Brittany MacLean Interview
We're back for another Olympian interview today as we chat with two-time Olympic swimmer and Olympic bronze medalist Brittany MacLean about her incredible career! We learn just why she got into swimming, the swimming scene in Canada and how it improved during her time on the team and what amazing things she has gotten up to since her retirement! It's a chat you won't want to miss!
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Please note this is an automated transcript that may contain errors.
COLIN HILDING: Welcome back to Off The Podium for our first new interview in, I don't know, let's say a couple of months here. We had a big series to carry you through the Rio Olympics that, not the Rio Olympics, the Tokyo Olympics that never happened. But we're going to go back in time now, a couple of years to the Rio Olympics, as we're here to talk to our second ever swimmer on Off The Podium, which is really exciting. We have a one-time bronze medallist, a two-time Olympian, and a, I think, 100 million-time Canadian record holder. One and only Brittany MacLean here. Thanks so much for joining us, Brittany.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Thank you for having me.
COLIN HILDING: And Ben's here, too.
BEN WATERWORTH: I'm here. Hello. I have none of those records. I don't have a bronze medal. But maybe one day. I don't know. Brittany, I'm always excited to chat to Canadian athletes, because Colin and I, being a co-Australian-Canadian production, we alternate between the two countries. So welcome. It's always interesting, I think, we always like to find out how athletes get involved in the sports that they do, that they ultimately go on to compete in the Olympics. So simple question to start off with. What made you get into swimming?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I think for a lot of swimmers, it kind of finds them instead of them finding it, because not many people are just all of a sudden, like, I found a pool today, but it is one of those essential life skills. So you do, most of us just start as, like, we want to learn how to swim for the safety aspect and then kind of work your way up. So that's exactly what I did. I started swimming lessons from a young age because my parents saw the value in making sure that I was water safe and then kind of progressed through that quite quickly. And I have an older sister that's two years older. That's also an Olympian. And so for the two of us, I kind of just always followed it a bit in her footsteps. And so she made her way up the ladder of swimming lessons, as did I. And then within our local pool, there was opportunities for like an intro to competitive program. And so she jumped on that. And then shortly after, I did as well. So I wasn't necessarily... My parents joke that like they missed their calling in swimming, that they must have had some outrageous talent. But yeah, it kind of just found us, and we were tossed into every sport possible growing up. So it was the one that stuck.
COLIN HILDING: I always find it exciting, you know, with swimming particularly, because it is something that everybody does. I don't think there's a kid on the planet. I mean, I didn't even realise they do like baby swimming classes until somebody told us when we had our son. And we had him in that for a couple of years, and we did it at the same pool that, you know, does competitive swimming that Chantel van Landegam came out of, too. So as I would take him to swimming classes, I would see all these teenagers and everything who were in the matching outfits and everything and competitively swimming, and think, well, literally anybody can do this. What was the point where you sort of went from just swimming classes and got into it competitively, at least to the point where you knew you had potentially a career in it, where you could, you know, not going to say go to the Olympics, but where you would actually compete in medal in advance?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, I think, well, first of all, I have to touch on your Winnipeg pride there. Chantelle is one of my best friends, so I'm happy to hear that you got a little bit influenced by her amazing accomplishments and the human she is. We also were teammates through four years at the University of Georgia, so close to my heart there. But definitely, you know, that's kind of that, that it goes hand in hand with the fact that that's like the growth of sport and the inspiration behind it, like all it takes is for someone to walk into a facility and know, like, you know, excellence lived here. And that's one of the things that really stuck with me is, I think the aha moment was probably when I was about, you know, 12, 13-ish. And at that point, I was playing soccer, playing hockey, but obviously swimming was the one thing that really I had shown kind of potential in. You know, we did it twice a day, starting at a pretty young age. So you had to be very serious into swimming if you wanted to kind of take it far. And so I did have some things I was doing just for the fun of it. And I loved to play those team sports because it was literally that. It was play. I was having fun. I was doing it. It was helping me balance. But yeah, once I think when 2008 rolled around, I didn't make those Olympic trials. I was just off, so I would have been like 13, 14, and I had just missed qualifying, but a couple of my peers did. And so it was kind of like, wow, okay, this is something that I was disappointed initially because I didn't qualify. But one of my childhood idols, Alexa Kormanicki, at the time, she swam at a topical with me and she had qualified. And so to be able to see her do it in the program that I was training in just kind of made it a lot more realistic. And I think that's the kind of success that if you visualise it and you can see it being realistic, it does everything for you. So to see her achieve that success, not only four years later did I make the Olympic Trials, but I'm in the very first race the very first night. I broke the Canadian record and got my ticket to go to London. So a lot can change, obviously, in that time frame. But that was kind of the, well, okay, I can do this too. But on top of that, you know, starting to make my senior national cuts, getting to go to national training camps, getting to go to all these junior national teams where, you know, I was racing and training with the other best in Canada of my age group, and realising, you know, not only do I belong here, but I can strive here and I can prove myself here. And I think that's when I really committed to, you know, when you're young, you're just, you're doing it for fun, you have goals, you're looking to improve, but really, really got seriously into, you know, stopping my other sports, making sure this was my sole focus and committing all that I had into the sport.
