By Nancy Girgis
Many of us have this typical image of an athlete: larger-than-life, nose so high inthe air it scrapes the sky, and enough attitude to fill a room. Whether this athleteis amateur or professional, we imagine them ordering us lowly commoners scurryingaround.
In fact, in some cases, nothing could be farther from the truth. One thing that must be remembered is that despite their quasi-celebrity status, athletes are as human as you and I.
For those who have been living blindfolded in a cave with their hands over their ears for the past two years or so, meet Nicolas Macrozonaris: the 21-year old sprinter who hails from Chomedey.
Meeting this athlete has proved to this reporter that those who work hard at aspecific sport are just as down-to-earth as people who work hard in an office. As Macrozonaris so eloquently puts it: "Athletes havefeelings too." Most importantly enough, despite all his awards and medals,Macrozonaris should not be looked at as the athlete solely, but as the man behind theathlete.
What is interesting about Macrozonaris is that he does not fit into those “classical” tales of early sport beginnings that most athletes ascribe to.
His flicker of interest for running actually emerged at the ripe age of 16, when watching the track and field events at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Watching Donovan Bailey run the 100-meter event and winning the gold medal in record time was an inspiration to Macrozonaris.
Seeing himself as a natural athlete with the ambition to achieve his goal, he began to train at Parc de la Nature in Duvernay and on the track behind Chomedey High School. The ambition exhibited by this young man is rather overwhelming: at the age of 18 he began serious training when he signed up with a club and hired a coach.The words he uttered to his coach Sylvain Desmarais at his first practice? “I want to run in the Olympics.”
And did he ever. Unfortunately for him, not everybody believed him when at theage of 18 he stated he’d be running in the 2000 Olympics.
As an amateur, he received no funding whatsoever, thus he needed to solicit funds in order to keep his dreams alive. Macrozonaris, being of Greek background, began to writeletters to prominent businesses of Greek descent in the Chomedey area. One would think that the Greek community would gladly get behind one of their own and encourage him to pursue his dreams.
Unluckily for Macrozonaris, the opposite happened. Although he understands that the Greek community cannot easily help out a guy coming out of the blue, he is baffled that there is an outpouring of support now that he has accomplished so many things. “The fact that they didn’t support me is fine, it doesn’t matter,”mentioned Macrozonaris. “But at least if they could have replied to my phone calls and letters just to tell me ‘Nick, we are can't help’, maybe now I’d be sitting with them smiling at all the parties and social functions they invite me to.”
It upsets Macrozonaris to know that the Greek community wishes to offer him their support only now that he is a world-renowned athlete. “It hurts being laughed at when you’re 18 and you go on a radio show and say you will be competing in the Sydney Olympics. I look back at it now, I’m 21 years old, and I’ve achievede very thing I said I would. Hopefully people will wake up, next time a young Greek athlete asks for some help,he’ll be treated like a man rather than like a boy.”
Despite all this, Macrozonaris is grateful to the support he’s received from Chomedey and from the rest of Laval. He is rather fond of Tennis 13, with whichhe credits having helped him out at the very beginning of his career. “When I began my training, I needed somewhere to work out,” stated the athlete.“I came here [Tennis 13] and told them that I was an amateur athlete and that I needed a gym to work out in. And they were so nice here: they gave me a freemembership, no questions asked.”
Of course, Tennis 13 can now reap the benefits of having an Olympian roaming its halls, but they had no way of knowing that a young man begging for a chance would make it big in the near future. As well, the City of Laval displayed its pride during the 2000 Olympics in Sydney by offering Macrozonaris an amount of money, alongside three other athletes as a thank-you for representingthe city.
Most importantly, Macrozonaris knows and cannot forget where it all began. If itwere not for his picture plastered in every local newspaper, Macrozonaris just appears to be a normal Chomedey resident rather than the man bound to become the biggest household name since Donovan Bailey. Rather than turning into some egotistical celebrity, Macrozonaris remains a down-to-earth person and knows that whenever hecrosses the finish line, he cannot help but think of where it all started, right here in Chomedey. |
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