Ex-Winnipeg triathlete, former Olympian retiring from competition

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This article was published 12/12/2017 (2325 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On a good day, Sarah-Anne Brault will “treat” herself to a workout. Often times, that means 20 hard minutes running up Mount Royal in the heart of bustling Montreal, her newly adopted hometown.

It’s all part of a new discipline for Brault, a 28-year-old former Winnipegger who ended a 12-year career as internationally ranked triathlete early in 2017.

Retiring from elite level competition and the heavy training regimen doesn’t mean she has plenty of free time and a carefree existence. Far from it, in fact.

In the fall, she began an intensive one-year masters finance program at McGill University and earlier this week, Triathlon Canada announced it was adding Brault to its national board of directors. Brault will serve a two-year term as the athletes representative, replacing fellow Olympian Brent McMahon.

Brault admits her plate is full.

“The Tri Can board is a great way to stay involved,” she said via telephone from Montreal Wednesday morning. “It’s a bit of a challenge on the other side of it, to really try to understand the intricacies and factors that come into play for all these decisions that I never really thought of.”

Her responsibilities with the board will include the shaping of policies that lead to national team selections, but Brault has a longer term view, too. She wants to see conditions improve for young elite triathetes coming through the system.

“Part of it is politics – no one really likes politics but (we need to) have something done in Canada to make sure that being a triathlete can be a profession,” said Brault. “I’ve seen in other countries it can and I never felt like I could be a professional triathlete… you have to move but the system is really not conducive to building a career out of it. I could’ve done a better job of managing sponsors and that but it’s really hard as an amateur athlete in Canada in a summer sport.

“If we want to be the best in the world, we’ve gotta build a system that supports athletes from when they’re juniors and to do it for 10 years.”

Amazingly, Canada already produces some of the world’s finest triathletes and Manitoba is doing it’s part. Brault and Oak Bluff’s Tyler Mislawchuk were two-fifths of the Canadian contingent at the Rio Olympics.

Brault put the work in, combining her love of swimming with cross-country and track running (which she excelled at while attending College Louis Riel) and some hard hours and miles perched on stationary bikes at the University of Manitoba’s Max Bell Centre.

She also credits crucial guidance from coach Gary Pallett at the Manitoba Triathlon Centre.

“I don’t know if I would’ve done triathlon without him,” said Brault. “For me, particularly, I was a swimmer and a runner and it was very easy for Gary to spot the talent because it was a smaller (talent) pool. He knew my swim coach really well and was at the track all the time so that really helped. He was great at helping me get the basics really quickly… my parents wouldn’t let me do triathlon until I got my driver’s licence. My brothers were swimmers so we couldn’t physically handle everyone being at different places and different times.

“My first year of triathlon I qualified for worlds as a junior right away. So, a lot of that had to do with Gary knowing the exact demands of competition… and I had a really big motor already from swimming and running. We’d go to Tucson (Ariz.) a lot in winter.”

Her foundation in the sport led to an athletic scholarship at West Virginia University, where she excelled on the cross-country and track teams while also getting top marks in the classroom. She earned a finance and economics degree from WVU in 2012-13 with a 4.0 GPA.

Triathlon training continued and after falling just short in 2012 (Brault was an alternate for Team Canada in London), she finally earned a coveted berth on the Olympic squad for 2016.

But her Olympic experience – she finished 42nd in the women’s event in Rio – proved to be bittersweet.

“Being part of that, because I was so close for London, it was like, FINALLY!” said Brault, who suffered a bone bruise in her foot that interrupted training for Brazil. “In Rio, the village and the athletes and the camaraderie between the athetes (was great)… I was a little disappointed with my performance. It was pretty rough lead up. I got a little bit hurt and I wasn’t sure I was going to go. That was hard.

“I was off running for a few weeks leading up to the Olympics. That was less than ideal. I mean, I got back to training but I always felt I was in a race against time and I don’t feel I handled it great emotionally.”

Although she was based in Quebec City following her college career, Brault continues to have close ties with her old hometown. Her boyfriend, cyclist Ari Robinson, attends Red River College and Brault will be visiting Winnipeg over the Christmas break.

Now, although she contemplated another four years pursuing the Olympic dream, she’s at peace with her decision to retire from international competition. Life is going on.

“It was hard to make the decision but once I made the decision, I wasn’t going to go back,” said Brault. “I started looking for the next thing. The initial decision was hard but I stayed relatively active, I coached a little bit… I knew I didn’t want to represent Canada anymore but sport was still part of who I was. So I took a while to figure out how that would stay in my life and how I would transition. I kinda gave myself some time and now I’m back in school at McGill. It’s a really intense environment and I find that drive in a different environment.

“I’m hoping to have a real job next year.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14