BEN WATERWORTH: What was that swimming landscape like when you first kind of got into the real competitive side of things and making Team Canada and sort of that period? Because obviously coming from Australia, you know, Colin's talking about swimming being sort of a thing in classes like that, you know, as I'm sure you guys probably do a lot of skiing things and that in school and whatever it is, like, you know, swimming is literally part of our curriculum. You have to. We're surrounded by water. It's kind of a thing. And obviously when it comes to the Olympics, that's kind of the sport we're best known for. I guess Australia is swimming. So we're coming from a different part. But in Canada, at that particular point, you're coming from a point where, you know, Beijing won bronze medal, I believe Canada won in swimming, to ultimately when you go to Rio, Canada comes away with six medals. So, you know, there's a bit of improvement there. So were you seeing kind of a changing in the guard when you sort of were making those teams to the improvement that ultimately came at Rio?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: One thing I will say on the topic of Australia, that was my biggest, like, wow moment when I started travelling for swimming, because I remember so vividly, I was on a plane ride. I believe it was just from, like, Sunita Gold Coast. And so it wasn't a long ride, but we were, whoever was sitting beside, we got chatting, he saw my swim bag. He was just melting off all these names of the Australian swimmers. And he was just literally a local businessman that was going from one city to the next. And I said, how do you know swimmers here? But it was common knowledge across Australia. Like, that was known. And for me, I was like, well, I could be in any mall or restaurant and no one's going to have any idea who I am. But for them, it was like the bread and butter. So it was really cool to see, not to that full extent, but definitely the growth from my two Olympics, London and Rio, these four completely explode. And now from that point on, continuously getting more and more popular. I mean, I'm currently working with CBC on the ISL, the International Swimming League, and we're covering it every weekend. And the fact that people are watching swimming that's not at the Olympics is an exciting thing, and it's new and it's fresh. So yeah, I remember very, very clearly in London, I was one of only three or four finalists. So I qualified for the final, and that was the top eight, and that was a little bit out of what I was seeded to do, and so it was exciting. But then also at that point, we just weren't striving for medals. It wasn't a realistic goal. As much as, yes, they'd be exciting, and we had Ryan Cochran and Ben Hayden win medals at Olympics, but for most of us, it was more about the experience. And so watching that growth and having the leaders that led us in from Beijing and London into Rio, there was still a lot of these veterans to kind of anchor the team. But then this new fresh energy that had never even, like you talk about Penelope, she had never been to Worlds and Olympics national team. This was her first everything. And so that fresh energy of not really knowing what to expect and winning a medal on that very first night of the Rio Olympics was everyone's like, OK, we can do this. This is realistic all of a sudden. And I think we won at least one medal almost every night from there on out. And a couple came in the relays, so we have there four or six girls that take home a medal. So we went from going in as none of us, or I guess Cochran would have been the only one coming in as a medallist, and you left with about 13, I believe, 13 or 14 people on that Olympic team that came home with medals. So it started, there was contagious energy, it really was, and seeing that we can realistically swim against the best in the world, and we're constantly seeing it now, like at the ISL, just this past weekend, there's Canadians now that are beating Katinka Hosu, they're touching, like, they're just stuff that we never really imagined us being in a position to do, and now it's not just something really cool when it happens, it's just expected.
COLIN HILDING: It's funny, as you were talking about Rio and Ryan Cochran, we started this show before Rio, and if we were to go back and listen to our preview episode, we probably talked about swimming, and I likely said something in the lines of, you know what, we might see a medal from Ryan Cochran, but I don't know if we can expect much else. It literally just sort of came out of nowhere. Like you said, overnight, maybe feeding off of the energy. We'll get there eventually, but did you go in expecting anything? Did any of the other young swimmers have any expectations that we could potentially get to that level, which at that point was pretty much reserved only for Ryan Cochran in Canada?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yes, for sure. Like it may have been overnight for the external viewer, but it was a work in progress. And I think the summer of 2014 for me individually was really, really good, but we also had, like we went from the Commonwealth Games to PNPACs and the Gold Coast, and we taking out maybe like with Commonwealth, you take out the Americans and with PNPACs, you take out a lot of the European countries, but we were winning medals, we were getting to the podium, and maybe it wasn't at the Olympics yet, but we were getting the experience to race internationally and be successful internationally. And then, you know, the next summer, we saw PNM Games where it was hosted in Toronto, and that was massive. None of us had experienced, to say none of us, I would say 95% of us had ever experienced racing internationally under the lights in a home stadium. And this was, you know, not only was it the PNM Games in Toronto, but it was in a new facility that was going to create new opportunity, that was going to create new excitement, that was going to be a place for so, so many youth to train and to grow out of. And to see that facility in Scarborough go from, you know, a pool in my mind at that point, to now seeing, you know, they run the Centre in Ontario out of it. There's probably, if I had to guess, like 12 to 15 sports, that that's their home. So it's so much more than just the swimming. That was kind of this longevity piece that I think lit a fire beneath all of us. And I know for me specifically, I didn't swim very well at the PNM Games, but to be able to walk away from that and say, you know what, this is, it was really special to be part of this, to see the excitement of our fans and to have like a crowd loud cheering for Canada and going into the next year. I think all the pieces just kind of started to align. So we really made a statement in Rio, but I think all of us, you know, I don't think you would have said, Alexia comes home with four medals, but you would have put us on the podium a few times. And I know a lot of the people that, I remember Hilary Caldwell who won a medal on night six or seven, like near the end, she was one of the ones that would have been like a medal, a very high chance of winning an individual medal going into the games. And she says all the time, she's like, by then it was just like, oh, another medal. She was just going in there because she wanted to be a part of the crew. Like she said, I just wanted to be a member of this massively successful women's team that was already winning all these medals, and I want my name in that bucket. But by the time it came down to her, it was just like second nature for us to be tossing in more and more medals. So it was pretty cool that I won't say like it was all momentum and all the excitement because there was that work that had been put in for four years to develop our programming. But it was exciting, and it was fun because the last couple of years, it had just been male medals. And now you'll see a ton of female success in the sport of swimming in Canada.
