Katerine Savard retires | “I loved this sport and I still love it”

At the beginning of fall, Katerine Savard took the time to reconnect with her sport. After her replacement days as a teacher, she went to the 9 p.m. free swim at the Sophie-Barat swimming pool, near her home in Montreal. No series, no time, just for the pleasure of swimming continuously.

“I felt like I would never be able to enjoy swimming if no one told me what to do. I needed to reassure myself, to know that I was still going to love this sport. »

Some swimmers recognized her. Others found this little 1.67 m bombshell disturbing for whom moving in chlorinated water is second nature. “There were some who said to me: “It seems to me that you are fast, where did you learn your technique?” »

After her failed attempt to qualify for her fourth Olympic Games in the spring, Savard had slowly come to terms with the idea of ​​retirement. At 31, it was “just natural” for the Olympic bronze medalist to hang up her jersey.

“By force of circumstances, life decided that it was like that,” she explained during a dinner break from her job as a teacher in a kindergarten in Quebec, where she has a replacement contract at indefinite duration.

This inevitability doesn’t make the transition any less painful or frightening, especially when you’ve spent almost half your life at the highest level of competition.

“I will still have some grieving to do,” noted Savard, torn between a smile and tears during the interview, like her career.

“I started to grieve, obviously, and I am more and more serene. Still, I loved this lifestyle, I loved being an athlete. »

An atypical journey

In real terms, Katerine Savard’s greatest achievement is her bronze medal in the 4 x 200 meter relay at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016. She secured the first portion in the final.

However, it is not the memory she cherishes the most. Instead, it was four months earlier, when she had missed her selection for the 100m butterfly, her favorite event. The previous summer, she had placed fifth at the World Championships. She saw herself fighting for a podium in Brazil. Demolished, she recomposed herself to qualify for the 4 x 200 m crawl relay the next day.

“This kind of mental strength that I found in those 24 hours, I believe that it is the moment of my career of which I am the most proud,” explained the one who then played for the Montreal club CAMO with the coach Claude St-Jean. “I tried to do it again this year, and it didn’t work. I don’t know how I found this strength in 2016.”

Enrolled in lessons by her mother, who did not want to pass on her fear of water, Katerine Savard had a timid start at the Unik club in Pont-Rouge, her hometown, at the age of 10. She grew up at the CSQ club in Quebec, under the direction of coach Marc-André Pelletier, a mentor whom she found at the end of her career. As an alternate, she won a medal of each color at the 2009 Canada Games. A few months later, she represented the national team for the first time at a World Cup at the age of 16.

In 2011, she competed in the first of seven long course World Championships, finishing ninth and setting the Canadian record in the 100m butterfly. To her own surprise, she participated in her first Olympics in London in 2012, although she did not believe she was predestined.

Pressure, “a double-edged sword”

An outstanding kicker, the butterfly player demonstrated remarkable consistency during her 15-year career with the national team, in which she was sometimes the only Quebec representative.

In addition to three appearances at the Olympics, she has competed in the Pan American Games three times and the Commonwealth Games twice, winning gold in the 100m butterfly in Glasgow in 2014. A few months after her 2016 Olympic disappointment, she finished fourth in the 100m butterfly at the short course Worlds in Windsor, Ontario, where she also won gold in the 4x200m relay.

After returning from Rio, she searched for herself for a year, taking a break in 2018 to redefine her goals. “Pressure is a double-edged sword,” she stressed. When I was younger, I had a little go-getter naivety that I lost over time. I put pressure on myself to perform. It hurt me because I had a hard time learning to deal with it. »

Her life took an unexpected detour when director Pascal Plante cast her in the title role of the film. Nadia, Butterflyselected in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival in 2020, limited to a virtual event due to the pandemic. Like her character, who was considering retirement after participating in the fictitious Tokyo Olympics, Savard is getting used to dealing with the “small mournings” of an athlete at the end of her career.

“It’s details, but there are little mournings of everything that encompasses swimming, mourning of my body, mourning of everything, in the end. »

Departure from CAMO

In total, Savard won 34 medals in major Games and championships. Gregory Arkhurst, her coach from 2021 to 2024, called her “the greatest Quebec swimmer in history”.

She won bronze in the 4 x 100m freestyle at her last international competition, the World Championships in Doha in February. On her return, she caused a surprise by leaving CAMO to find Pelletier at the Région de Québec (CNQ) swimming club. She wanted to get closer to her family and get away from a climate that no longer suited her with her teammate Mary-Sophie Harvey, a direct rival.

“It felt good to be in something other than just the pressure of comparing my performance. […] I don’t think anyone likes to compare themselves with their best friend every day. I wanted to be friends with Mary and not necessarily be a competitor every day. I found it difficult. I didn’t want to be unhappy and I wanted her to still be my friend in life. »

The two athletes spoke recently. Savard followed Harvey’s performances at the Paris Olympics and recent World Cups, where she won nine medals. “I saw her train, I witnessed her career progress and it was written in the sky that she would do great things. »

Teacher and trainer

Even though Savard is now retired, swimming is never far away. Since the start of the season, she has held a coaching position with CSQ with nine young people aged 8 to 12. “They still look at me with big eyes!” I’m quite demanding, in the sense that I really want them to enjoy the process. I try to make them dream a little. »

With her dual job as a teacher, she is not bored in her transition. “I have 18 different personalities in my class and 9 preteens in the pool! I’m learning to manage that and trying to meet their needs in a little more individualized way. It’s a big challenge, but as a swimmer, I feel like I haven’t always been able to communicate my needs properly. »

She gives talks at clubs and would like to stay involved with the Canadian Olympic Committee. In June, she participated in the International Olympic Academy’s Young Ambassador Program in Greece.

Savard competed in his last competition at the Canadian Championships last summer in Toronto. She obtained three medals, including a silver in the same pool where she had given up on her dream of a fourth Olympics. “I didn’t want to be bitter and keep some sort of scar on my heart. »

As she lacks time, she has swapped the swimming pool for running and the gym. Her pain is still strong, but she is now certain of one thing about swimming: “I loved this sport and I still love it. »