Rochette's performance a fitting tribute to her mother

VANCOUVER, B.C. — As she finished the final spin in the most difficult program of her life, Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette put her right hand over her heart and unsuccessfully fought back tears that must have been welling for two days.

Just more than 48 hours after the death of her mother, Rochette skated herself into medal contention Tuesday night in women's short program.

She jumped and spun and stepped to Gerardo Matos Rodriguez' tango, "La Cumparsita," with all of the practiced élan and grace expected from a six-time national champion. She finished step one of the medal process in third place.

For 2 minutes and 48 seconds, she buried all of her pain. She hid her hurt and skated the precise program she had practiced for who knows how many hours, just for this night. Judges don't award points for courage, but they might have considered it as they watched Rochette.

"The level with which she skated was phenomenal," said William Thompson, CEO of Skate Canada and a close friend. "I watched her as she was getting ready to skate and she looked like she was struggling emotionally and then she just pulled herself together and went out and put down a performance that was magical and so heroic.

"My heart went out to her and she had me in tears. It's an incredible story. And, right now, I think her mother is jumping up and down up in the sky after watching that one. That was a dream performance."

Rochette's mother, Therese, 55, suffered a heart attack and died early Sunday morning. Her parents had arrived in Vancouver from their home in Montreal less than a day earlier.

This night should have been a family celebration. Rochette, is Canada's best women skater since Elizabeth Manley won the country's last Olympic medal, a silver, in 1988 and a serious medal threat.

But robbed of the joy she should have been sharing, Rochette skated with a sorrow that must have felt as deep as eternity. She carried a heart that was heavy with tragedy into each cleanly-executed jump.

Her home-country crowd at Pacific Coliseum practically jumped every jump with her, spun every spin and stepped every step. If a crowd could help an athlete through tragedy, it was doing it. There was a shared sympathy.

"She's a very strong person and she's going to go out and fight to the end," Canadian teammate Cynthia Phaneuf said before Rochette's skate. "She has to be strong and not think about her mother when she's out there."

Skating in the final group, 26th out of a total of 30 in the ladies' short program Tuesday night, Rochette earned a score of 71.30 Only Korea's Yu-Na Kim and Japan's Mao Asada were better.

"At this point, we'll take everything one day at a time," Robinson cautioned. "I don't think there's much doubt that Joannie has the capability of being a podium-placed skater. She's positioned herself well, but let's be honest, she's on a very difficult emotional roller coaster.

"It's not going to end tonight. This was helpful, I'm sure, but it's not the end. If she skates a long (program) and skates it well, she's done more than any of us could have hoped for under the circumstances."

Joannie Rochette, 24, delayed all of her stages of grief for this night, and for the memory of her mother.

She competed so she could thank her mother for all of the sacrifices, for all of the early-morning drives to the rink, for all of the support over a career in her sport's pressure cooker. And she delivered.

"She was as good as she's been all year," said Michael Slipchuk, high-performance director of Skate Canada. "She was able to get herself in the right frame of mind to skate the kind of clean program you have to skate in an Olympic Games. This was a big step for her today."

And, as she sat with her longtime coach Manon Perron waiting for the scores, she looked into the camera and appeared to mouth in French, "C'est pour toi, maman."

"This is for you, mother."

She couldn't have skated a more touching tribute.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.