BEN WATERWORTH: When it comes to selecting a distance in swimming, is it similar to say athletics where I guess at one point you decide to focus on maybe the longer distances and the shorter distance, because you obviously focus a lot on the longer distances more so in your career. I mean, is there a point where you decide to align better at the endurance events rather than a straight out 100 metre, 50 metre sprint?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, I would say there's definitely, when you're growing up, most coaches will try to keep you as versatile as possible. So kind of try a bit of everything, train a bit of everything, be prepared for a bit of everything. That's where you tend to find the most well-rounded swimmer. But you definitely find like, okay, I'm more successful in that space or that kind of clicks differently. A lot of people have like a natural speed and other people don't necessarily have that quick, fast switch muscle. I wasn't, well, I was lucky for a distance swimmer. I did have some range, which is what got me onto the relay and the 200. And I could go down slightly. I had a bit of speed, but I definitely was not your token sprint driver. Sometimes it has to do with body type and height and, you know, the ability to build muscle in different places. And so there are factors. But I think it kind of just finds you. For me specifically, I grew up a firefighter, and then I became a backstroker because I hurt my shoulder. And then I kind of got into IM. And then I made my first Olympic team in the 400 freestyle, and I only swam it ever at one other national championships before that. So it was not that I never swam it, sorry, but I never swam it at a high level. It wasn't something that I created a niche for or anything. I was just still developing, and that was something that at the right time, I really kind of lifted off on that. And yeah, until I really went to college and trained at the University of Georgia, we were a little bit more defined into groups of like, you're a distance group, you're kind of a middle distance, and you're more sprinters, and you do start to specialise when you get older. But I think it's really important, and most coaches would agree that when you're younger, you try to do a bit of everything and let it find you.
COLIN HILDING: We did talk to a couple of runners back in the summer who are very similar to swimming, just in that you have your distances and you have your relays. And the one thing that I was most interested in that I don't know how different it would be in swimming is the relay aspect of it, because you probably had just as much experience and success on relay teams as you've had individually. And obviously, in your first Olympics, London, I mean, that's this close, obviously, you know? The relay teams, are they put together well in advance? Is it something where everybody is sort of open and then they just sort of decide 24 hours before, 40 hours before? Is it shortlisted? How does it go about getting on the relay team?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, it's very interesting, because I think, again, from the outside looking in, you're probably thinking, okay, this is a relay team going for an Olympic medal. They've been training together for years and months to get to this moment. And yes, we've all been training for years and months, but not together. And sometimes these teammates, you're just collaborating for maybe a couple exchanges and practising at relay takeovers before a couple days leading out. You're a team, for sure, but you're all coming from different programs and you're training in different places. So it is kind of a little bit of a unique part to it. And what was really cool about the relay on the first night at the Olympics in Rio, the 4x100 freestyle relay on the women's side, they all trained together that year. So it was really fun to see them really celebrate a team victory because they had gone head to head in practice every day. They knew what each other's capabilities were. They knew their strengths. They knew their weaknesses. So that was really fun to see. But yeah, so the development of the teams is always, there's a qualification. So when we qualify, and usually for swimming, it's the end of March or early April, and we have the races. So you'll do a 200 freestyle, and the top four people in that 200 freestyle get to swim that relay that summer. Now, they're the team that qualifies, but it's not necessarily who's the strongest on that day in that moment. So you could have Taylor Ralker, Penny Lipsyak, that was swimming a race that morning, so they moved the relay around so that they're a little rested. And there was definitely a little bit of strategy based on the programming of other athletes. One thing we did have to implement in Rio was that the morning of the relay, I had been, well, we didn't know at the time, but I had pneumonia. So I woke up with a spiking fever, and I had immediately gone to our team doctors, and we were on the phone back and forth with the coaches, and they had the team doctor and everyone trying to figure out, you know, am I capable of swimming in the morning? And obviously, you know, you prepare every moment of every day to do this right, and then something happens like that, and you have no control over it. So that was probably one of the scariest things that we could have happened. But luckily, for the, arguably the first time, we were incredibly deep in Canada in those races. So they were confident in kind of putting a couple other names out and having them swim to qualify us through to the final. And so it does require some flexibility and moving pieces. And so we were able to use Kennedy Goss and Emily Overholt in the morning, and then they were rotated out in the evening. So all six members are Olympic medallists. All six members had the same involvement in that relay team. And it did cause us to really bond that day. I remember we went over to the pool together as a team. The way that story ends is basically I rested the whole day, my fever broke, and I was able to race that night. But at the time, you know, in the morning, Emily probably got four or five hours in advance, maybe only three to know she was racing a 200 freestyle that morning. So it is, you know, you have to be able to go with the flow, and that's what swimming is. And we practised this so many times. It's a race she's comfortable swimming. I just, I don't think she would have ever expected to swim at the Olympics, but they did it. They got through. I think they were fifth or so, so in a comfortable position and put us in a spot to race for a medal in the evening.
BEN WATERWORTH: Four years prior, your first Olympics, fourth in the relay Canada got a couple of seconds off the bronze in France. So I can imagine that ultimately, and we'll get to that that win, of course, in Rio. That's sort of some vindication, good feeling. But you were talking before about, you know, making a final in your first Olympics. You know, I'm sure competing with your sister coming along for your first Olympics, too, was a great experience for the whole Olympic experience. But do you leave London satisfied or do you kind of think, Oh, I was only three seconds away from a medal in the relay, things like that. I mean, what's your kind of vibe after London before you ultimately take that next four year journey before going towards Rio?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Definitely very satisfied in London. That, I mean, three seconds in swimming is a very large chunk of time. So it might have stung a little more if we were like a tenth or two tenths away from a medal, but we were very comfortably in fourth. And for us, we were seated to come maybe like ninth or tenth or so. So for us to be fourth in the world was a huge accomplishment. We ended that night very excited and proud. And yeah, there was no realistic hopes of being medallists that night. So maybe if we had gone into it, you know, this is beyond all, which in real it was. I was going in thinking, I'm either winning an Olympic medal and all my dreams are coming true, or I'm going to leave here incredibly disappointed. And so, yeah, in London, very, very happy with the way things went. I was incredibly excited about my individual races. I had, well, only one, actually, individual race set. The pre-women final, you know, in the morning before a freestyle, I was seated to come, I think, like 24th or 30th, and I was able to out-touch the world record holder in the heats. I got myself a spot in the final, and I went at best time. So that was pretty much anything I could have asked for in terms of gaining experience and getting more, yeah, more tools under my belt. And then swimming in the final, I did swim a little bit slower, but the amount that I gained out of that day, and I had touched one first in the final, so I didn't come last. I came second last, and so it was, yeah, a constant, I mean, yeah, the only thing I maybe would have been slightly disappointed at was adding time in the final. But knowing that I put my heart and soul into that morning swim and put myself in a position to be in the final is all I could have asked for. So, yeah, I left it all in the pool, and I was really excited about the results and the growth potential in that relay and what could be years later. And it turns out four years later, we were able to get it done.
