EDMONTON — As Kelsey Mitchell was cycling for Olympic gold in Tokyo, her friends back home in Edmonton were donning her old racing skin suits and cheering her on as they watched the track competition on Nicole Ruptash's deck.
Mitchell and Ruptash are more than just good friends. The two have known each other since junior high, and when Mitchell travelled to Toronto for the training camp where she switched from soccer to cycling, Ruptash went with her.
And after Ruptash got hit in the mouth during a softball game last year, Mitchell lent an extra hand and helped a doctor put her teeth back in.
"She's such an amazing person and an amazing friend. She has a big friend group and family group that support her and love her, but she gives that right back. It's a two-way street for sure," Ruptash said in an interview Sunday.
Mitchell won Canada's final medal of the Tokyo Olympics on Sunday, beating Olena Starikova of Ukraine to take gold in the women's sprint event.
Mitchell arrived in Sherwood Park, just east of Edmonton, from Fort McMurray back when she and Ruptash were in Grade 9. They were in the same class, both were athletic — Mitchell played soccer while Ruptash played basketball — and they remained friends even when they ended up in different high schools. Both played competitive post-secondary sports, too.
Mitchell attended an RBC Training Camp qualifier in 2017, a program sponsored by the Canadian Olympic Committee and other organizations designed to widen and deepen the pool of high-performance athletes by recruiting them from all levels of different sports.
The camp was in Toronto and Ruptash said the two of them stayed at a friend of Mitchell's mother.
"She did not own a bike whatsoever. I think maybe the last time she would have rode on a bike would have been in a gym class," Ruptash recalled.
"Originally, I think she was thinking something more like bobsled or maybe power skating. I think cycling never really crossed her mind."
But Cycling Canada was interested and Mitchell quickly showed talent for the sport.
Friends like Ruptash cheered her on as Mitchell won sprint gold at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, and set a world record in the women's flying 200-metre sprint in Bolivia during the Pan American track cycling championship the same year.
The "skin suit group," as Ruptash calls them, were even in the stands when Mitchell won two medals at a track cycling World Cup event in Milton, Ont., in January 2020.
But Mitchell is just as supportive. When Ruptash got certified as a fitness instructor, Mitchell, who had just arrived back in Edmonton directly from training, showed up and took part in her first class.
Later in 2020, when the cycling team was training in Edmonton, Mitchell rushed to the hospital when she heard Ruptash took a line drive in the face while pitching in a local softball game, knocking out six teeth, splitting her lip and breaking her palate.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, Ruptash was allowed only one person to accompany her in the hospital, and Mitchell was it. Mitchell piped up and asked if there was anything she could do to help, and to their surprise, the surgeon replied that an extra set of hands would be great.
"She was holding the suction and holding my lip together," Ruptash laughed.
Pandemic restrictions kept Mitchell's friends from travelling to the Olympics, but they still supported her with texts and chats, as well as an outdoor viewing party that screamed and whooped with joy when Mitchell crossed the line for gold.
Ruptash's message to Mitchell afterward was simple:
"You deserve this. Go and enjoy your moment."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 8, 2021.
Rob Drinkwater, The Canadian Press
