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BEIJING — In 2004, as she marched in the closing ceremonies, first-time Olympian Monica Pinette wore a colourful Métis sash around her waist, signifying her pride as Canada's only aboriginal athlete at the Athens Summer Games.
Now, Ms. Pinette is back for a second crack at Olympic glory, qualifying once more in the obscure but demanding modern pentathlon event. Yet again, she is the lone aboriginal on Canada's Olympic team.
But this time, in Beijing, there will be no sash. The tasselled, traditional Métis garment has fallen victim to the political winds of the first Olympics to be held in authoritarian China.
Athletes are under too much pressure to avoid statements of any kind, lest the Games' hosts be offended, Ms. Pinette said as she prepared for a training session here yesterday.
Monica Pinette, of Langley, B.C., a Métis athlete competing in the pentathlon at the Beijing Olympics, tours the Aboriginal Sport Gallery after it was opened at the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in Vancouver in June. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)
"They are being very, very strict about it. ...We've been told that if we show any symbol of any sort, we will be sent home."
Ms. Pinette decided that adorning her Canadian uniform with the sash, no matter how heartfelt a gesture, risked violating International Olympic Committee regulations banning "demonstrations or political, religious or racial propaganda" at Olympic venues.
"There are lots of issues about freedom of speech and human rights here, and I'm willing to respect the rules," she said. "But I'm definitely disappointed."
Canadian Olympic Committee spokeswoman Sylvie Bigras agreed that the IOC has really clamped down for the Beijing Games. "Even if you have a bracelet supporting a cause, you can't wear it," she said.
She said Ms. Pinette could still apply for the same exemption that Canadian Sikh athletes were granted by the IOC to wear their turbans at the opening ceremonies. But the 31-year-old athlete, who finished 11th at the most recent world championships in a complex, five-discipline sport dominated by Europeans, did not want the distraction.
"It would have been nice to wear it," she said. "However, they feel the Olympics is about sport, and not promoting issues, and I understand that."
Ms. Pinette, who grew up on a small farm in Langley, just outside Vancouver, has only recently come to embrace her aboriginal status. Her father is Métis, her mother a white Kenyan.
"My dad looks a lot more native than I do," said the slight and willowy Ms. Pinette. "His first language was French. He and his brothers were completely bullied and ostracized in the schools they went to in northern Alberta."
Although she always knew she was Métis, she was mostly indifferent to her ancestry until her father began the difficult task of trying to trace his family's roots.
"None of the grandparents or great-grandparents wanted to talk about it. And when my father tried researching it, the church in Manitoba with all the family records had burnt down. So there's a real battle even just to find out our lineage," she said. "My family is prouder of their heritage now, whereas in previous generations, Métis status was something they may have been ashamed about."
Ms. Pinette began to take her own status more seriously when she learned, much to her surprise, that there were no other aboriginal competitors from Canada at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
"Before that, I just thought of myself as a Canadian athlete, but hopefully, now I can have some influence. Perhaps other aboriginals can look at me, and realize how much is possible."
Certainly, Ms. Pinette's progress in a sport few Canadians have heard of has been astonishing, considering she didn't take it up until she was 21.
The somewhat arcane, one-day competition, one of the last bastions of genuine athletic amateurism, consists of the skills required long ago in the military: pistol shooting, fencing, a 200-metre swim, horse riding and 800 metres around the track.
At Athens, Ms. Pinette finished 13th, and currently ranks among the world's top 20 competitors in modern pentathlon.
But she struggles for funding. There are no huge payoffs for doing well at the sport, and Sport Canada barely recognizes it, Ms. Pinette said. Indeed, she is bitter that Sport Canada has refused to "card" her as a funded athlete, despite meeting the criteria of finishing in the top 12 of a world championship. "It was the strongest field they've ever had, and I finished 11th. But they denied me carding because they don't count world championships in an Olympic year," she said.
So she carries on, going from meet to meet in Europe, with financial help from her family's nursery business, friends, folks in Langley, the sport's small federation in Canada and, at last, some corporate funding. Canada's Swiss coach in the sport, Philipp Waeffler - also her husband - said she has carved out an enviable career.
"When you consider she started out quite late, as just an absolutely local player living in Vancouver and now she is ranked on the international scene, that is something," Mr. Waeffler said.
Ms. Pinette said she is attracted by the variety of the competition's five events, a fact perhaps emphasized by signs outside the shooting hall where pentathlon athletes are training in Beijing. As they pass to the fencing hall or swimming pool, they are reminded: "No entry for athletes with guns."
She is realistic about her chances at the Olympics on Friday. "I'd be thrilled to finish in the top 12, and if I have the day of my life, I could make it to the top five."