BEN WATERWORTH: One thing I'll quickly add, though, the person you did beat in that final was a New Zealander, Lauren Boyle. So thank you for that. We cannot have a New Zealander not finish last in a swimming event at the Olympics. So on behalf of Australia, I appreciate that.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: And it's funny because Lauren and I have been back and forth the next, you know, four years. So swimming is kind of fun in that sense, because, you know, for the most part, I would say more often than not, she was beating me than me beating her. But that final 50 was something I was kind of famous for. So I tended to kind of really make my move and empty my tank coming home, and no one was safe in that last 50.
COLIN HILDING: So many of the athletes we have on here will talk about their first Olympics. And it is typically, you know, I just was happy to be there or whatever. It must have made a difference going into the second games. And you mentioned how you finished fourth in London. And I remember coming out of London, it was almost like fourth place. We've joked about it on the show several times here. I call it the Canadian bronze because you just get this close. And then there was such a huge difference with Rio. But when you look at the teams, I mean, if I'm not wrong, you were the only one to actually go from London to Rio in that same relay. It was a completely different team surrounding you each time. Was there a bit of experience? Considering it's only your second Olympics, it's not like you're this aged athlete who's at the end of her career. You were like the senior swimmer there. What type of experience were you able to share with the others that might have helped you guys in Rio?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, so I was technically an aged athlete. But it was so different. And to see, yeah, four years later, to be able to say I've been on that relay team in some capacity for the last four years was really special. Especially knowing that I was not a 200 freestyle. I didn't ever consider myself a 200 freestyle specialist. And at one point, I did have a Canadian record in it. And at one point, it was a strength of mine. But I always kind of worked down to get to the 200 free. And so to be able to kind of keep my name on that spot for four years was a five, actually, because my first ever national team, I made it in the 200 freestyle. I made a relay position in 2011 to do the Worlds in Shanghai. I also won Junior Worlds that same summer in the event. So it gave me a lot of confidence going into the Olympic trials, for sure. But also, too, my sister was the Canadian record holder in the 200 freestyle before. You know, I was able to get to that spot. So, you know, it was always kind of an interesting thing because we could overlap in that event, and I learned so much from her. And to see, you know, her qualify in London in the 100 and have, you know, we could have potentially been on the same relay together, which would have been crazy to think about. But I definitely saw a lot in those four years of different names coming in, different experiences that we could pull. I mean, sometimes we had the distance girls that qualified in the two. Sometimes we had the sprinters that come up to the two. So it's fun because who's better on that day and qualifies that spot, like earns their spot. And so they might not always swim it, but usually we'll at least swim it in the morning the way that we qualified and then kind of make fine-tuning details if there's someone else in the team that's more suitable for that relay spot. But yeah, I tried to take some experience into my journey to get to Rio, and Katzlvar on that relay as well was a veteran at the time. She wasn't necessarily in the 200 freestyle, but she really made some moves in the freestyle. So she was also a name that had been pulled on. And then, I mean, we had Penny and Taylor who were swimming lights out, both of them at the games, and had already won multiple Olympic medals to their credit. So I mean, as much as we were trying to guide them, I think they were also guiding us. And something that was really refreshing to me was as much pressure as I was putting on myself at the time. I think there was something beautiful about being naive and young and just seeing, you know, I'm going to go out and race like I do every other day, and this is just another event for me, and I'm having fun in the pool, and it is fun to be like to win and to be successful, and to just kind of change that perspective around a little and say, let's go out and race, let's go out and get this. And it wasn't about, you know, we're going and we need this medal here. It's just, let's go see what we can do, especially for me on that day because I was incredibly ill. So thinking was not in my forte, so I was just trying to kind of focus on that positive energy that I could take off the others. But we're both, always, always, I think there's, it seems like a teacher in a classroom, they're learning from the kids just as much as the kids are learning from them. So I think that's the way I felt in the Rio Games for sure.
