If everything had gone as planned, Pamela Ware would probably have accompanied her teammates Meaghan Benfeito and Jennifer Abel in retirement a few months after the Tokyo Olympics.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
But an aborted dive on her last attempt in the three-metre springboard semi-final changed the 29-year-old’s plans. Fourth after the preliminaries, she had missed the take-off of the reverse somersault and a half with three and a half twists, a new figure that she had not quite mastered. This technical fault forced her to jump into the water feet first.
“I didn’t want to end my career like this,” Ware said on the phone Friday afternoon, between two practices at the Olympic Park pool.
PHOTO CARL RECINE, REUTERS
On her last attempt in the semifinals, at the Tokyo Olympics, Pamela Ware missed the take-off jump, which forced her to jump into the water feet first.
Normally, she would be competing in the World Series. But the event was discreetly postponed until the fall by the International Swimming Federation, in the wake of the cancellation of the Kazan stage after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Ware is therefore preparing for the Senior Summer National Championships, scheduled for the end of the month in Victoria. Don’t look for the three tendril in his list. After her failure in Tokyo, she preferred to relegate it to oblivion.
“I hadn’t been doing it long, and there was the fact that I was the first girl in the world to do it at the Olympics. It caused me a lot of stress. »
I often made the same mistake in training. I just didn’t expect to do it in competition, especially not at the Olympics. But these are things that happen, and I have to live with them.
Pamela Ware
When she returned to training in the fall, after a life-saving break of a few months, she had all the trouble to reintegrate this somersault – literally – into her routine. “I decided it was too stressful and not necessarily worth going through again. »
She therefore chose to replace it with a new dive… whose nature she prefers to keep silent for the moment.
To start over
Fourth in synchro with Jennifer Abel and seventh in the individual event, the explosive Ware was to be at the top in Tokyo. Her mistake prompted her to postpone her plan to enroll in cooking and baking classes.
“I am not young, but not old either, she pleaded. I will be 31 at the next Games. I think it’s a good age. I don’t worry about that. I still have two and a half good years in the body, that’s for sure. »
The new eldest of a Canadian team in full reconstruction does not expect to occupy a more important place with the departures of Meaghan Benfeito and Jennifer Abel, who have five Olympic medals to two.
“I try not to think about it too much because it’s still stressful and it can play in the head to have this role. But when young people come to see me with questions, of course I try to help them in any way I can. »
Another big change in Ware’s career: she has a new coach. After “at least 16 years” under the leadership of Aaron Dziver, she has decided to entrust her future to Hui Tong, the new head coach of the Montreal Diving Institute.
I really needed a change. After several years, it feels good. It helped me a little to regain my motivation and my confidence. It’s like starting over.
Pamela Ware
Despite Abel’s departure, Ware won’t be able to take it easy on the national stage. At the last winter championships in early April, she finished second behind 19-year-old Margo Erlam. The athlete from Saskatoon obtained an excellent score of 377.65 points, ahead of the Quebecer by more than 50 points.
“She was in her swimming pool. She dove really well and she deserved it. I will not miss competition in Canada. »
Upon her return, Ware fell ill for two weeks with a virus that was not COVID-19. This training hiatus delayed the implementation of his new dive. With the World Championships in Budapest and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham next summer, there will be plenty of opportunities to unveil it.