This is my story

I grew up in a small town called Pender Harbour,  just a ferry ride away from Vancouver, BC. To give you an idea of just how small it is, the population is about 5000 people most of whom only reside there in the summer months. 

 

Growing up I played many different sports.  Volleyball was just for fun in order for our small school to field a team. I competed in Basketball for 7 years and was asked to join the junior provincial team, which was based out of Vancouver. Soccer was a real passion that I played for 14 years, 3 of which on a Rep league team that traveled regularly to Vancouver to compete. During my high school soccer career I managed to secure the MVP title for 5 seasons.

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The main sport that I believed would be my shot at making the Olympics was Track and Field. In grade 9 my high school Math teacher stepped up to coach, taking a group of us into Vancouver weekly for track meets. I fell in love with high jump, I had no idea what I was doing, had none of the equipment, but I went out there and I jumped as hard as I could. I was surprisingly good for being a late comer to the sport and made the Zone 5 Team for BC Games competing as a Pentathlete. In 2011 I moved to Vancouver with my dad and attended Handsworth Secondary for Grade 11 and 12 (where my grad class was 3x the size of my entire school back home). I was able to get better coaching and compete regularly with NorWesters Track Club. Other interests of mine were singing,  Muay Thai Kickboxing, swimming and horseback riding and eventing. 

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In 2015 I was recruited to join the SFU Track and Field team for high jump and pentathlon/heptathlon. I studied Criminology and Kinesiology as I had an interest in policing and personal training at the time. After 2 years of high jump and feeling as though I had plateaued I was starting to give up on my Olympic dream. I wasn't the typical build, I was too muscular, weighed 40 pounds more then the other competitors, and couldn't break the barrier of jumping 1.73m which is the national standard. It was time to explore my options of events that were better suited to me like javelin and shot-put. My parents and I even sat down and went through a list of olympic sports to see if any sparked an interest, and or were better suited to my athletic strengths. My dad mentioned bobsleigh and I had never really thought about a winter sport as an option, but it did seem to check all the boxes. The idea of snow and the cold made me a bit reluctant to jump on the Bobsleigh train.