BEN WATERWORTH: I love the fact that we were very close to having Canada's version of the Campbell Sisters here, Colin Wood and the Plains Sisters, you know, potentially. I don't know if you guys would have choked as much as the Campbell Sisters, but that's another story for another episode. We still haven't forgiven them for that, for Rio. You talk about, you know, that day from being sick, not being able to swim the heats, maybe not even thinking, yeah, you're going to even be on that team. But to go from that in the morning to going back to the village that night, having an Olympic medal wrapped around your neck. I mean, in terms of days in your life, Brittany, how does that rank in terms of the most bipolar days that probably you've ever lived?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: There was a lot of tears for very many different reasons, and I'm not one that gets emotional. I'm not the typical, I have a tough race and I'm automatically crying, but it was a lot. And I think it was an accumulation of so many feelings because this is all I had ever wanted. And a couple of days earlier in the 400 freestyle, which was kind of my big race at the time, and I had to realise a shot of making the podium. So I was going in there thinking, you know, this is all or nothing for this medal. And I came fourth or fifth, and it wasn't my best race. And I was really disappointed in that, and I kind of didn't have answers. I tried to really reset. I swam the 200 freestyle. I started kind of feeling off, but I made the semi, which for me was a big step for that race. And it wasn't awful, but it just wasn't good. So my head was just trying to stay afloat with the slight disappointments, nothing major. But I just wasn't really happy so far, knowing I was capable of more than what I was racing to. And then it was more just, you know, it started with a bit of a tickle in my throat, and my body was fatigued. And then the morning I woke up for this race, it all kind of started crashing. So I went up to the doctor, and yeah, that one was just so much back and forth, because at that point, could I have been racing that morning? I didn't know yet. We decided as a team to take me off, but then I thought, okay, does that mean I'm not going to get a chance tonight either? And at the time, I was still a Canadian record holder in that event. So I was arguably the backbone to this relay, although obviously, Penny would completely destroy that. Taylor completely destroyed that. And so it was at the time, though, something that I think the coaches relied on a little bit of experience with a little bit of this new fresh energy. And they saw, luckily, saw something in me that they wanted to keep on that team and had faith that I would pull it off in the moment. And I did. Luckily, it wasn't necessarily the fastest I've ever been, but it was up there. Like, it was competitive, and it was exactly what we needed out of those four laps. And I said I've trained way too hard, you know, for years to be able to give up on four laps. And I was a girl that, you know, my main event in college was 66 laps. So I was just telling myself, you know, you can swim for two minutes. You can get this done. And all the times where I was trained, when I wasn't feeling 100%, all those days where you're, you know, waking up at 4, 47 in the morning, and all those things started flying back to me. And my Y was just so strong, and why I was doing all this, why I cared so much about doing all of it. And you had to go to bed that night with a medal on my neck, and I remember holding it just in awe. I did struggle a little bit after, though, and that's a whole other can of worms. But I'm always a huge advocate for mental health, but I think there's that initial exhilaration and excitement, and then the crash after of this doesn't feel like I thought it would, or you think your whole life that your identity is going to be changed when you achieve this dream, and it's not necessarily the case. So I think a lot of those... I mean, emotions are just nuts. And then the next day, I had to get up and race my longest race, but I had given anything I had left in me in this four laps to swim for this medal. And the next morning, I just... I mean, I was shaking on the blocks. I hadn't been able to eat much. I hadn't been able to properly hydrate. I didn't sleep at all. I couldn't swallow. I couldn't breathe. It was a mess. So to go out on that note is a little difficult because that was my last race that I ever swam. But to say that day was probably one of the biggest emotional roller coasters of my life would be putting it lightly.
COLIN HILDING: Earlier you mentioned about how in Australia there's just that household name recognition for the swimmers. And it's probably not 100% there yet here. Certainly you could ask anybody in Canada, do you know who Penny Aleksak is? They're going to say yes. Maybe they'll say yes to Kylie Mass. But coming out of Rio, just partly the pride that Canada had for just the team as a whole and even as you were mentioning, how Emily Overholt swam the trials or whatever for the first few heats, after that event ended, it's not like she was even treated differently. All the interviews that came up, it was like, oh yeah, she's part of this team. And I think more than anything, Canada came out of Rio, where the swim team as a whole was looked at as the star. You certainly had Penny Aleksak. You had just the team as a whole. Did you guys have any perception, I guess, at the time of how Canada was viewing this and what a big deal it was of everything that was just being shattered in the pool and how Canada viewed the swim team as a whole as like our Olympic stars in Rio?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, it was fun because you know, I mean, at the end of the day, like people search for tangible things to credit. And so a medal is always, you know, the tally of the games and it's something people are talking about. And so I always said I did a lot of public speaking after the Rio Games and, you know, having my medal there for people to touch, to hold, to sense. It's not that I as a swimmer or experience had any more value, but for someone to light up when they held that medal that just like exhilarated everything that I'd ever been saying. And so I do think that part was just, it was, I don't know if we necessarily knew it in the moment. I definitely started realising it afterwards and thinking, wow, we're coming home with, you know, 13 or 12 or 13 of us are coming home as Olympic medallists. And on top of that, what I really loved the most, and I know you mentioned your question was more leaning toward Canadians, but one thing that really stuck out to me was what the international, like the other countries were noticing Canada on the pool deck. And that was one of the first times that I think people were like, whoa, the Canadians are doing really well here. And like I had gone to school in the US and I knew a lot of the Americans and there was all the American coaches were standing there being like, damn, this games has been something special for Canada. And so to have that kind of like your peers recognise you is almost more rewarding than the general public recognise you. And then being able to come home and like sharing our message. And I guess like the big cherry on top was having Penny carry the flag of the closing ceremonies because, you know, and even in turn, we did it for the Paralympics, so we have two summers carry the closing ceremony flag in the Rio Games for both the Olympics and Paralympics. So, you know, that was definitely like, whoa, swimming is a big deal right now. And to be acknowledged across all sports across Canada, knowing, you know, the amount of successful athletes that came from so many different sports, that was really special and something that I think they're continuing to build into Tokyo. You know, it was kind of like this big excitement. And then now, obviously, it's causing a little bit of a lull to have to wait their turn. But I hope that people are going to get just as excited because Tokyo is going to be even better.
