BEIJING - Jujie Luan was thousands of miles away training and competing in her quest to qualify for the Beijing Olympics when her 17-year-old daughter Jessica was hospitalized with an infection.
The difficult days that followed were just a few of the countless times over the past 15 months when the Edmonton fencer, a 50-year-old mother of three, would second-guess her decision and wonder if her Olympic dream would come at too steep a price.
"It was a hard time for Jujie and also for our family," said her husband Daijin Gu, who -- as he had become accustomed to doing -- convinced her to stay focused. Jessica, who has Down's syndrome and associated heart problems, and their two other children -- 14-year-old Jerrica and 10-year-old Daniel -- would be fine, he told her.
"She worried about us, she always worries about us," Gu said. "But she did a wonderful job. Finally she is here, and we are so proud to be here."
Luan's Olympic dream came to an end Monday, when she lost to Aida Mohamed of Hungary 15-7 in the round of 32 in the individual foil. But to her husband and three kids, who were there to cheer her on, and the Chinese crowd that chanted her name, her presence in Beijing alone was as good as gold.
"For me today, I don't think people care about what I do, how I finished, people mostly are proud of me -- you're in your 50s, you've been retired 20 years, you still can make Olympic Games," Luan said, at a news conference crowded with Canadian and Chinese reporters.
Luan is a legend in China after winning gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, China's first-ever medal in the sport. She competed at the 1988 Seoul Games, then moved to Canada the following year, settling in Edmonton, the city she fell in love with during the 1983 World University Games, packing away her competitive foil to take up coaching. She came out of retirement for the 2000 Games in Sydney, but didn't advance past the first round and retired once again.
In 2006, after several long discussions with her husband that went late into the night, she decided to launch a comeback to fence in Beijing.
"I told my husband, `I want to go to the Beijing Olympic Games,' and my husband said `Juj, you have nothing to lose,"' Luan said.
He made it sound simple. It wouldn't be simple at all. The next year-and-a-half would take Luan throughout Asia, South America and North America in her quest to qualify for Beijing, a lonely and costly endeavour.
But she wasn't alone Monday, walking onto the floor to a chorus of cheers. Luan, ranked 52nd in the world, went on to win her opening bout, defeating 19-year-old Ines Boubakri of Tunisia 13-9.
When asked about facing an opponent young enough to be her daughter, Luan replied "It doesn't matter, once you put on a mask to fence. This Olympic Games, everybody knows I'm 50, so on the piste (the long strip of floor the fencers compete on), it doesn't matter whether I win or lose.
"I wanted to show people I'm still young," she said. "I think I'm doing not too bad."
Luan faced a tougher foe in her second bout in seventh-ranked Mohamed, the fourth-place finisher at the Athens Olympics. Mohamed was up 12-3 early in the third round before Luan scored a flurry of points to pull within five. But the Hungarian fencer finished strong to win the bout.
"I thought it was really exciting, Olympics and everything, all the best fencers in the world, and I guess I was really proud of my mom, competing after so many years and her being so old and everything," said Jerrica, in typical 14-year-old fashion.
"I felt really nervous for her, and I was really unsure what other people would think. But we were all really proud and I thought it was really amazing how still, in China all these people got up and clapped for her, and were cheering for her, and I thought, `Wow, she's still considered a hero here."'
Luan walked onto the floor with a handmade flag that spelled out the words "Hello my home country" in Chinese characters. It was a gesture of thanks, she said, to the country that helped her develop into a world-class fencer.
The five-foot-seven lefty, a nine-time Chinese national champion, was actually a hero in China well before her Olympic gold. At the 1977 world junior championships, Luan was stabbed in the bicep of her foil arm by her Russian opponent, but pulled the piece of blade out of her arm and fought on, eventually winning a silver medal.
A movie was made about the fearless Chinese fencer. A commemorative postage stamp and coin was made in her honour after she won Olympic gold, and she was named one of China's top 50 athletes of the half-century.
"You can go on the street, just say her name, and anybody over 30 years old, they all know her," said Gu. "Also the young people, they're learning from the textbooks."
Luan was scheduled to appear on CCTV, China's national television network, on a show normally reserved for the Olympic gold medallists.
"She told them she won't get a gold, or even a medal and they still say that she must go," said Gu. "She's a hero of China."
Jerrica, a budding star at her mom's Edmonton Fencing Club, couldn't help but be impressed with the celebrity status her mother has in China.
"I've never really thought of my mom as a famous person, I've never been amazed at all the stories, because she's my mom," Jerrica said. "But every time we come back to China, there are always random people who say, `Aren't you Jujie?' They still recognize her, that's pretty big."
The Chinese media has kept tabs on its fencing hero over the years, arriving on her doorstep in Edmonton every couple of years to film an update.
"I remember when I was five, there were people videotaping us eating, and I said, `Mommy, what are they doing?"' Jerrica recalled. "She said, just be normal. They would come in and film me when I was sleeping -- this is Jujie's life. I was like, `Mom, why are you so weird? My friends, their moms don't do this stuff.' So I've grown up with all this."
She didn't seem so weird Monday. In fact, Luan's daughter smiled and said she was truly inspired by her mother's performance, which got her thinking about her own Olympic dreams.
"I've never been really serious, I play around a lot. But I see how much she's been through, and one of her dreams now is she wants me to go the Olympics too . . . and she's going to be really old and I don't want her trying again," Jerrica said, laughing.
"Now one of main reasons I want to go to the Olympics one day is for her, because it's one of her wishes. She's done so much for me, I want to do something for her."
