in the games, and two days later stirred a crowd with a courageous performance that earned the third best score in the women's short program.
On Thursday, the 24-year-old will finish her drive for her first Olympic medal during the free skate program at Pacific Coliseum.
