Change of country, break from international competitions, injuries, pandemic… Figure skater Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and her partner, Nikolaj Sørensen, have shown tenacity in order to achieve their Olympic dream.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
Laurence Fournier-Beaudry’s last Olympic cycle was not easy.
“Honestly, I don’t think anything really happens for nothing,” the Montrealer told us on the phone. In our journey, so many things have happened, but it has forged our character. »
Let’s go back to 2018. Fournier-Beaudry and his Danish partner, Nikolaj Sørensen, wear the colors of Denmark on the international scene and manage to obtain their place in dance at the Olympic Games in PyeongChang. But Fournier-Beaudry being unable to obtain their Danish citizenship, the duo was deprived of participating that year.
Refusing to give up the Olympic dream, the one they have cherished for a long time, the duo decides to leave Denmark in order to represent Canada. To do this, he must take a break from international competitions for a year, from January 2018 to January 2019.
The two athletes, accustomed to traveling ice rinks around the world, develop scenarios to keep themselves motivated and continue to progress.
We are very lucky because the caliber is quite strong within Canada and there are a lot of skaters. We had access to national competitions.
Laurence Fournier Beaudry
“We decided to see our year as an international year, explains Laurence Fournier-Beaudry. We said to ourselves: such a national competition represents such an international competition on our usual calendar. We perceived our progress in training. »
injuries
Things go well thereafter. The pair finished third at their first Canadian Championships and qualified for the Four Continents Cup and the World Championships in Japan.
But just before the World Championships, in March 2019, Fournier-Beaudry had a very bad fall during a simulation and landed on his knee, which became “as big as a baseball”. The duo decides to participate in the major competition despite the skater’s pain. He finishes 10andhis best result.
A few months later, as the pain was still there, Fournier-Beaudry decided to consult a doctor. His partner, who suddenly has knee pain too, accompanies him there.
“The doctor did an x-ray of both of our knees,” she says. She told me that I had no problem. […] You just had to give him time. For Nikolaj, she asked to do a magnetic resonance (MRI) because it didn’t look good on the x-ray. »
In the end, it was Sørensen who needed meniscus surgery and a cartilage graft in his knee.
“Our season is starting, he has knee pain, but we are athletes and we are often used to being injured, to endure it and to get through it,” says the 29-year-old woman.
“We had a great season considering his pain,” she continues. We had great results in all our competitions, our first medals in the Grands Prix outside the country. We had our first Grand Prix in China and Nikolaj was no longer able to do a forward crossover, he was in too much pain. He didn’t skate for a week. »
The couple still competed in China in November 2019 and took third place.
Upon his return home, Sørensen absolutely had to undergo surgery. Bad news, only a few months from the World Championships in Montreal and in the middle of the Olympic cycle.
During her husband’s rehabilitation, Fournier-Beaudry trained alone every day.
“I said to myself in my head: “The more I can support the couple, the better we will be when he will be able to return to the ice”, she recalls. It was the only thing I could control. […] We reoriented our classes and did a lot of off-ice dance classes that Nikolaj could take. »
Then came COVID-19, which had the consequences we all know about athletes…
The games, finally
Finally, yes. After all these adventures, Laurence Fournier-Beaudry and Nikolaj Sørensen will take part in the Olympic Games. “I think I’m going to believe it the day I set foot in Beijing,” says the skater.
“When I look back, it was the toughest times that made things happen for me,” she adds.
The couple say they are ready to live this adventure. With the colors of Canada on the back, what’s more. Nikolaj also obtained his citizenship on August 10 and his passport on August 1er September.
PHOTO JUSTIN TANG, THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
Skaters Nikolaj Sørensen and Laurence Fournier-Beaudry kiss after the announcement of their participation in the Beijing Olympics on January 9.
“We have been on the podium several times as Canadian competitors and there is always this beautiful moment when the flags go up in the air, breathes Fournier-Beaudry. I always come with watery eyes because after everything I’ve been through, the journey I’ve had, I can’t believe I’m representing Canada. It is the most beautiful dream. »
The partners will present an Olympic program in their image, which combines the “explosive and colorful” personality of Sørensen and that of “very adaptive and calm” of Fournier-Beaudry.
This program comes to get all our respective baggage, which will combine to show new possibilities.
Laurence Fournier Beaudry
And the couple intends to take full advantage of what they will experience.
“You never know what can happen from one day to the next, suggests the skater. This year, every time we left for a competition, I told Nikolaj to take advantage of it because it might be the last. We never know. It was the same thing when we decided to change countries: we didn’t know if Canada was going to accept us. »
“It’s really about getting in the spirit of enjoying the moment,” she adds. Not just for competitions, but for every day that takes us there. »