Jacqueline Simoneau and Audrey Lamothe had a great evening at the pool on Saturday night, during the second and final stage of the artistic swimming duet competition. However, she started from too far back to hope to win more than a moral victory.
At 15e After a difficult technical program on Friday, the two Quebecers went for the third best score in the free program. This performance allowed them to rise to 9the place in the final ranking, with a total of 492.4 points.
This was obviously still a long way behind the gold medal winners, Chinese twins Liuyi and Qianyi Wang (566.5), the silver medal winners, Britain’s Kate Shortman and Isabelle Thorpe (558.5), and the bronze medal winners, Dutch sisters Bregje and Noortje de Brouwer (558.4).
How did the two swimmers manage to find their bearings so quickly? “It’s thanks to Jackie,” replied Audrey Lamothe, on Radio-Canada. Even this morning, things weren’t going well. Let’s say [qu’elle m’a] gave a good kick in the butt. But gently. Jackie, it’s [comme] my big sister.
Jacqueline Simoneau, for her part, did not seem to be thinking about the first Olympic medal she could have won if everything had not gone so badly the day before. “I have no regrets. We have made so much progress. I would never have believed that we could have gotten to where we are today.”
“Warriors”
The duo had suffered a cruel disappointment during their technical program the day before. Very ambitious in terms of degree of difficulty, their program, with music based on the theme of the television series and films Mission Impossible, had nevertheless gone well until the youngest of the pair, Andrey Lamothe, suddenly lost all her bearings and her synchronicity with her partner in the last seconds of their performance. This brief failure would cost the duo dearly, who finished this first round of the competition in 15e rank out of 18 registered duos, thereby eliminating any realistic chance of returning to the leading pack.
Refusing to be put off, the Canadian pair showed up Saturday, as expected, with one of the most difficult free programs of the evening.
“The girls are warriors,” one of their coaches, Kasia Kulescza, said Saturday. “Yesterday we marched to the (athletes’) Village. We shouted. We talked. And we made our plan for today. And we followed it to the letter. […] Knowing that we are third tonight, in the free program, it’s like a medal for us.”
Earlier this week, Jacqueline Simoneau, Audrey Lamothe and the six other swimmers on the Canadian team ranked 5the team competition rank.
The Simoneau-Lamothe pair is the most recent to form on the international scene. After two Olympic Games in Rio in 2016 and then in Tokyo in 2021, Jacqueline Simoneau, 27, had first retired before deciding to return to Paris. For her duo, the veteran teamed up with Audrey Lamothe, 19, who is at her first Games. The pair made their debut in 2024 and won two World Cup bronze medals shortly after.
The importance of having loved ones close by
Jacqueline Simoneau said before the Olympics that they were her last, as she will return to her podiatry studies in the fall. She wanted her loved ones to be there for this last important moment. “She asked us to be here. We were definitely going to come, but she told us, ‘Please, you really have to be here.’ It’s touching,” says her mother Lynda South-Simoneau, moved.
So she made the trip from Montreal to Paris on Thursday evening with her partner Robert to see her daughter’s latest feats. “I find it extraordinary to be here for her third [Jeux olympiques]. The first ones in Rio were great, the second ones in Tokyo were disappointing because we couldn’t be there. When she retired, I knew it wasn’t the end. After two years at school, the fire was still there,” her mother said.
Lynda South-Simoneau was lucky this year. She is part of a cohort of nine parents who received paid endorsement contracts from Molson, which allows her to reduce the costs that can be associated with the cost of attending the competition. Throughout Jacqueline’s career, she has worked three, sometimes four jobs to help her achieve her goals. “People ask me what sacrifices I had to make, but I didn’t. I made choices, seeing that my daughter had potential, to achieve her goals. Since she was 4 or 5 years old, she has dreamed of going to the Olympics,” says Ms.me South-Simoneau.
At the end of her career, she is all the more proud of her daughter, whom she saw grow up in her sport, initially with her mentor Karine Thomas, and then at the end with her protégé Audrey Lamothe. “It’s not a mourning for me, but it is for her. I know it touches her a lot. She loves this sport,” says Lynda South-Simoneau. For her, it’s a new beginning in Jacqueline’s career. “It’s just other doors that are going to open,” says the woman who believes that her daughter will gravitate towards artistic swimming in some way.
Having her loved ones by her side in Paris did a lot of good. Especially after the big disappointment on Friday, Jacqueline Simoneau said at the end of the competition on Saturday. “We went to eat together today. It really did me good and allowed me to come back strong.”
Even though Audrey preferred to spend those few hours alone, knowing that her mother and grandmother were in Paris was also important to her. “She’s been looking after me with my mother since I was 4 or 5 years old. It was her dream, too, to be able to come and see me,” said the young swimmer, her eyes full of tears. “It really warmed my heart to know that, even from a distance, I had their support.”