Ottawa – For five years, Margo Erlam’s parents harboured doubts about their decision to let their 16-year-old daughter move away from home to pursue elite diving. Was the dream worth the distance from her family? Would they all regret it down the line? In May at the Canadian Diving Trials in Windsor, Ontario, those doubts were laid to rest as Erlam dove to gold in the women’s 3m springboard, beating out the likes of two-time Olympian and multi-world championship medallist Pamela Ware, to earn her nomination to Team Canada for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Erlam started diving at only four years old, as she sought to copy her older sister Martine, who had caught the diving bug during swimming lessons.
“I started going to my sister’s classes with her. And then I just found that I loved being in the water and jumping off the boards. That’s where my love of the sport started,” Erlam says.
Both Martine and Margo had the necessary prerequisite for diving–a lack of fear.
“I had no fear and no consequences really went through my brain,” Erlam says with a chuckle. “We both loved adrenaline. We grew up in Montana boating and hiking every summer. We both loved being in the lake, wakeboarding, waterskiing, and downhill skiing as well. We just kind of grew up with sports that were more of an adrenaline rush.”
The fearless four-year-old with an affinity for plunging head first into things steadily became a competitor on the provincial stage. But it was when Erlam saw her good friend, Caeli McKay, make the junior national team for the first time and wear a suit with the maple leaf on it, that Erlam knew she wanted to be on Team Canada.
Hence, the decision to leave her hometown of Calgary for Saskatoon, where she could train with Olympian-turned-coach Mary Carroll. “My parents were not happy about it, but they were willing to give it a try,” Erlam says. She first moved in with teammate Rylan Wiens’ family, before getting her own apartment at 17. Living alone at such an early age forced Erlam to develop more independence and resilience than many of her peers.
“I did feel like I had to grow up very, very quickly,” Erlam says. “I had to learn how to do things on my own–I had to call my mom a lot!” It wasn’t just how to take care of herself that Erlam was learning, but also how to navigate the pressures of elite sport.
Source: olympic.ca