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Helena was the favorite in her event but fell just a tenth of a point short of receiving a medal at all. Even that would have been her country’s first Olympic honors of any kind. Upon her return, Helena arrived to an empty airfield where the large celebration of her anticipated triumph was to be held.
When the police arrived a few days later, Helena had been lying on the couch, somberly replaying the competition in her head. She screamed for her father as she was dragged away, but he only sat weeping with his face in his hands. Driven to the Ministry of Sport, Helena was stripped to the waist and bound in front of more than twenty angry and disappointed officials. The trembling girl will learn the price of failure through the sting of the lash.