Meet Meagan Duhamel! She is a two-time World Champion Figure Skater, Olympic Silver Medalist, and six-time Canadian National Champion in pairs skating with her skating partner Eric Radford. Now, she is heading to the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics at PyeongChang, South Korea.
The competition is getting closer and I had a chance to talk to Duhamel about her focus on the Olympic events and what she’s doing to stay trained and healthy.
“The skating season is really long, and I was so focused on each competition we had this fall so I wasn’t putting much attention to the Olympics, but as it is getting closer, I can feel an excitement and an energy building,” said the 32-year-old who was born and raised in Ontario, Canada.
Like many athletes, it has been her dream since childhood to compete at the Olympic Games and now she has a chance to win two gold medals. “But more than a gold medal, I want to deliver my personal best performances and leave the competition ice feeling proud of myself,” she said. “That is worth more than a gold medal to me.”
When she competed in her first Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia in 2014, she said everything was new and unknown, so it was understandable that she got a bit distracted. “I let my adrenaline go to high and I lost my focus by the time it was my long program event,” she said. “I also wasn’t really contending for a medal in the pairs competition so the pressure was a little bit less. These Olympics will be my last Olympics as an athlete, and one of my major goals is to stay present and in the moment so I can enjoy everything with a calm energy.”
After competing at the Olympics in 2014, Duhamel was certain her Olympic career was over. “I won a silver medal in the team event there, with Team Canada, and I felt that I had achieved more than I ever dreamed possible in my skating career.”
But when she got off the ice in Sochi in 2014, she was disappointed in herself. “I didn’t skate my best and I knew the reason was that mentally I wasn’t focused properly,” she said. “I didn’t feel proud of my efforts and there is no worse feeling for an athlete to have. I decided to continue for another Olympic Games, so that I could have one more chance to experience my “Olympic Moment”, which to me, is finishing every one of my events with my head held high and a smile in my heart because I know I did my very best.”
She admits that changing from a singles skater to a pairs skater at one point in her career was an adjustment, but not anymore. “When I first started pair skating it was difficult because I had competed for many years as a singles skater,” she said. “I had to learn to adapt to someone else’s timing and someone else’s nervous energy in competition. Now, it’s second nature to me. My partner Eric [Radford] and I work really hard on our connection and emotion, and we hope it shines through in our performances.”
When she’s not gliding on the ice at or training for her Olympic performances, Duhamel advocates a healthy lifestyle as a vegan, yoga enthusiast, and holistic nutritionist.
“Being a vegan on the road is getting easier and easier,” she explains. “It has become more mainstream and I use the HappyCow app on my phone to find vegan or vegetarian restaurants and grocery stores all over the world.”
She also depends on bringing a lot of snacks when she travels. “I will be bringing my favorite snack, Munk Pack Oatmeal Fruit Squeezes, to South Korea with me. As a portable oatmeal with real fruit bites, I can have these for breakfast or just as a snack to fuel between training sessions.”
In a typical training day Duhamel said that she has a green smoothie or overnight oats for breakfast. Between training sessions she snacks instead of eating a big lunch.
“I snack on bananas, apples and peanut butter, granola bars, Munk Pack snacks, trail mix, coconut yogurt or crackers,” she said. “After training I have a protein snack, sometimes pineapples with hemp seeds or sometimes a non-dairy chocolate milk. For dinner, it depends on how much time I have. I like to cook and I make some great casseroles with a chickpea base, or quinoa/brown rice bowls with vegetables and tofu with my favorite peanut sauce. If I’m out and about in the evening at a training session or seeing my therapists, I will grab dinner from some of my favorite veg places in Montreal, Sushi Momo or Aux Vivres.”
Her Olympic training schedule is always the same for about 10 months a year. “In the spring I go on tour and during that time training is less, but I perform more often,” she said. “A typical training day consists of two to three hours on the ice with my partner and our coaches and two to three hours off the ice. ”
Her workouts off the ice vary. “I always do a one hour prep before going on the ice to train, which includes balance work, dynamic stretching, injury prevention and activation,” she said. “Twice a week I work in the gym with my strength trainer, once a week I do hot yoga, once a week I do a body movement class called Essentrics and once a week I go running. If I have time I like to add a Pilates class into my training as well, but time is so limited these days that I don’t get to do that as often as I’d like.”
For more information on Meagan Duhamel visit her website at http://www.lutzofgreens.com/.
From Alpine Skiing to Speed Skating and every sport in between – including curling — when you’re looking for your Winter Olympic coverage, make sure you come to Get More Sports. Here we will have interviews with Olympians, recaps of the events and other Winter Olympics coverage. This is the place you want to be.
For more information on the Winter Olympics, visit their website https://www.pyeongchang2018.com.
