The Games : Athlete Diaries — Julia Wilkinson
The Games : Athlete Diaries — Julia Wilkinson
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Julia Wilkinson
Good Olympic omens all around me
I can't believe how fast the time has gone.
It seems like only yesterday that I sat down to my computer to write about getting ready for the Olympic trials.
Now, my days in Sardinia for staging camp are dwindling and I have to
start thinking about repacking my suitcase and getting on my last flight
before I walk into the Olympic VillagePart of staying calm and confident is looking for the positive in everything. The good omens.
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Julia Wilkinson
My top 10 pump-up songs: Part II
Here we have it, folks: the top five of my top 10 pump-up songs of my swimming career.
To recap in case you missed Part I,
all 10 of these songs were chosen based on varying criteria: they
represent a race, a person, or a time frame that was particularly
challenging or motivating in my career. Love 'em or hate 'em, they're
all part of the soundtrack to my 17-year career as a competitive
swimmer, the top five especially. Here they are.
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Julia Wilkinson
My top 10 pump-up songs
A few weeks ago, as I wrapped up my packing and final preparations for
our Olympic staging camp and the Olympics in London, I announced on Twitter that I was looking for suggestions for my "pump-up" playlist for the Games.I
got a great response, and it motivated me to count down my top 10 pump-up songs of all time.
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Julia Wilkinson
My mom's whistle
At the recent Quebec Cup meet, I won the 100-metre freestyle, but was disappointed when I saw the time. However, those negative feelings were quickly forgotten when I heard a
familiar sound: my mom's whistle.
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Julia Wilkinson
Team Julia always there when I need them
It's been several weeks since I leaped from a boat off the coast of Maui
and found myself out of my comfort zone and in deep water, surrounded
by tropical fish, turtles, and two harmless sharks. I must apologize for
my long absence from my blog: it's as if the stress of training and
organizing my life in preparation for my departure to London has
absorbed all my free time.
Our camp in Maui was valuable, but long and hard, and in the first week I
found myself facing an eternal stretch of bad practices. My stroke felt
off, and I was exhausted and sore.
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Julia Wilkinson
Facing my fear of open water
You probably won't believe this, but I'm afraid of open water.I know: it's a contradiction, a hypocrisy even, for an Olympic swimmer
to be afraid of any kind of water. But that's why, for me, swimming in
the ocean is my personal phobia: a phobia is something that you're
afraid of no matter how often you're reassured or how irrational the
fear may be. That pretty much sums up how I feel in water over my head.
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Julia Wilkinson
The joy of not swimming the 200 IM
I know I've already saturated my blog with posts about dropping the
200-metre IM in order to narrow my focus for London, and maybe it seems
like I'm overcompensating for a race that, deep down, I miss swimming.
One would imagine that sitting in the stands while the race formerly
known as "my best event" takes off from the blocks would be hard.
I prepared myself for these kinds of feelings of remorse when I arrived
in California last weekend for the Santa Clara Grand Prix. But when the
women's 200 IM arrived on Sunday, side-by-side with the 100-metre
backstroke (as per usual), I felt nothing but relief.
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Julia Wilkinson
Why am I doing this?
My mom always asks me how and why I continue to live the tough life of an elite swimmer. I usually laugh it
off when she insists that there is "no way" she could ever do what we as
Olympic athletes do every day: the training, the sacrifice, the painful
injuries, the stress.Last weekend, however, I finally started to really think about my mom's question: why, really, am I doing this?
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Julia Wilkinson
Fear: An Olympic athlete's best/worst friend
No matter what level of competition you're at, whether it's a tiny
regional meet or the Olympic Games, I believe one thing is certain: you
cannot win unless you believe you can win.But, as the London Games approach, I've found that belief comes with a friend: terror.