BEN WATERWORTH: You mentioned about sort of taking Canada a bit more seriously, some of the other nations. I worked at the Commonwealth Games in 2018, and I for one know that a lot of people were talking up you guys in the Commonwealth Games that year, of course. So it kind of took a different level, whereas I think Australia, we're a little bit arrogant when it comes to the Commonwealth Games in general, and particularly in the swimming, we're like, oh, fuck, no one's going to touch us in this, you know? America's here, you know? South Africa, well, South Africa's there, but some of these other countries that usually are challenging us aren't there. But I know for once, they were definitely looking at Canada. What did you do with the medal? I always like to find this out, Brittany, what people, what Olympians do with their medals. Is this something that you carry around with you just in case you want to free Big Mac or something? Or is it on display? Or like, what do you do with the medal?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: It is currently, it is boxed in my room right now. The Rio specifically, like every year, I know they do like cool things that you either get with the medal or the case that the medal's in, but they're all like hand carved wooden boxes. They're really cool. So it's automatically like a beautiful piece to have. For a while, I would have loved to put it on display, mostly because we call it our shrine, but my dad is a big, big sports fan, and he's very, very proud of both his daughters. So our basement is a sport. It's everywhere. It's posters, trophies, especially when I went to Georgia, because you get a trophy for every top eight finish, so they're just, they're everywhere. And so he loves to decorate it, and he's made some really cool cases and different things. But with this one, I'm very passionate about sharing it. And because I didn't have that moment necessarily of elation when I won it, I like to continue to see it through other people's eyes and to share it with young swimmers, to share it with anyone, really. And that moment is important, just as important for me as it is for them. So I love it to be accessible, because I do use it. I mean, not as much anymore as I did probably the year after the Games, but I do bring it places if needed, for mostly talking purposes, I'm not bringing it to the bar or the restaurant or anything.
BEN WATERWORTH: Oh, I'm waiting, I'm waiting for an olympia. We say this all the time, like, you know, surely you can just walk into, like, McDonald's with a medal, right? If I was in one of those stores, I would give you free shit. Like, I don't care who you are, give an Olympic medal around your neck, you're getting free stuff.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Actually, I don't know about all athletes, but a lot of athletes, like swimmers specifically, like, they'll get their medal in the minute they're off the podium, they take it off. Like, it's this big, like, you've earned it, but you don't, like, wear it. I don't know. It's bizarre.
BEN WATERWORTH: Michael Phelps gets one or two.
COLIN HILDING: Another one for the drawer.
BEN WATERWORTH: Pretty sure Michael Phelps probably gets sick of them after a while, right?
COLIN HILDING: I'm not sure Ryan Lochte is polishing it and styling it by the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: Ryan Lochte doesn't know what it is. He's looking at going, dude, what the hell is going on with this thing?
COLIN HILDING: You did mention earlier, you had your last race. Rio was your last games. A lot of athletes will go on and on and on. If you don't mind talking about it, what sort of led to your decision to step away and to retire from swimming?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, a lot. I always say that it's just a perfect balance of a lot of things. One of them is definitely just looking towards the future in swimming and what I wanted to achieve out of my life. And I had finished university, which was the kind of four-year window. And so knowing that I didn't have a team to train for anymore, and that part of my chapter had kind of closed at a good point. And so swimming is kind of in four-year blocks. So looking at what I wanted to achieve in the next four years, it just wasn't realistic for me to keep going. I had a ton of injuries. I tore my labor on my shoulder. I had a tear in the opposite hamstring. I had two concussions. I had tendonitis in the other shoulder. I was, yeah, my body at 22 was falling apart, and I kind of had these waves of success in swimming. I had one year incredibly injured, and then the next year I'd kind of come and perform when it mattered. But that pattern was both exhausting physically and mentally, and really took a toll on me, I think, on the kind of mental health side of things. And then I started really thinking about, you know, what I wanted out of life, and I was finishing this degree so I could start kind of with my peers in the real world, so we say, or I could wait, you know, four or five years and feel like I was behind and not really know anything yet. And swimming, and not to say other sports aren't the same, but it was definitely something you had to devote like all or nothing into. And I knew if I couldn't put my all into it, it wasn't, it wasn't something that I should be doing. And to be honest, it wasn't an option to do professional. Like, okay, you could swim professional, but I couldn't even make enough to live off of, let alone make a living. So there was just no monetary opportunities at that point that were feasible for me to be able to keep going too long. Now there's a lot of growth, and I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, success in Rio, success moving forward in the sport. The times have changed too, but at the time, there was, you know, other than maybe a couple hundred dollars of prize money every once in a while, I wasn't going to be able to profit off of it. And then lastly, yeah, the big piece was my mental health, like knowing that I wanted to leave the sport at a point that was healthy and on my terms, and I didn't want to always resent it. I didn't want to get to the point where I absolutely hated what I was doing, and I started seeing myself down that path, and it wasn't healthy for me anymore. So now I can give back, I can commentate, I can analyse, I can lead clinics, I can show up to the pool, I can have fun with the young kids, because it's something that I love and I'll continue to love, but on the terms, that makes sense for me.
BEN WATERWORTH: You've used a lot of that experience too in your career endeavors now, you know, talking about some of the things you've been doing, but I believe you sort of did sports management, worked with the Blue Jays, and now you're of course with the Canadian Olympic Committee. How is that, I guess, going from competing at that level to using that experience to say a professional side like the Blue Jays or now with the Olympic Committee? I mean, that must sort of be a great benefit for you to having that background, to now work with athletes who are experiencing what you've obviously gone through.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Absolutely, and every athlete's story is different, and so it's fun to like, I'm constantly getting to meet new athletes and hear what their experience has been or get to know them better or kind of learn about what their dreams and aspirations are. But there's just something to be, we're in such a unique little community, and that is like having the ability to call ourselves Olympians and have the experience in representing our country. And there's so much common ground to be had, and that's something that I love about my job now is, you know, we're so, there's a massively hardworking group at the Canadian Olympic Committee that really, really cares about the success of sport moving forward, whether that's at a very amateur level all the way up to high performance. But the fun part is that, you know, we're kind of this internal eyes and ears, and we have about 10 Olympians on staff, and it's really, because all of us have such different stories, and so that's not like, you know, the Olympians all have this opinion on the way things go. It's just like, there's almost like a safe place that if athletes have, are curious about what's going on, or programs that we're able to execute, or questions about how they can improve in their public speaking, or where they can get fine opportunities. And, you know, I don't always have the answers for them, but what I can do is point them in the right direction, and that's something that's really rewarding in the job that I do, and having the people, the engagement with others is really, really, really rewarding, and just getting to know stories and sharing stories and hearing experiences of athletes. But it's massive in terms of, I always say, get kids in sport as much as you can, but things like time management, teamwork, resiliency, like, you can't learn that from reading a book. Like, it is so experiential, and having to have had to adapt to a 5 a.m. practice from 12 years old, like, you can't really carelessly tell a teenager, you know, how to get through that. And so, it was just so many takeaway skills that, you know, you write them in your resume, and you think you have them and whatever, but to be able to put them to action every single day, whether that's, you know, in a meeting with 10 people, or meeting with one person, or launching a project, or trying to get to deadlines and all of that, I think back to my swimming days and, you know, how I had a quick 45-minute window to eat lunch, nap, and recover again before the next practice. Like, it was just, you have to learn how to do it. And so having that backbone, for me, is something I take to my day-to-day forever. I hope for forever.
