Gaetan Boucher: Memories of Sarajevo

Editor's note: We are revisiting this story, originally written as part of the Canada 150 series, for this week's edition of our Sunday Read feature series.

You can find all of CBC Sports' Canada 150 stories here.

Sometimes we follow history. Sometimes history follows us.

For a few days in February of 1984, Gaetan Boucher did both while creating a story of his own in the snow and cold of the Zetra Ice Rink of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia.

Boucher was 25 when he carried both the Canadian flag and a lengthy resume into the opening ceremony that belied the belief he wasn't tall enough, had too short a stride and was not always at his best in big races.

Not in these big races to come. Not even after breaking an ankle the year before.  

In less than a week in the Balkans, there was a bronze in the 500 metres, Boucher's weakest race, then a gold against chief rival Sergey Khlebnikov of the Soviet Union in the 1,000.

Boucher would then win another gold against the Russian in the 1,500.

Those three medals in one winter Olympics were the most ever to that time by a Canadian — not that the competition was that wide as this country, surrounded by a world of steroids and without much national funding, simply didn't win. Brian Orser's silver, in men's figure skating, would be the only other bauble as those Games came to a close.

Not until Cindy Klassen won five medals in 2006, also on the oval, was that mark eclipsed. 

Boucher, from Charlesbourg, Que., came home from Yugoslavia a national hero.

That had been the goal right from childhood to the 1980 events at Lake Placid, where a silver medal was easily eclipsed by the greatness of American Eric Heiden, who brought five gold medals along with him. 

Winning was the goal again as the push for