On an otherwise dark, frigid, early Tuesday morning, the Clockwork Cafe in Prospector is bubbling over with cheer and energy.
Ben Farquharson, the restaurant’s owner, stands behind the counter doing what he loves most: feeding people and making sure they’re taken care of. As a crowd forms inside, he’s handing out egg, ham and cheese sandwiches, asking if anyone needs coffee or hot chocolate as a wakeup jolt and conversing with anyone around him.
Behind him and the counter are three monitors attached to the wall, end to end. The crowd isn’t here for the Clockwork Cafe’s food — it’s 5 a.m. and the restaurant doesn’t usually open until 9 a.m. — but rather what’s on the screens. Ashley Farquharson, Ben’s daughter, is getting ready to compete on the second day of the Olympics’ women’s singles luge event in Beijing. Ben opened his restaurant early so that anyone who wanted could stroll in, have some coffee and a donut and cheer on his daughter as she navigates her first Games.
“We actually got here about 4:15, but oddly enough, there were people here waiting,” he said a day earlier on Monday. “It’s just an example of the Park City community and the supportive aspects of how they love their locals and how they love their athletes and try to keep everything on a community scale.”
Because it’s the second day of the competition, Ben knows where his expectations should be at. Ashley struggled with some of the twists and turns of the track in her first run and landed in 26th. A much-improved second run on Monday moved her into 18th ahead of Tuesday’s racing.
Ben knows that after the third run on Tuesday, only the top 20 will move on to the fourth and final run, and he’s hopeful his daughter can overcome her slow start and end up in the top 10.
Ashley does indeed save her best sliding for last. She zips down the course on her third run to finish with a time of 58.768, the eighth-fastest time of the round. That moves her into 17th, but there is still plenty of work to be done. She now has a fourth and final run for a shot at finishing in the top 10.
Inside the Clockwork Cafe, the crowd that has gathered is loving every second of it. Every time Farquharson’s time flashed on the screen and showed that she was making up time, a roar of cheers, applause and the ringing of a couple of cowbells erupted from inside the restaurant. The 4:50 a.m. start time on Tuesday hasn’t deterred any celebrations.
Ben, however, doesn’t show much emotion when his daughter is on the track. No nervous pacing, shaky hands or knees, no pulling of his hair. For his daughter’s fourth run, he turns around, leans against the counter and watches, calmly. He’ll offer a little bit of commentary, like how his daughter’s strengths are in piloting the sled and that she struggles a bit with pushing it at the start, but he keeps his emotions in check.
Mentally, though, his concerns are twofold. One is that he obviously wants Ashley to do the best she can and hopefully contend for a medal. The other is that he’s hoping she makes it from the top of the course to the bottom in one piece. On a day where some of the best sliders in the world are crashing — specifically in Turn 13, dubbed “The Dragon’s Tail” — in a sport where athletes travel about 80 miles per hour with no brakes, there are no guarantees.
“I think every parent has to deal with the realization when their child is putting themselves in a certain amount of jeopardy, dealing with those fears,” he said. “Seeing other athletes cross the finish line on their face, you suck it up and at every minute, every second of the race, you’re just wanting her to maintain and keep it together and make it down safely and then you look at the time.”
Not only does Ashley make it down the course, however, on her fourth and final run, she logs her best time of the competition: 58.643 seconds, the seventh-fastest time of any racer in that round.
Ben pumps both of his fists as she crosses the finish line. On the screen, his daughter performs a similar celebration.
Because the start order went from last to first, Ashley is the new leader and thus receives some more airtime as the cameras cut to her in the leader’s box. After a few sliders fail to beat her time and she climbs up the leaderboard, she takes advantage of the extra screen time by shrugging, waving and making a gesture that mimics climbing a ladder.
“You could feel the energy in the room as she crept up place by place,” Ben said. “It’s not celebrating someone’s mistake because that’s not the right thing. It’s celebrating the fact that someone near and dear to you gets to achieve and realize things that they had been working most of their life for.”
Ultimately, Ashley falls just short of the top-10 finish that her father was rooting for with a 12th-place result, but there is no disappointment inside the Clockwork Cafe. For her to even come close after a rough first run, and at the age of 22, is more than good enough.
“You know what? I feel fantastic,” Ben said. “The roller coaster was just huge. She had a very safe, solid run on her third run and then she smoked it on her last run, popping up five spots to end up in 12th. It’s not the top-10 finish we wanted, but just seeing all the skill that was in that top 10, she’s right there. She’s close, she’s in striking distance, and it’s her first Olympics. So guess what? She’s coming, she’s coming.”
Ashley’s strong finish as the only American in the top 20 also qualifies her for the team relay, which features one woman, one man and a doubles team in succession. And so Ben opens his restaurant on Thursday early in the morning one more time.
Each run starts with the female slider, and Ashley puts the American team on the right foot. She finishes with the fourth-fastest time by a woman in the event at 1:00.332. A few mistakes by the doubles team costs the U.S. a better finish, but the Americans still end up seventh out of 14 teams.
With the relay event over, her journey at the Olympics comes to a close. But her aspirations lie far beyond a 12th-place finish. At her young age, she has plenty of time to improve and prepare for another trip to the Olympics in 2026. And her father couldn’t be prouder of her.
“I think it just validates all of the work that she’s done, it validates all of her time and energy and her dedication,” he said. “It shows how competitive she can be — because she’s not going to get worse. She’s going to get better. And if she’s already nipping at the heels of some of the best that are out there now, she’ll be very competitive.”