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| Human Interest | |
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Further Personal Information | |
| Residence | Montreal, QC, CAN |
Sport Specific Information | |
| Why this sport? | "Before I could even walk, I was attracted to water. My brother used to dive and I wanted to be like him. The thrill of diving was like no other for me, even at my tender age." |
General Interest | |
| Hero / Idol | Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. (olympique.ca, 11 Aug 2019) |
| Awards and honours | She was named the 2019 Female Athlete of the Year by Diving Canada. (diving.ca, 31 Jan 2020) She and her diving partner Pamela Ware received Aquatics Canada's 2015 Diving Team of the Year Award. The pair were also named Diving Canada's 2013 Female Athletes of the Year. (pamelaware.com, 01 Jan 2017; aquaticscanada.ca, 01 Jan 2015) She was named the 2011 Female Athlete of the Year by Aquatics Canada. (cbc.ca, 03 Nov 2011) |
Sport Specific Information | |
| When and where did you begin this sport? | She took up diving at age four. |
International Debut | |
| Year | 2006 |
| Competing for | Canada |
Further Personal Information | |
| Languages | English, French |
| Higher education | Humanities - University of Quebec in Montreal [UQAM]: Canada |
General Interest | |
| Nicknames | Jenn (Twitter profile, 06 Jul 2020) |
| Hobbies | Shopping, fashion, cooking, watching movies. (diving.ca, 06 Jun 2019; olympic.ca, 14 Aug 2016) |
| Sporting philosophy / motto | "Strength doesn't come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn't." (Facebook page, 17 Jan 2020) |
| Injuries | She suffered a muscle tear to her calf three months before the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. She also suffered from back pain in the week leading up to the Games. (lapresse.ca, 13 Jul 2017) |
| Other information | RETIREMENT She retired from competitive diving in November 2021. A day later she announced she was pregnant with her first child. "My life as an athlete has prepared me for my adult life and now, for my life as a mother-to-be. Today, I know how to forgive myself after failure, where to draw strength in the face of adversity, and the type of energy it takes to succeed." (swimmingworldmagazine.com, 27 Nov 2021) RECOVERING FROM RIO She found it difficult to get over her disappointment at not winning a medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. "It actually took me a year to enjoy diving again. I remember in Budapest at the [2017] World Championships, I was a little bit like not in the right place mentally. I found it hard. I knew it was going to be hard after Rio. I knew obviously I had dark thoughts, 'I don't want to dive anymore. I'm not passionate anymore'. I was crying a lot also. But I knew that it was a phase. When I took the time to really appreciate what I did in the diving world and then think about myself, finding a way to get that fire back, this is where I started to see the bigger picture. The difference between me now and me before is, now I'm trying to create my own story, I want to be the diver that I want to be." (olympicchannel.com, 26 Jun 2019; cbc.ca, 05 May 2018) |
| Milestones | She became the first Canadian to win nine career medals in any sport at the aquatics world championships when she claimed silver in the women's 3m synchronised springboard event at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, Republic of Korea. She extended that record to 10 in Gwangju after also winning silver in the mixed 3m synchronised springboard event. (SportsDeskOnline, 11 May 2021; diving.ca, 20 Jul 2019) |
| Famous relatives | Her partner David Lemieux is an International Boxing Federation [IBF] middleweight boxing champion from Canada. (fina.org, 11 Jan 2021) |
Further Personal Information | |
| Family | Partner David Lemieux |