MacDonald still chasing her Olympic dream
For the past decade, Jessie MacDonald has attended national and international wrestling meets fully expecting to end up on the podium.
The 2012 world champion backed up those lofty expectations with three senior world championship medals, Commonwealth Games silver and bronze medals and eight Canadian senior titles on her lengthy and impressive resume.
Heading into this weekend’s Olympic trials in Niagara Falls the 34-year-old Windsor native is happy to just be wrestling again.
“I feel pretty good and fortunate,” she said. “I went through a lot this year and in my mind it is pretty much a miracle that I am even going to be competing at trials.
“I’m looking at this as a gift and an opportunity and I am ready to take it on.”
MacDonald suffered a shoulder injury and initially underestimated its severity.
“We tried to rehab it and then I ended up injuring it much worse,” the real estate agent said. “I had surgery and I had to have a bone graft, screws put in and ligaments reattached to the bone.”
The surgeon didn’t expect the Brock Wrestling Club member to be ready for the trials but she is healthy and ready to go. Most wrestlers prefer to be vague about their injuries but MacDonald isn’t worried about her opponents knowing.
“I am pretty scarred up and it’s pretty easy for them to figure it out.”
When faced with such a major surgery, most people would retire from whatever caused the injury, but not MacDonald.
“I truly believe that if you have a dream you do everything in your power to pursue that dream and you never ever, ever give up,” MacDonald said. “Some people may call that stupid.”
She draws inspiration from her three-year-old daughter Ella, who has been all over the world watching her mother compete.
“If I ask her why we are doing this she says, ‘We want to go the Olympics.’ She doesn’t even know what the Olympics are but it makes it different now because I hope she can look back and see what it took for me to achieve my dream.
“I never gave up and I truly believe that is the key to success in life.”
The Olympic trials have been the source of much heartbreak for MacDonald but she hopes things are different this time around.
“My mentality is different,” she said. “Maybe I would be in the same spot as 2016 or 2012 if I didn’t have the blowout and the surgery in May.
“At this point in my life, I truly recognize what a blessing it is and that it is an opportunity.”
The former St. Catharines athlete of the year has come to the realization that losing isn’t losing because you never had anything to begin with.
“To go and win is to go and take something that was never yours,” she said. “If I walk away and I do lose, what have I lost? It was never mine.
“If I want to leave and feel accomplished, it is up to me to go out and take it and that is my plan.”
She feels she is wrestling the best she has ever done in her life.
“I am going in there without a single regret,” MacDonald said. “We have worked on the mental game, we have worked on the physical game, we have closed the gaps, we have identified the weaknesses and we have worked on the strengths.”
She feels completely prepared for the trials.
“At this point, it is in God’s hands what is going to happen because there is nothing more that I can personally do at this point.”
She feels wrestling close to home is an advantage.
“I have a lot of family and friends who are coming which is pretty exciting and a little nerve-wracking.
MacDonald has told them that she’s won’t be ignoring them but she needs to be focused on wrestling and they understand that.
“The amount of support that I have is amazing and I call it Team Mac,” she said. “I believe I have an army behind me and it’s empowering.”
There are seven wrestlers in MacDonald’s 50-kilogram weight class and they will wrestle all the way through the semifinals Friday. The finals will be held Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Scotiabank Convention Centre.
