Olympic water polo athlete says Regina team propelled her to Paris Olympics
Blaire McDowell featured in web series that highlights the sport
Blaire McDowell may have lived around the world, but Saskatchewan holds a special place in her heart as she prepares to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics with Canada's water polo team.
The 23-year-old was born in British Columbia, but her father's work as a mechanical engineer took her family to the United States, Australia and finally Regina, where they moved when McDowell was 15.
"I hadn't lived in Canada since I was four, but I always wanted to move back there because a lot of my family is from there, and I wanted to explore my Canadian roots," she said. "I was super stoked to move to Regina, Saskatchewan, which I tell people now, and they're like, 'What?'"
She said Regina ended up becoming her favourite place to live to that point and gave her a chance to train in a specialized program run by Water Polo Saskatchewan through Martin Collegiate.
She attributes much of her success to her time spent with her teammates in Saskatchewan, training at the Lawson Aquatic Centre in the evenings and during the lunch hour. They were expected to complete difficult drills that included both long distance training and sprints in the pool, under the direction of Cyril Dorgigne, Water Polo Saskatchewan's executive director.
"We got, I think, the best training probably in Canada, as well as Cyril's swim sets — which were deathly — that we had to do basically every day," McDowell said. "We all were super fit and that's kind of how we were able to, I think, win nationals a couple of times because we were way fitter than the other teams."
She won multiple national championships with Team Saskatchewan while in high school, then began competing for Arizona State University. After graduation, she moved to Tenerife, Spain, to compete professionally, before spending the last year with the Canadian national team in Montreal.
Dorgigne said McDowell's success is a guiding light for Saskatchewan's younger athletes, some of whom are on Canada's junior national teams.
"It's a huge pride for us to have an athlete who's making the team for the Olympics," he said, adding that while the team had male athletes head to the Olympics in 2008, McDowell is the first female from the local teams to do so. "For our entire community, it's huge news."
McDowell and her team will compete against Hungary, China, Australia and the Netherlands in pool play in Paris. Canada placed eighth in the world at the most recent world championships, losing in their last game against the Italians and only qualifying for the Olympics after an automatic qualifier dropped out.
McDowell, who plays the attacker position, said she has worked on several areas of her game going into the competition.
"What I'm focused on is finding that balance of being kind of like a soldier, and doing what I'm supposed to do for the team, but then also bringing in my own style of play," she said. "In the past couple months, I feel like I've finally figured it out. And I figured out how to be less timid."
Water Polo Saskatchewan has produced a web series chronicling McDowell's journey, with hopes of increasing the profile of the sport, which has about 600 members over five clubs within the province.
It's been a while since McDowell lived in Saskatchewan, but she said she has been feeling the love in the lead-up to Paris.
"I've had, honestly, an incredible amount of support from Saskatchewan," she said.
"With Team Sask, the outreach from both the web series, and just seeing all the younger athletes at events and stuff, has been so nice and has really kept my head in the right spot of being grateful for where I'm at, but also knowing that I'm representing more than just Canada at this event."
Canada's water polo competition starts on July 29.
Check out stories of other athletes from Saskatchewan heading to the Olympics here:
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