By Jennifer Lukas, CTVOlympics.ca Staff
Fewer than four years ago, diver Émilie Heymans stepped off a plane from Beijing with an Olympic silver medal in her hand. Greeted at the airport by a crowd of family, friends and well-wishers, the most decorated Canadian diver in Olympic history was welcomed home as a hero.
Three Olympic appearances; three Olympic medals; one bronze and two silvers. For a Canadian diver the 26-year-old’s success was unprecedented.
But Heymans was never one to rest on her laurels. She smiled at the cameras, posed for a few photos with her parents, gathered her bags, and returned home. She returned to training and, within a few months, began changing everything.
‘Don’t mess with success’ might be the phrase that comes to mind. But for Heymans, a 10-metre platform specialist with almost every honour in the diving event, change seemed natural. It may have even been necessary.
“I felt like I had reached my maximum potential in the 10m,” the St. Lambert, Que., athlete explained in a recent interview with CTVOlympics.ca, “but I didn’t feel like I wanted to retire from diving.”
Heymans had some experience in the platform’s sister event, the 3m springboard, competing at both heights at the Athens 2004 Olympics; however she never had much international success on the lower board. Following a 10th-place individual finish in Athens, she had stopped training her 3m dives altogether.
Post-Beijing, she gave the springboard another look.
“I felt like I could do so much more than what I did before in 3m,” she said. “After Beijing I was like, oh well, let’s give it [another] try. See what happens.”
Less than a year later, Heymans had her answer.
At the 2009 World Championships in Rome, Heymans won the silver medal in the women’s individual 3m. It was her first world podium finish since she won the 10m title in 2003.
Two years later she continued her success at the 2011 Worlds, tacking on another silver — this one in the synchronized 3m with diving partner Jennifer Abel. With the finish, Heymans and Abel also earned an Olympic berth for Canada at the London 2012 Games. Both divers added further spots for Canada in the individual 3m events.
To the casual viewer, the difference between the 10m platform and the 3m springboard may not be immediately evident. Jump, twist, spin, and try not to splash — the diving process looks the same regardless of the height. But at 30, Heymans insists the two events are apples to oranges.
“Everything in the 3m is different from the 10m,” she said. “Even if it’s still diving, it’s like it’s a different sport. It’s not everybody that can be good at tower (10m) and at 3m. Some people never do tower and some people never do 3m.
“It’s way harder to be consistent in the 3m because there’s way more opportunity to make a mistake. At the beginning, my legs would get so tired, so easily. It’s a different hurdle than what I’m used to. 3m is way harder on your legs.”
Diving Canada’s chief technical officer, Mitch Geller, has seen many divers make the switch during his time with the organization, including two-time Olympic medallist Alexandre Despatie. Despatie was a world champion at the 10m event before he started winning Olympic medals off the springboard.
Some athletes, Geller says, have what it takes to make the change successfully. Others do not.
“Air sense. Orientation. Knowing up and down. If you can do that on platform, you can do it on springboard,” Geller said. “A lot of people — most of them — you’ll see that they’re lacking that. But it’s very rare that Émilie wouldn’t know up from down, that she wouldn’t know where the water is. And that’s a huge advantage.
“She is [also] one of the most tenacious people I’ve ever seen,” Geller continued. “If she wants to do a certain dive and it’s not working for her, she’ll take bruises every day and she doesn’t lose faith. She goes, ‘I just need more [practice].'”
Heymans’ tenacity at practice has been repaid with regular podium appearances. Most recently, she won a silver medal with Abel in the synchronized event at February’s World Cup in the Olympic Aquatics Centre in London. Should she repeat the feat off the same board this summer, she will become the first female diver to earn a medal in four consecutive Olympic Games.
For her part, Heymans tries not to think about that possibility. After her events had finished in February, she returned to the stands to watch her teammates compete.
Asked what it would feel like to set the record, she cut off the end of the question.
“I don’t know.
“It’s not really what drives me. I don’t think about it every single day. Of course it would be awesome, but–” she paused long enough to watch a men’s competitor spring off the Olympic diving board, then slip smoothly into the water 3m below.
“I’ll see after. If it happens.”
Émilie Heymans is currently in Beijing, China, for the second leg of the FINA Diving World Series. She will compete Friday in the 3m synchronized springboard event with diving partner Jennifer Abel. For Twitter updates, follow @CTVOlympics.
