Many do it as a way to motivate her into trying again, a virtue hardwired into nearly every person. Others just want to know the answer. Danielle Lappage gets why people keep asking her if she's going to try for the 2020 Olympics, even if it's too soon for her to answer.
After a while, one could see how it would get irritating. But if Lappage is annoyed by it, she doesn't show it.
"It's a normal question. Everybody's curious and rightly so. So no, I'm not sick of it," she says.
Olds' Olympic wrestler is headed back to Vancouver this week, for a doctor's appointment that will determine whether she'll need surgery to repair her torn hamstring. She thinks about the rehab she'll have to do and it's already exhausting.
Reflecting on her Olympic experience 11 days after, Lappage says it was a lesson in how much can change in a split second. She woke up on Aug. 18 nervous, yet excited and confident. The warmup went great until the last 30 seconds, when she felt the pop.
At the time, she didn't know how serious the injury truly was – only an MRI could tell. With 10 minutes before her match, Lappage took some Tylenol and limped into the arena.
"It took all of my acting abilities to even walk out there without making a face," she says.
Lappage says knowing how many people back home were watching made bowing out of the tournament due to injury all the more devastating. She's still taking time "grieving" and in time, will be able to take solace in the legacy she's built – the high school wrestling award in her name, being the first Oldsite to reach the Games.
"I wanted to be a champion, I didn't want to just be an Olympian. I'm very honoured that's happening -- I didn't actually know that until now, so that's amazing. Hopefully young girls and young boys, they set their athletic goals high," she says.
At the very least, it doesn't look like Lappage is done wrestling. She does not want her career to end the way it did in Rio.
"I can't see that being my last tournament ever … so I'll have to aim for another one, maybe the World Championships and then the year after that is Commonwealth Games. The year after that is the Pan Am Games and then the next Olympics. Time's going to fly. I could see myself for sure going for another four years but I don't want to put that pressure on myself just because I need a total emotional and mental break," she says.
However, Lappage understands that even if she does rehabilitate herself into form and wrestles her way back, the Olympic gold medal is not a guarantee. But – and this is what makes sports so addicting, she says – it's a possibility. What if, after all that's happened, the answer is yes?
"It's a normal question. Everybody's curious and rightly so. So no, I'm not sick of it." DANIELLE LAPPAGEOLYMPIC WRESTLERFORMER OLDS RESIDENT
