Sports
Diver Margo Erlam has always chosen to throw herself into every challenge – Team Canada
For five years, Margo Erlam's parents harbored doubts about their decision to let their 16-year-old daughter move away from home to pursue elite diving. Was the dream worth the distance from her family? Would they all regret it later?
In May, at the Canadian Diving Trials in Windsor, Ontario, those doubts were put to rest when Erlam dove for gold in the women's 3m springboard, beating two-time Olympian and multiple world championship medalist Pamela Ware to earn hers. nomination for Team Canada for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Erlam started diving when she was just four years old, trying to copy her older sister Martine, who had contracted the diving virus during swimming lessons.
I started going to my sister's classes with her. And then I discovered that I loved being in the water and jumping off the boards. That's where my love for the sport started, says Erlam.
Both Martine and Margo had the necessary condition for diving: a lack of fear.
I wasn't afraid and there were no consequences going through my mind, Erlam says with a chuckle. We both loved adrenaline. We grew up in Montana, where we went boating and hiking every summer. We both loved being in the lake, wakeboarding, water skiing and downhill skiing too. We just grew up playing sports that were more of an adrenaline rush.
The fearless four-year-old with an affinity for throwing himself into things steadily became a competitor on the provincial stage. But when Erlam saw her good friend, Caeli McKay, on the junior national team for the first time, wearing a suit with the maple leaf on it, Erlam knew she wanted to be on Team Canada.
Hence the decision to leave her hometown of Calgary for Saskatoon, where she could train with Mary Carroll, who became an Olympic coach.
My parents weren't happy about it, but they wanted to try it, says Erlam.
She first moved in with teammate Rylan Wiens' family before getting her own apartment at the age of 17. Living alone at such a young age forced Erlam to develop more independence and resilience than many of her peers.
“I felt like I had to grow up very, very quickly,” Erlam says. I had to learn to do things on my own. I had to call my mother often!
Erlam not only learned how to take care of herself, but also how to deal with the pressure of top sport.
I was always very excited during competitions. I remember at my first world championships in Budapest I had a nervous breakdown before the competition, Erlam recalls. Since then I've learned a lot about how to control those nerves. That was an important moment in my life that felt like a make or break situation, but in reality it wasn't. This is not the ultimate end of who you are as a person.
Now that she's heading to her first Olympics, is there anything Erlam wishes she could go back and tell her younger self?
I would probably tell myself not to take everything so seriously. And not to let other people's comments get into your head. There are many [talk like] that in sports when it comes to body image. And it is especially difficult for young teenage girls to grow up with that. When you're 16, you take everyone's comments to heart. So I'd say let some of that stuff go.
Erlam achieved a top five finish with Mia Valle in the 3m synchro at the 2022 World Swimming Championships, where she was also in the top 10 in the 1m springboard. It was by far the biggest match of her career at that time. Erlam and Valle went on to win 3m synchro bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where Erlam finished fifth in the individual 3m event.
Erlam posted consistent results in 2024 but was a dark horse to take first place at the Canadian Trials. Erlam's nomination to Team Canada will also give her a bigger platform as an Mtis athlete identity she is still learning about herself.
I didn't know about my Mtis background until a few years ago. We started looking into it more because my great-grandmother was adopted into a white family, so we didn't know her background, Erlam explains. So being able to learn more about this and be at this level [of sport] where I can teach more people about Indigenous culture and hopefully get more recognition for Indigenous kids in sports is really important to me right now.
Erlam says learning more about her family history and culture has been a powerful process. She will be one of several athletes of Indigenous descent heading to Paris as part of Team Canada.
Until the Games, Erlam is all-in on training, with a schedule that typically includes around seven and a half hours of training per day. Half of the work takes place in the water, the other half on dry land. The Canadian diving team heads to Edinburgh, Scotland for a training camp ahead of the Games.
At the national level, divers tend to focus on perfecting the dives they have in their repertoire, rather than learning new dives. Erlam says she hasn't learned a new dive in about five years, but she remembers the feeling clearly.
Learning a new dive is very scary. There's nothing that can really prepare you for it, Erlam explains. We do have a belt system where someone can pull you by ropes, but there's nothing that really compares to actually doing it. You just have to rely on your aerial awareness. And we have bubble systems that break the surface of the water, so it doesn't hurt if you land wrong. But there's actually nothing that can simulate that feeling of learning a new dive.
While she may feel more healthy fear than she did at age four, Margo Erlam still throws herself headfirst into every challenge that comes her way (the next one being the Olympics).
Rapid Fire with Margo Erlam:
If you were not a diver, what sport would you practice?
ME: Probably gymnastics. Although I would like to be a tennis player as they earn a lot more than me!
Favorite dive?
ME: An inward pike of two and a half somersaults! The number is 405B.
Team Canada athlete or team you are most looking forward to seeing in Paris?
ME: Gymnastics! I'll be there. Look for me in the stands.
Favorite Olympic moment?
ME: I would say Meaghan [Benfeito] and Rosie [Filion] winning bronze in London. I watched them on repeat all the time at the Olympics. That was a big moment for me as a young child,
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