ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290080
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NATURAL BRIDGE
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
Meet Tina Camden, reluctant star.
A friendly, sometimes-chatty former student at Rockbridge County High School, Tina was the only Virginian picked to attend the Special Olympics World Games in Canada this weekend.
In keeping with the feel-good atmosphere of the Special Olympics, the honor derives less from the heat of competition than the luck of the draw. Tina's name was drawn out of a hat, which held the names of the top 35-40 Special Olympics skiers in Virginia.
Still, the perks are impressive. As Virginia's only athlete at the games, which will feature 2,000 Special Olympians from 80 countries, Tina, a downhill skier, will get free room and board, a full plate of special events and a chance to indulge her passion for skiing, free of charge, in the land of the Mounties and the maple leaf.
Special Olympics officials say Tina, though selected by chance, is a great pick - a public relations dream.
"She's wonderful," said Lauren Erera, spokeswoman for the Special Olympics in Virginia. "She's bubbly. Vivacious. Very enthusiastic about skiing and Special Olympics. The funny thing is her mother calls her shy - but I haven't seen one time when she hasn't come up to me and said 'Hi, How you doing?' She is the athlete of the moment."
Indeed, she has already met U.S. senators John Warner and Chuck Robb. On a recent trip to Washington for the Special Olympics, she was given a tour of the White House by Tipper Gore.
She has been on the Fox Morning News.
She took an airplane ride, her first ever, to Lake Placid, N.Y., site of the 1980 Winter Olympics - where she trained with other Special Olympics skiers and took a bobsled ride.
A few weeks ago, at the state Special Olympics championship at Wintergreen Resort, she took three gold medals in advanced downhill skiing, and had her picture taken with a gold medal swimmer from the summer games in Atlanta, Jeff Rouse.
It is all heady, maybe overwhelming stuff for a Natural Bridge girl who, until a few months ago, had never been north of Staunton, according to her coach.
Perhaps that is why, in talking to a reporter recently, Tina was less than thrilled about the trip. Not only was she refusing to take the courtesy flight to Toronto, she had a few reservations about Canada itself.
"I heard it will be cold up there," she said.
Just a week and a half before the games began, said her skiing coach, Doris Fredricksen, Tina announced that she wasn't going to go. She later changed her mind.
"She's very apprehensive," said Fredricksen, who has agreed to drive the girl to Canada herself.
* * *
She is 17. She has brown eyes, honey blond curls and flawless skin, lightly freckled. During a recent interview, Tina wore a Tasmanian Devil T-shirt, jeans and white sneakers.
She is not visibly handicapped, and converses easily when she likes. Erera, the Special Olympics spokesman, described Tina as "high functioning" but insisted she meets the qualification for competing in the Special Olympics, which is an IQ of less than 70.
Her mother said Tina has "a learning disability." Fredricksen said Tina hits the roof if anyone dares calls her retarded.
In any event, the star of the moment was chatty, even animated recently in describing the thrills and spills involved in learning to ski eight years ago.
Was it hard?
"At first it was. I thought all I could do is go an inch and fall. Go another inch and fall. The first time, I was like, 'Oh, help me! Oh, my goodness! What if I hit a tree?' But I'd get up and laugh. I almost hit a couple of people, but I didn't knock them down or anything. I was like, 'Get out of my way!'''
In the last eight years she has won a dozen or more Special Olympics medals, which she once hung on a wall in her bedroom but now keeps in a box beneath her bed.
In Canada, Tina will be part of what Special Olympics officials call "the largest multisport event in the world in 1997."
The World Games, to be held Feb. 1-8 in Toronto and Collingwood, Canada, will attract an estimated 300,000 visitors, as well as tens of thousands of television viewers, say Special Olympics officials. Athletes will compete in downhill and cross country skiing, hockey, figure and speed skating and other winter sports.
There also will be parties, and a group of roving celebrities rumored to include Arnold Schwarzenegger and pop stars Hootie and the Blowfish.
It should all be an eye-opener for the skier, who lives in an isolated community outside Natural Bridge. Arnold's Valley is a strip of small ranch-style homes and trailers with postcard views of the Blue Ridge. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests begin across the street, and the James River flows by a mile or so away.
Tina lives there with her mother, Elizabeth Moore, and stepfather, Jesse Moore, and stepsiblings Sierra, 9, and Jesse, 5. Her mother works at a factory that makes boat motor parts, her stepfather at a sawmill.
Elizabeth Moore will not be going to the World Games with her daughter. "I can't afford to," she said. "We just barely make it as it is."
But she also said, "If I was in her shoes, I'd be the happiest kid in the whole United States."
It is Fredricksen, the coach, who has taken Tina to ski resorts in Virginia and West Virginia for training (many resorts offer free skiing to Special Olympics athletes), and it is Fredricksen who will drive Tina to the World Games and spend the week with her there.
She calls Tina "just delightful."
"She's so easy-going," said Fredricksen, a certified Special Olympics skiing coach who lives in Rockbridge County. The coach, who sells Mary Kay cosmetics when she isn't skiing, began working with Tina several years ago, after her own daughter grew interested in doing volunteer work for the Special Olympics.
"I enjoy her," said Fredricksen of Tina. "We have a great time together. It's been quite a thrill for me to take her places she has never been."
Before her recent trip to Washington for the Special Olympics, Fredricksen said, Tina had never been north of Staunton. On a trip to West Virginia she was so excited she could hardly keep still. "She kept saying, 'Are we in West Virginia yet?'''
A Special Olympics press release describes Tina as a "well-adjusted senior at Rockbridge County High School," who lists reading and sports among her interests.
In fact, Tina by her own admission has not been to school for months.
"She's going back," her mother vowed. School officials declined to comment for this story.
Her coach and others say Tina helps around the house and neighborhood in the daytime. Tina said she likes to watch television and play Nintendo.
The trip to Canada will stretch Tina's horizons, they believe.
"She gets to be with people from every country, speaking different languages," said Fredericksen.
Understand in any case: The World Games are not about the world's winners. They are instead about letting everyone feel like a winner, at least for a moment, in a world where the line between winning and losing is often brutally clear.
"The focus of the games is not really on the winners," said Anderson Coward, a spokesman for the World Games in Canada. "The emphasis of the games is athletes participating - having a good time and doing your best."
Win or lose, Tina already has one prize to keep.
She has been equipped with new skis, poles and gloves for the competition - courtesy of the Special Olympics.
"It's unbelievable what they are giving these kids," Fredricksen said.
LENGTH: Long : 145 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY STAFF. 1. Tina Camden, 17, recently competedby CNBin the Virginia Special Olympics at Wintergreen Resort. 2. Camden
posed with Jeff Rouse, a medal-winning swimmer at the Atlanta
Olympics who was at Wintergreen to present awards to the Special
Olympians. color. 3. Tina Camden participates in the slalom event of
the Virginia Special Olympics Winter Games at Wintergreen Resort.