Page 117 of Ice Dance

Hold on.

There seems to be some movement at the side of the rink.

I’m not sure what’s happening. Hasegawa and Navarro have just come through the gate, and there appears to be some kind of issue.

We’re going to stay with the pictures as long as we can.

Dylan Greeves there, moving in. There are officials. I can’t see Navarro . . .

It may simply be exhaustion. We have to remember what these athletes have just put their bodies through. That was not only an emotionally demanding performance, it was also physically brutal. The speed, the lifts, that extraordinary quadruple axel spin from both of them.

I see . . . Navarro appears to be down on the ground. Oh no.

I don’t want to speculate. I can’t see clearly from this angle, but Camden Navarro is down. Hasegawa is with him there. Dylan Greeves is clearly calling for assistance, and yes, the medical team is coming across now.

The arena has gone very quiet.

This is the other side of elite sport. We celebrate the beauty of it, the drama and the spectacle, but these routines are punishing. These skaters are operating on the thinnest margin between brilliance and injury. Tonight, Hasegawa and Navarro gave absolutely everything to that performance, and sometimes everything is exactly what it costs.

There medics are with Navarro now.

Hasegawa is still beside him.

We’re seeing the stretcher.

Well, goodness, that’s not what anyone wanted to see after a moment like theirs.

We’ll bring you more information as soon as we have it, but now, after one of the most extraordinary performances ice dance has ever seen, there is serious concern here in Montreal for Camden Navarro.

FORTY-TWO

REN

The most wonderful moment of my entire life turned into the worst from one step to the next.

Camden trembled beside me on the ice. I’d thought it nerves or the adrenalin crash. I had my hand on his lower back as we approached the gate, feeling how his body shook. We both breathed hard, bodies strung tight. But the elation! A crowd was ready to greet us. I saw my father there, others too, Dylan. Then, as I stepped off the ice and my hand left Cam’s back, he should have been alongside me. I caught the wrong kind of motion from him in the corner of my eye, and half turned toward him.

He dropped. A disconnection, sudden and total. His eyes rolled and his body collapsed.

I caught him awkwardly, my ankle going over on the blade and elbow cracking against the ice. We both landed hard, half on and off the ice. But I had him.

“Cam?!”

His entire body lay limp in my arms. Head lolled and loose. Eyes shut.

Was he breathing?

I couldn’t tell. Too many people around us, too much chaos. Panic gripped my heart and squeezed. Dylan was there. She cleared a space, and together we carried him to the bench. I knelt. My knees sank into the cold wet rubber mats. I placed my hand on his chest.

“Cam . . . ?!”

“Is he breathing?” someone asked. Or I did. It all seemed so far away.

“Medic!”

“Clear some space.”

“Don’t crowd.”