Tears on the path to gold

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It's a busy time of year for me with finalizing next years sponsorships and logistics, I asked my friend and new team Director Giana Roberge to write a few words to accompany the video below, she wrote this from her bed.

Giana was injured a week ago in a terrible car crash, she was the passenger who suffered a head on collision. Broken collarbone, broken sternum and a contusion on her heart, she was on her way to a surprise birthday party...for her. She never made it to the party she ended up in hospital. She will be fine, she is a tough one to say the least.

Though her heart is bruised, she speaks from it, she was worried that it was too corny.... I reminded her that its Christmas time, its okay to be corny, hec...I've watched 'Love Actually' 42 times, I am queen of corny and I cry in the latest episode of 'The Heat is On!'
~ Nicola

Being a women’s director or women's manager means tending to a garden of hope. Entrusted with athletes’ dreams, hopes, aspirations and goals, a director’s motivation is to make dreams into Medals, Jerseys, and Titles.

Throughout the journey, you stand witness to each individual’s growth as an athlete and woman. You watch them falter. You stand witness as they make mistakes, a necessity to learning and to putting building blocks of dreams into a foundation of reality .

The Director or Manager provides tools to each athlete, in the form of equipment, salary, media support, clothing, food, nutritional support, organization, foresight, tactical and strategical planning, logistical planning, day by day event planning, yearly structure, an ear, a shoulder, a leg-up. Your roles include teacher, friend, parent, disciplinarian, guide, mentor, agent, manager, and at times, banker.

You are loved and respected, and if you do your job well, at times resented and disliked. Like a parent, your job is to be objective, to plan for and ensure the athlete's well being forward in her career; and, at times, the present is sacrificed for the scope of the future.

In every way support is possible, a Manager or Director is present in an athlete’s life. Many times, personal sacrifice of time and finances is required to provide more building blocks to your team so that each individual can continue to maximize her potential and make her way down the path to the pot of Gold. Whether that be an Olympic Gold, a World Championship Gold or a Golden Jersey, each rider on the team is provided with equal support, guidance and respect.

At times as a Manager or Director, what is needed to make dreams possible is not available, and in choking words, the disappointment comes falling from your mouth only after every stone has been overturned. The eager faces fall; hopes, once a rolling boil, come to a soft simmer, and sights are reset. For no matter how the potential is activated, nurtured, cared for and believed in, without the dollars and cents required, potential is just a dream, never to become an Olympic Medal, a National Title, a Yellow Jersey. Hope remains hope, a reality undetermined due to the bottom line.

Women’s teams, more than men’s, are in a constant battle between the bottom line and the finish line. A Women’s Team rarely has what it takes to strike the serene balance between the dollars and cents and the necessary components to making hopes a podium place. But in the magical moment of watching your athlete skitter along the slippery podium steps up to the top place, trembling hands rising up to clasp the hard fought for golden medallion, her smile pierces your heart and yet again you are on the hunt to assemble all that is needed for more hopes to bloom into a burst of Golden reality.

Thank you for reading and please enjoy episode 2 of 'The heat is On' produced by BrakeThrough Media.

Giana Roberge, Director
Peanut Butter & Co.TWENTY12

The Heat is On - Ep 2 "Building Champions" from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.