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Brushing shoulders with some of the world’s greatest sports stars left Kat Sharkey a bit star-struck.
It struck Casey Eichfeld that such Olympic fun never seems to get old.
Whether the 2016 Rio Games were the Olympic debut for athletes like former Wyoming Seminary field hockey star Sharkey or the third Olympics for competitors like Drums native and USA canoeist Eichfeld, the impact remained the same.
To both of them, the first Olympics held in South America found a special place in their hearts.
“It was an amazing experience,” said Sharkey, a Moosic native who helped the USA Field Hockey team to a captivating entrance into the 2016 Summer Games by going 4-0 before dropping two consecutive games to finish fifth overall. “I created some really great memories on and off the field with my teammates that I’ll remember forever.”
The waters of Rio De Janeiro were filled with moments Eichfeld may never forget.
“Each thought draws more emotion,” Eichfeld wrote on his GoFundMe page, “and I have trouble finishing a sentence. I have been fortunate beyond my wildest dreams. I cannot tell you the pride that I feel representing The United States of America at arguably the greatest sporting stage.”
It’s a stage where Sharkey shined.
Pushing the ball up the pitch at lightning speed and creating one scoring chance after another for her USA teammates, Sharkey help spark a United States field hockey team that finished last in the 2012 London Olympics to the brink of first place in the Group B pool.
But Team USA dropped the group championship game to eventual gold medal winner Great Britain, then lost an ensuing quarterfinal match to bronze medalist Germany. Still, the Americans finished fifth overall by winding up 4-2 — winning twice as many games as any United States field hockey team had won in any previous Olympics while upsetting heavily favored and higher-ranked Argentina and Australia along the way.
“It was disappointing to not finish on the medal stand, like we had hoped,” said Sharkey, who joined former Wyoming Seminary teammate and Larksville resident Kelsey Kolojejchick as an Olympic starter for Team USA. “I think we all played some of our best hockey in two years against those two (medalist) teams. It was cool to be able to represent my country at the greatest sporting event in the world.”
It was another great run for Eichfeld, who was on the brink of a medal run in the men’s single canoe slalom (C1) competition before two penalties pushed him to a seventh-place finish.
“It is bittersweet, but I can smile. Again,” Eichfeld wrote. “I have proven to myself that I can get there. Two penalties of two seconds each stood between me and the podium. That is our great sport. I knew I would not stand on the podium when I finished my run, but I celebrated anyway because I knew I had left nothing out there. I paddled with a 24-year-old dream driving me, and my speed reflected that.”
His third Olympic competition also brought Eichfeld to the finals in the double canoe slalom (C2) competition, where he finished 10th with partner Devin McEwan.
“An Olympic Final is a great accomplishment, and I am so glad that I could share in it with Devin,” Eichfeld wrote, while looking back on 12 years of training that sent him to a third straight Summer Games. “I have trouble believing that. Many hope for one, and many never arrive. For one brief month, every two years, athletes come together to represent something amazing.”
For Sharkey, there were some gold medal moments away from the action.
“I think the atmosphere in the (Olympic) Village was pretty exciting,” Sharkey said. “We met (PGA star Bubba Watson) in the dining hall, and he came to our game against India. It was really neat to see him in the stands.
“It was so cool to be eating in the same dining hall with some of the greatest athletes in the world, seeing (gold medal record-holding swimmer) Michael Phelps and the U.S. gymnastics team.”
It turns out that gold medal-glittered United States women’s gymnastics team became quite close with Team USA field hockey — both in proximity and in spirit.
“The gymnasts lived right next door to me,” Sharkey said. “I saw their entire team multiple times a day. When they won, our team made a poster and hung in on their door. They were very appreciative.”
And as for all those fears and concerns about catching a disease in Rio De Janeiro’s sewage-filled waters or through the mosquito-bred Zika virus?
Well, Sharkey and her teammates never had those worries materialize.
“I really didn’t,” Sharkey said. “I think everyone who was going to Brazil heard about those concerns through the media. I hardly saw any mosquitoes at all the whole time I was there, so I wasn’t worried about the Zika virus. We really didn’t have any other problems. I really had a great time.
“I think Brazil put on a great Olympics.”
