At the beginning of January, Rébecca Beaumont accompanied the Quebec mountain bike team to a training camp in Spain as well-being director. A title more unofficial than official, she warns, but that she made sure to honor and that she loved. She acted, in a way, as a confidante for the 16 athletes.
” Basically, [les dirigeants] need women now in the business after all that has happened recently in the sporting world, she explains. […] They asked me to make sure everyone got along. By being the only girl in the group of coaches, sometimes the young people come to talk to me a little more and confide in me. »
“Having a woman as a coach, I think it’s really fun for them. I remember in my years, from time to time there was a woman who accompanied us and sometimes rode with us. It became a bit of a model for me. »
Beaumont also wants to encourage more women to participate in local competitions. In 2020 and 2021, when she retired from international football, she migrated to downhill and enduro, disciplines in which few women indulge.
Often I signed up to encourage other girls to sign up. To show that there are also girls who sign up, that this sport is also for girls.
Rebecca Beaumont
In 2022, the Almatoise, who now lives in Orford, has regained a taste for cross-country, her favorite discipline. Seeing, once again, the insufficient number of female athletes, she decided to continue to participate in local competitions.
“When I see that there aren’t many, I try to encourage the movement,” she says.
get up
In addition to being a role model, Rébecca Beaumont also intends to be a mentor for young people. The one she never had to accompany her in the world of international cycling, in which “there is a lot of politics”. The engineer by profession also plans to have her own team within the International Cycling Union (UCI).
“I could organize the competitions, manage the sponsorships because that’s really what got me going in my career. Having to manage Instagram, contracts…”
Several other experiences from her background make her an interesting mentor. The 33-year-old had a long and successful career, which was nonetheless punctuated by injuries. In 2011, she suffered a concussion that kept her off her bike and lost her spot on the national team. She still keeps the scars. But she came back afterwards to experience her long career on the World Cup circuit, which remains one of her greatest sources of pride.
I often talk about it with young people because we somewhat underestimate what it is, a concussion. It got to a point where I couldn’t do my grocery shopping myself. I’m happy to be back, to have started training again, to have managed to get back on the bike.
Rebecca Beaumont
Beaumont also had to contend with a shoulder injury that she dragged on for too long. By the time she retired, she had dislocated her shoulders “about 50 times on each side,” she notes. “It had gotten to the point where it could dislocate when I sneezed. »
After a major operation, she went through a long rehabilitation before continuing the sport once again, just differently.
Still, retirement hasn’t been easy. The athlete had to “redefine [son] identify “. At the start of 2023, we feel that she is in her place. She’s not the least bit nostalgic.
“I think I’m somewhere else now. I prefer to act as a coach or as a mentor than as an athlete. And live different challenges with these young people, try to give them advice. »
Let’s say she is equipped to do so.