How are the Tokyo 2020 Olympics going to look? While there is no crystal ball to predict the status of the pandemic through the coming year, here is our current thinking:

In my most recent message I mentioned that the Canadian Olympic Committee has been world leading in planning for its Olympic team to compete at its best at the Tokyo 2020 Games. This is true. What is also true, are these top priorities: 1) Ensuring the health and safety of Team Canada; and, 2) Supporting the highest performance possible at the Olympic Games.

In the coming months there will be many IOC, OCOG (Organizing Committee) and NOC meetings and announcements about how the Tokyo Games will be delivered. Planning is proceeding with the anticipation that a vaccine will not be widely available, if in fact one is available at all. As your Chef de Mission, I believe that this planning information should be shared with you as soon as possible. Know that your NSO and the COC are in complete agreement on this. Giving you a sense of the plans that Team Canada has in place will be better for your own (personal and team) preparation and performance at Games. Gossip and speculation are rarely helpful.

I’m not sure about you, but I’m looking forward to moving past messages about patience and flexibility with respect to our goals. While these traits remain essential in the ongoing management and prevention of viral spread, and as a team you’ve done a phenomenal job at them…. I’d like to turn my Chef’s message back to performance and ambition management.

Let’s turn the “Can Do” volume up, and talk about winning again.

I won 6 World and Olympic titles and stood beside the top spot another 6 times.  If you asked me what was the most important ingredient in my mental soup for that stretch of time, I’d give you a list like this;

1. Be confident in your preparation and training.
2. Be respectful of the great potential of your competitors
3. Fear and Doubt will be present at all of your Can I? Will I? moments (in competition and training)
4. Believe that you are a somebody who can be better and/or outlast others.

 My soup, it seems, was kind of a mash up. Believe in me: Believe in them. Be doubtful: Be confident. How does that work? How can one person be simultaneously both?

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Happy Canada Day!

It’s July 1, 2020.  In any other Olympic year, we would be counting down the next 24 days with laser focus. You would be in your prime: ready. Team Canada would be pumped. But here we are – your preparation and performance on hold and the Maple Leaf that you so proudly wear in competition around the world remains tucked away, for now.

Even so, it’s never been more important for you to feel the strength and support that comes from being Canadian and part of Team Canada. There is the strength and support that you contribute to Team Canada and the strength and support that you receive from being one of its members. As Canadians, we embrace diversity, inclusion and community values. Together we are like individual threads that wind together to create the strength of a cable; collectively the strengths of some support others.

As a young athlete, I realized that I’d developed a deep connection to our flag. For so long it epitomized my dreams. I admit, I talked to it – sharing my ambitions and fears. In training, it kept me motivated and in competition, it kept me calm and focused.