LONDON – Kinga Soni felt her hands and her shoulders start to shake and knew it was hopeless. The stars and stripes were rising to the rafters. Her daughter was standing on the top of the medal platform.
Why fight it?
“Okay,” she said to no one, “I give up.”
So she let the tears go. Rebecca Soni had won another gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke, setting another world record in the process, in what might be the most dominant swimming performance of these Games. But her mother could only think about the journey.
She could only stand in the Aquatic Center, her trembling hand over heart, and wish that every mother in the world could feel like she did at that moment. To understand that it’s all worth it.
“It was really like, ‘Okay, you got your payoff,’” Kinga Soni said. “This was worth every wake up call at 3 a.m. This was worth every long drive to another pool. Every sacrifice.
“There is no better feeling in the world than seeing that flag go up and hearing that national anthem. Nothing better.”
This is why she and her husband, Peter, moved to New Jersey from Hungary when they wanted to start a family. This is why, when their youngest daughter decided she wanted to give up gymnastics to become a swimmer, they sought out the best clubs for her to join.
It didn’t matter what “Reb,” as the family called her, wanted to do. It only mattered that she loved it enough to stayed dedicated to it, and that dedication was never a question with Soni.
“Whatever I saw that my kids were enjoying, that’s what I lived for,” she said. “I just had to see that smile on their faces.”
This is a swimmer who started to dream about setting world records as a junior at West Windsor-Plainsboro High, when they seemed miles away. This is the athlete once sneaked out of the house, her face swollen with a glandular infection, and drove to the Rutgers Aquatic Center to swim. Kinga Soni didn’t know what to do, so she just hopped into another car and followed.
“I couldn’t stop her,” she said.
All these years later, the best swimmers in the world couldn’t stop her, either. So rarely does an Olympian save her best performance for the biggest moments, but this is what Soni did tonight.
She set a world record one night before in her semifinal heat and couldn’t help hide a trace of disappointment. Her time was 2:20.00, but when Soni told reporters that she hoped she could “swim a little faster” in the final, it wasn’t just a cliché.
It was her dream. Tom Speedling was one of the few who knew it. From the time Soni was a junior, the coach of the Scarlet Athletic Club kept pushing the idea that she would be the first swimmer to break 2:20 in the 200-meter breaststroke. It seemed absurd at the time – Soni was miles away – but it burrowed into her brain.
She wanted that 2:19. It drove her training sessions, consumed her personal pursuit. One night earlier, when she set another world record, Speedling texted his congratulations. The response was no surprise.
“I wish it was 1/100th faster.”
So last night, when she touched the end of the pool so far ahead of her competitors that it almost didn’t seem fair, Soni looked at the time and opened her mouth wide.
(ITAL) 2:19.59. (END ITAL)
The celebration was as raucous as anything her friends and teammates had every seen from her. She pumped her fight once, then twice, then again. “YES!” she yelled, because not only did she have a gold medal, but she had achieved a lifetime goal in the process, too.
“That’s the most excited I’ve ever seen her,” Speedling said over the phone from Piscataway.
If only he could have seen her mother, too. Peter and Kinga Soni didn’t make the trip to Beijing four years ago. They worried about spending all that money when they didn’t know how Soni would do, watching on TV instead when their daughter beat the reigning world champ and record holder for a gold medal.
That was the stunner. This was expected. Soni came to London as the prohibitive favorite this time, and her parents made the trip this time. They watched as she just missed gold in the 100-meter breaststroke, then came to the Aquatic Center tonight hoping for history.
So when Soni stepped off the medal stand, the gold medal around her neck again, Kinga Soni couldn’t help herself. Her eyes still wet, she hustled to the edge of the seating area and leaned over the railing, making sure her daughter saw her as she made her victory lap.
When her daughter saw her, she tossed her bouquet of flowers into the crowd, and Kinga caught them. They couldn’t hear each other over the din, but in the moment of victory, they locked eyes.
“She lit up!” Kinga Soni said. “She really lit up!”
The mother didn’t need to see the gold medal around her daughter’s neck to know it was all worth it. The smile was enough.
Steve Politi: spoliti@starledger.com; Twitter: @StevePoliti.
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