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Julia Wilkinson
When swimming becomes a team sport
For all intents and purposes, swimming is an individual sport. Even when you're part of a four-woman relay, no one can help you but you
once you stand up on those blocks for your leg. During a race, it's
just you against the other seven lanes, and that's the way it's been for
your entire career. So it's sometimes hard to feel like a "team" when
you arrive at a meet as team-oriented as the OlympicsSo how do you take a bunch of "individual sport" athletes who are used
to racing for a spot on the team against one another, and make them
become a team together?
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Julia Wilkinson
Giving up my 'baby,' the 200 IM
For about as long as I can remember, the 200-metre individual medley has been my "best event." The 200 IM was the first event I ever won at the Canadian championships,
the event that got me into an Olympic final, and my first individual
international medal.That's why people are so surprised that I've
decided not to swim it at the Olympics this summer.
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Julia Wilkinson
Randy Starkman was the athletes' voice
Just as I was about to get in the pool on Tuesday afternoon, I heard the sad news that Toronto Star journalist Randy Starkman had died.In a media world where journalists sometimes
like to blur the facts and turn their backs on athletes when we fail,
Randy stood alone. When people ask me why I want to be a journalist when I retire from
swimming, I say it's because someone needs to stand up for the athletes.
Someone needs to be their voice. But if all journalists were like
Randy, I guess I never would've had that as my answer, because he was
our voice.
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Julia Wilkinson
Ecstasy and agony at Olympic swim trials
The Canadian Olympic trials are unlike any other swim meet I've ever
competed in. My teammate, Olympic bronze medalist Ryan Cochrane, firmly
believes that the trials are way more stressful for swimmers than the actual Olympic Games themselves.For me, all the hours in the pool and weight room coupled with the
amount of work I have done on my mental fortitude came to fruition last
week. I won three events - the 100-metre backstroke, 200 IM, and 100 freestyle - and finished my week with a bronze in the 200 backstroke.This was not the case for everyone, however.
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Julia Wilkinson
Breaking the 1-minute barrier
Every year, I spend countless hours training, but I am only in peak race preparation maybe twice every season. That is why, after four long years of waiting, it was so sweet to
finally break the one-minute barrier in the 100-metre backstroke en
route to qualifying for my second Olympic team.
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Julia Wilkinson
Canadian Olympic Swimming Trials just days away
I woke up with a few more butterflies in my stomach this week. There's
only a few more days to wait until my first race at the Canadian Olympic
Swimming Trials in Montreal: the 100-metre backstroke.
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Julia Wilkinson
Why I almost quit swimming, and why I didn't
As the Canadian Olympic swimming trials draw closer, I find myself reminiscing more and more about the 2008 Games in Beijing.I was so excited, so naïve. I think I believed that the skies would open
up and my life would all fall into place now that I was "going to the
Olympics," the single goal I had chased to my entire life.So you can imagine my shock when I returned from the Olympics and found
my life to be essentially the same as it was when I left. Only this
time, I had no concrete life goal. I felt lost.
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Julia Wilkinson
Back in backstroke
The highlight of a recent meet in Texas for me was my 200 backstroke, an event I swam
frequently before I injured my shoulder in 2008. In fact, I was slotted
to swim it at the Beijing Olympics but opted to scratch it because it
conflicted with a relay.This season, my coach has been pushing me
beyond my perceived "limits" (my injury was initially due to swimming
backstroke) so that I can add the 200 backstroke to my list of races at
the Canadian Olympic trials and, hopefully, the Olympics.
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Julia Wilkinson
Big news for the new (Olympic) year
I'll be honest with you: normally, New Year's Eve is not very exciting for me.This year, however, ringing in the new year was special. It's now officially the Olympic year: 2012. Oh, and I'm engaged!
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About the Author
Julia Wilkinson
Julia is one of Canada's best young swimmers. The Stratford, Ont., native made a splash in her Olympic debut by competing in six events at the 2008 Games in Beijing, setting a Canadian record in the 100-metre backstroke and helping her relay teams set national marks in three other races. Wilkinson added a pair of bronze medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. At the 2011 world championships she made the finals of the 50m backstroke and the 200m IM.
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