Final go-around for Jen Rodriguez

Reporting from Richmond, Canada — 

After affixing skate guards and descending from the track infield after practice Saturday, Jen Rodriguez stopped in the media mixed zone. It was the eve of, most likely, her last individual Olympic race. A TV crew asked how she felt.

“Ready to get it over with,” Rodriguez said with a chuckle.

Standing in front of drapes, she pulled the curtain back on how unyielding a Winter Games can be, nonetheless smiling all the while. It appears Rodriguez is getting what she wanted out of this, no matter what occurs in speedskating’s 1,500 meters Sunday, which would be refreshing after four years of enduring little worth laughing about.

The disappointment of Turin, Italy, spilled into a divorce and heavy debt and the June death of her mother, Barbara, after battling breast cancer. But Rodriguez has bounced around on and off the ice here, unremitting in her determination to enjoy the experience, even happily distracted by family in the athletes’ village two nights before her signature race.

When she doesn’t have her legs on a wall for recovery purposes, she has found refuge and rejuvenation in, for once at an Olympics, kicking her feet up.

“The best part has been being able to spend time with my family,” Rodriguez, 33, said. “They’re just so excited. When I placed seventh in the 1,000 and I was just a couple tenths off a medal, they were like, man, you were so close.

“Then they think back on the past four years and they were like, wow, Jen, that was really quite amazing. And it makes me think back -- not many people had to go through what I’ve gone through the past four years.”

It’s evident to her U.S. speedskating teammates new and old, actually, that now the skating is a self-healing exercise.

“Everything she’s been through, you wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” said Catherine Raney-Norman, a teammate for every Olympics since 1998. “When she lost her mom, it was something we all felt. And I can’t imagine having gone through that. To see her bounce back -- it’s just nice to see her smile out here again.”

She had hoped for merely a top-10 finish in the 1,000-meter race, and got it. She has set her aim on another top 10-finish Sunday, and if it is her last individual effort, she refuses to approach it that way. Maybe because Sunday isn’t necessarily the end of anything, apparently.

“I’m never closing the doors on anything,” Rodriguez said.

Late addition

The U.S. lineup for the women’s 1,500-meter race grew by one, as four-time Olympian Raney-Norman grabbed a spot in the field after another skater from the International Skating Union’s Special Olympic Qualifying Competition list withdrew.

bchamilton@tribune.com