COLIN HILDING: Before we get to our final My Name Is questions, you mentioned you're doing commentary now as well. And on CBC, is that right?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Like, I'm just currently doing the ISL stuff, so we're covering Saturdays and Sundays for November until the semifinals and finals are over.
COLIN HILDING: I'm going to have to watch it. I do watch Geo Swimming whenever it comes up, but I've got a four-year-old and I've got twins that are a year old. So you may have even heard during this episode. I don't hear any commentary typically, so I'll have to go out of my way to record it and watch it when they're in bed from now on.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: That's awesome. And so we're not doing the commentary, we're doing the analyse. So we're the ones in studio kind of like previewing or post-gaming the races for you. So it's been really fun.
COLIN HILDING: And that's been the one positive with CBC, with the cancellation or postponement of Tokyo, is every single week I'm like, oh, this is on, tell Ben, you know, they've got this, oh, here's another idea for person week that one on the show. The coverage that they've had past Olympics and then even just be able to see more of like amateur sports that are going on right now is just fantastic. If they delay Tokyo next year, I'm sure they're still going to have lots of coverage.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I watched through these, they kind of highlighted different events and sport on Saturdays, and I watched my race in Rio for the first time through that a couple months ago because I hadn't even seen it. So it was cool to relive it all.
COLIN HILDING: So we don't know whether you're going to be reliving this questionnaire or not, but we mentioned to you off air, we do this My Name Is segment, which is fun when we get the Canadian athletes on, because I think we've only ever had one who filled it out prior, and their answers did change a little bit. But this is something that they released on the Olympic.ca website, which will show in the handwriting, everybody answers. Now, I'm going to be using Emily Overholtz for your questions here, because it's hands down my favourite one that anybody's ever filled out, plus I'm a huge Emily Overholtz fan. But you've got some competition here, because she has some pretty epic answers, but we'll go with yours here. So start off, no pressure. Greatest Olympian of all time is? Feel free to answer yourself, too.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Honestly, my standout, OK, this isn't all time, because I have way too many. I live for all time. I talk about the Cosby Golden Girl. I would talk about Wickenhuys. I would talk about, you know, there's too many. But I will say, I'm going to stay with swimming here. Ryan Cochran, huge, huge Cochran fan is the person he is, but also what he did for Canadian swimming to me is massive. So they're consistent. People don't realise, like, it's one thing. So these are probably supposed to be back in fire. But it's one thing to be successful once, but to do it continuously. And he was constantly on the podium every single year for every single. It's just it's absurd. But great person, greater athlete.
BEN WATERWORTH: Victoria, Victoria guy, too, as I've discovered since moving here. So, yeah.
COLIN HILDING: Hey, maybe we're going to have another Ryan Cochran here. First Olympics, I remember watching was.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Probably seen me in 2000. I remember watching. I was six.
COLIN HILDING: Ben was almost there.
BEN WATERWORTH: You know.
COLIN HILDING: I mean, you were almost there as you were in Australia at the time.
BEN WATERWORTH: I thought you mean like I was there in the age. I was listening. No, I was I was up the road a bit. I was on an island below an island, not quite there. Yeah.
COLIN HILDING: There is a draw picture of yourself here, which we'll have to skip, unless you have a pen and paper and want to do that. Emily Overholt. Emily Overholt is her in The Swimming Cat. The goggles with two pea signs.
BEN WATERWORTH: I like the picture.
COLIN HILDING: What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I'm going to be super specific here, but Cold Stone cake batter.
BEN WATERWORTH: That sounds amazing.
COLIN HILDING: Frozen cake batter alone or cookie dough or whatever.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: And ice cream is my ultimate favourite treat. Anything ice cream makes everything better.
COLIN HILDING: That's exactly what my kids are probably yelling about right now. If you were a baseball player, what would your walk up music be? You kind of, I mean, you don't get to pick your own music, but you get the big entrances now at the Olympics.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I honestly have no, just anything with like a beat. I'm a big, like now I love country music, but when I was growing up, I didn't love it. I don't know. Something with a beat or something that was like I could sing along to.
BEN WATERWORTH: I actually think that would be a kind of a really cool like trolling platform for the singers, the swimmers, right? You want to hear that anthem at the end when you win your gold. But screw with people's heads. Like, I'm so good, I'm going to play this now because you're going to be hearing this again in like three minutes.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I wouldn't be able to be that cocky in swimming.
COLIN HILDING: Here's a good one. In a movie about my life, I would be played by. A movie about your life, not mine.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Gosh. But if we're talking about celebs, like I don't even know. Yeah, everyone's way too good of an actress for me to kind of put their name to my. Yeah, I'm going to go with Heather MacLean.
BEN WATERWORTH: Good answer.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: She would nail an impression of Brittany.
