The early days:
I always knew I would be a great athlete, but didn’t know when or where I would go to be a great athlete. I lost my dad at a young age and a few years later my mom passed too. That very hard to go through, but my grandmother sent me to the US for a better education.
By the time I was 11, I was competing at major events, even though I was only a kid. I was suppose to go school in the US and compete in the Olympics the next year, but my grandmother said no because she wanted me to stay in school. I was disappointed, but I followed my grandma’s advice.
When I was a teenager, I started competing in the UWIC (University Winter Games In Canada). By 2001, I was nationally ranked. In 2003 I participated in the Canada Winter Games. Then in 2005, I won the Gold Medal in the Canada Games (a national tournament) in Utah.
My grandma was right and I ended up going to college and earn a degree in kinesiology (a degree in human movement).
With that degree and the support of my coaches, I will and always follow my dreams and it will take me to where I am heading.
The beginnings of a centralised training programme:
Before the mid-19th century, there was no institutionalised and centralised training programme for Olympians. Even the ancient Olympic Games, which started in 776 BC, were not an organised event … they were much more like the events we see today at the fringe Olympics of the Special Olympics, where the athletes were trained by themselves or by amateur coaches.
Starting in the mid-19th century, countries around the world started training their best athletes expecting that they would be representing them in the Olympic Games, and soon, a brutal competition emerged to produce the best athletes in the world. With that, the first training centres dedicated to training athletes started emerging in several countries.
However, to this day, there is no truly