Jean-Simon Desgagnés | Tireless student-athlete

On Wednesday, December 13, 2023, at 4:30 p.m., Jean-Simon Desgagnés left the Vandry building at Université Laval in Quebec City after a day of internship in obstetrics and gynecology. An hour later, he sat on a train headed to Montreal to join his fellow athletes who were participating in a “laboratory” organized by the Canadian Olympic Committee in preparation for the Paris Games.

The next day, the 25-year-old student-athlete embarked on a round of interviews at a downtown hotel. Upon entering the premises occupied by The Presshe recounted his morning pleasure of reading The Press+, which gave a use to the tablet that his sponsor, New Balance, gave him as a gift.

His bleached hair was a holdover from the Canadian university cross-country championships, where he led the Rouge et Or to a “heartbreaking” silver medal.

“I won’t have hair like that in Paris!” he said, before changing his mind: “Well, maybe, now. I don’t know, I almost like it! Why not do something crazy in Paris?”

A true dynamo on two legs, Desgagnés radiates contagious energy. It is not surprising that the Faculty of Medicine subscribed to his daring idea of ​​pursuing two projects at once: studies in a highly demanding field and athletics training to compete with the best in the world in a unique discipline, the 3000 m steeplechase.

“I had to shake the pillars of the temple and ask for adjustments. I came up with a plan and the people at the faculty and the university said, ‘Oh, OK, we’ve never seen that, but let’s try it!’ I thought it was cool that they had the guts and the ambition to do it. At the same time, I had to prove and demonstrate that it was possible. As I often joke, every time I win a medal, I have a little more game!”

Sport, a game

Three months after this meeting, Desgagnés won his 10^e and 11^e medals at the Canadian university championships, a high in the history of the Rouge et Or program. He even received a bronze medal after the fact for the Universiade of… 2019. He was the fourth to cross the line in the 3000 m steeplechase, but the winner, Moroccan Mounaime Sassioui, tested positive for EPO.

Alongside his successes in the university network, Desgagnés continued his progression on the international scene, competing in his first World Championships in 2022. After a first national title the following year, he revealed the full extent of his potential by placing eighth at the World Championships in Budapest, achieving a time of 8 min 15.58 s, half a second from the Olympic qualifying standard.

As is often the case in the 3000m steeplechase, Africans monopolized the first four places.

The young man concluded his dream season by winning gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago, a moment he was able to celebrate with his friend and running partner Charles Philibert-Thiboutot, who won the 1500m.

This sort of consecration was only a logical continuation of “a long-term work” for the one who only seriously embraced athletics in CEGEP. Before that, the native of Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges was this tireless child and adolescent who tried his hand at several sports, without ever thinking he had any Olympic potential.

“We would wake up on Saturdays and go out to play in the snow or go skiing. When we came back, we would go to the ice rink. We would go in and out again to make igloos. We were always very active.”

Mountain biking, hockey, football, basketball, ultimate frisbee: everything interested him and was just fun. “My father never took me to hockey and said, ‘You didn’t play well or you have to score a goal.’ It was, ‘Do you want to play? You’ll have a blast. If you don’t like it, stop.’ Sports were a way to burn off energy, a way to play.”

The steeplechase, her affair

In the same way, school was fundamental for this son of actuaries and brother of a veterinarian. “We are all a little intense in our own way and the academic aspect has always been important.”

He had little interest in running. Like many teenagers, this activity was associated with a “punishment” in physical education class. However, his exceptional aerobic capacity gradually led him to the track. The atmosphere in the group at UL, led by the ambitious coach Félix-Antoine Lapointe, made him passionate. He excelled in the middle distance, from 1500 m to 5000 m. However, it was the 3000 m steeplechase, an event where runners clear five hurdles and a water obstacle per lap of the track, that really hooked him.

” It was My case. A little different, unconventional, just like me. I quickly found myself in this ordeal.

Desgagnés recalls that the steeplechase, inspired by horse racing in England and Ireland in the 18th century,^e century, is one of the oldest Olympic disciplines. It has been presented since the Paris Olympics in 1900. Women had to wait until Beijing, in 2008, to join the parade.

An excellent runner, he quickly distinguished himself by his ease in clearing 91.4 cm hurdles. He attributes this technical ability to Lapointe, “an exceptional hurdles coach”, and to his multi-sport background.

“It allowed me to have this coordination. As soon as I jump hurdles, I have this advantage over other athletes. It’s really interesting to have developed in different sports before doing racing.”

An atypical lifestyle

Desgagnés also excels at overcoming the obstacles inherent in marrying university studies and top-level sport. To achieve this, he has adjusted his schedule accordingly.

During his preclinical studies, he took a one-year “break” during a more demanding sports year. He took the opportunity to conduct research in immunology, evaluating, among other things, the effects of COVID-19 vaccines on kidney transplant patients. “Regardless of myself, I fell a little in love” with the subject and the team, smiles the man who is writing his master’s thesis in his spare time during the summer.

For his externship, Desgagnés opted for four half-year internships rather than two continuous ones. And there was no question of deviating from this discipline for the Olympic year (with the exception of a break in November and December due to his participation in the Pan American Games). Attracted by internal medicine, he admits that his internship in otolaryngology made him “trip” last spring…

“In ENT, there are both really advanced surgical techniques and a medical aspect with pathologies, cancers, hearing problems. These are two sides of the specialty that I like, a bit like in internal medicine. At the moment, I’m hesitating between the two.”

Like last year, the demands of full-time internships at the hospital in the fall and winter have not slowed him down, quite the contrary. “I’m going into the summer season in even better shape. I’m really in a different class compared to last year. That’s very encouraging.”

By putting down his stethoscope on the 1st^er April, Jean-Simon Desgagnés felt the usual “big click”. Crowned Canadian champion for the second time on June 27 in Montreal, he confirmed his selection for Paris. The steeplechase specialist will line up on July 7 in the 3000 m steeplechase at the Meeting de Paris, a Diamond League meeting, the most competitive circuit of World Athletics.

The future doctor hopes that his progression curve will continue until the Olympic Games, convinced that he made the right choices, both in sport and in academics.

“I agree that it’s a bit of an atypical way of doing things, but I finished eighth last year at the World Championships doing that. How many athletes have changed their lives, moved, stopped studying to be in the top 15, top 20 global? Or for whom it didn’t work? This lifestyle worked for me. Why not continue?