COLIN HILDING: Emily Overholt picked Mindy Kaling to play her. Mindy could do all roles. I mean, she's way funnier than I could ever take on, so I don't think I'm worthy of that.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: But Emily's really nailing this. I've got to talk to her about it. I have a feeling it was a Marcus and Emily team effort here, but...
COLIN HILDING: We're going to have to skip draw a picture of a Canadian animal, but I'm sure you could email us your picture later. I'll do it here. Your guilty pleasure snack is?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Animal crackers, always. Animal crackers are Teddy Gramps. I put them in the same family, but it's not even guilty pleasure. It's not like they're the worst for you. Obviously, they're not great, but I'm obsessed with Teddy Gramps and animal crackers. Or if we're going really sweet, like dessert dessert, I would say chocolate-covered almonds. I can eat them by the bag if needed.
COLIN HILDING: I'm getting hungry. Let's wrap this up. Your favourite song lyric is? Feel free to use from your walk-up music if you can think of anything.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Yeah, I'm the worst with music, guys. I appreciate music, but I'm the worst with my own opinion. I'm very influenced by my surroundings. So whoever I'm with, if they're into that, I listen. But yeah, nothing comes to mind in terms of a song lyric that I would jive with. But anything super inspirational, I'm a sucker for. Even if it's super cheesy, I'm in. I feel powerful.
COLIN HILDING: What's the most recent TV show you binge-watched?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: What did I just recently finish? Probably, I just watched The Bachelor last night. Big fan, but probably not binge. But if you're talking about shitty reality TV, that's my answer. But I finished, the last one I finished was Emily in Paris. It's a Netflix show. It was just one season. But I lived in Montreal for a year, so I really related to the whole not being able to speak to my peers.
COLIN HILDING: You actually have me second-guessing Emily of a whole now, because I'm almost noticing the handwriting changing, but who knows? This next one is a really fun question. My biggest fear in life is...
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Why is this a really fun question?
COLIN HILDING: Waking up with a spider on her face, apparently.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Honestly, one of them would be, and you think this is weird from a swimmer, but one of them would be drowning. I always say that as much as I was uncomfortable in the water, there's this huge fear that that's the way... that feeling of being out of breath because it's so familiar to us, I just really don't like it.
BEN WATERWORTH: I feel like it's one of those things, I know a rock and roller will say, the best way to go out is dying on stage. I feel it's the opposite for a swimmer, particularly if you're afraid of drowning. Going out in the Olympic final, that's how I died.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I mean, we feel like we're dying on the last 25, but yeah, drowning is a big fear of mine. I'm not, yeah, no.
COLIN HILDING: This is technically the last question here. I can't, I cannot live without...
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Out. My family, I'm really a big sap, but I would say my family.
BEN WATERWORTH: That works. Emily is napping.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: What did Emily, what did Emily write there?
BEN WATERWORTH: Napping, she can't live without napping.
COLIN HILDING: Now, her biggest fear, her biggest fear is spiders crawling on her face, and her biggest thing she can't live with is napping. I would be more afraid of the spiders crawling on your face while napping.
BEN WATERWORTH: Don't go to sleep in Australia, Emily. That's just, won't like that. That happens often, so, yeah.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I'm just not, Adam, if you're ever listening, I'm not throwing you under the bus, but I know it will be the key matter.
COLIN HILDING: Well, I mean, her picture of the coolest Olympic medal is a pizza with a ribbon around it.
BEN WATERWORTH: With pizza.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: I can also imagine when we fill these out, it's either like right after you've qualified and we're on these like two-day, like media days where you're just like heavy information. You're all exhausted because you just made the team or qualified. And it's been like a seven-day competition. And so by the end of it, you're just alerious and well, kind of just having fun and getting to know one another. So I just pictured the moment that she did this, and I know it wasn't just a little effort.
BEN WATERWORTH: Well, I'm telling you now, because you work now for the Olympic committee, you might be in control of this for the Tokyo one. So you could like come up with some fun questions. Like you could take this and go, well, hey, let's improve on that. Like we could give you suggestions.
COLIN HILDING: Your favourite Olympic podcast?
BEN WATERWORTH: Yes, exactly. That there you go. I want that as a question. That's great.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: That's a real, like digital lens 2020 question. What's your favourite go to pod? What's your favourite? Like, yeah, it's a good one.
BEN WATERWORTH: Who is your favourite Australian podcast host living in Canada? That is another question. Your favourite living in Winnipeg.
COLIN HILDING: You know, if competition. Yeah, it's been great having you on Brittany. And obviously we can continue to follow you on CBC. Any anything else you want to give a shout out for right now? Anything you want to plug? Endorsement deals? Anything like that?
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Like I said, swimming is not something I made a living off of. No, just, yeah, I'm just working away, very passionate about, you know, I guess the passion behind the work you do. So finding something that really excites me and I get to do what I love every day. So that's been really nice. Surrounding myself with a great community. But I know just I guess the only thing would be continue to support the athletes. It's been a tough year for all, including athletes around the world. And so, you know, they're out there training their best, kind of trying to adapt to pretty much everything that's thrown their way. And I think we're going to see some really exciting things in the coming year, and it's going to take a lot of adversity to get there. So, yeah, just a big Go Canada, big kind of ode to the athletes. And, yeah, if you want to watch any swimming, it's in Saturdays in November. And there's probably going to replay a lot throughout the next couple months. So hopefully you get to see it. But there's a new Toronto team, which was really fun to cover a lot of Canadians and yeah, that's pretty much it.
BEN WATERWORTH: Go Leafs Go, right? I can't think of a leaf in the water, right? Like that doesn't work.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Not quite, but I'm a Toronto girl, so we all say Go Leafs Go anyway.
BEN WATERWORTH: Yeah, I'm outnumbered. But on that note, Brittany, thank you very much for joining us on Off The Podium.
BRITTANY MACLEAN: Thank you guys.
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