Women in Motion
Lori-Ann Muenzer
A member of Canada's national cycling team since 1994, Muenzer has overcome several injuries during her career to win four world championship medals and three Commonwealth Games medals, along with several podium-finishes at the Pan American Games and the World Cup circuit. She reached the pinnacle of ten years of training when she brought an Olympic gold home form Athens in 2004.
A curious prelude to her Olympic journey, Lori-Ann Muenzer didn’t play any sports in high school. In fact Muenzer, now 38, started road racing at 22 before switching to track cycling 10 years ago at the age of 28, which is considerably older than the average.
In 1999 Muenzer, a native to Ontario decided to call Edmonton home so that she could train for her sport with coach Steen Madsen on one of two decent tracks in the country. Regrettably, the Edmonton Velodrome is covered in ice or snow eight out of the twelve months of the year.
If you were to put all of this data into a probability analysis computer program to see what the odds of becoming one of the top female track cyclists in the world were, Lori-Ann Muenzer would seem to have defied all of the odds. But when you consider her determination, her utter dedication to her sport and her level of skill and ability- you know for certain that the 2004 Olympics could not have ended up any other way.
At 38 years of age, almost twice the age of most of her competitors, Muenzer brought home an Olympic gold in track cycling match sprints from Athens. She was the first Canadian Athlete to bring home a gold medal from the Olympics in cycling, and the first Edmontonian ever to bring home an Olympic gold in an individual sport.
I recently caught up with the legal assistant, turned gold-medallist, over her morning cup of coffee. The interview turned up some little known facts about Muenzer as she shared her insight on setting goals and on being inspired to find balance in her life; and explained what it took to reach the pinnacle of her career at the Olympics in Greece.
When did you start to set your sights on the Olympics?
“The Olympics have always been my goal. I remember watching Steve Bauer win a silver medal in cycling (road racing) at the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles as a kid. I knew right then that I wanted to do something like that, not necessarily that but I wanted to do something great, something that had that kind of impact.”
When you started, what was the most difficult aspect of track cycling for you?
“Getting fit really fast and learning everything that I needed to know. Going into it I didn’t know anything eating properly, about how to train. I wasn’t in good shape at all. When I was twenty I was 28% body-fat. I started slow- by riding my bike to work everyday.”
How did you achieve balance between your sport and work?
“I didn’t achieve that balance right away. In the beginning I had pneumonia every year for 4 years. I’ve always trained and worked full time. When one got to be too much, one would become my primary and the other would become secondary. It switched back and forth like that for years. In the off season before the Olympics I was still putting in 4 full days a week and it slowly went down to half days. And then I was training 6 hours a day.”
Everyone always talks about the sacrifices you have to make to achieve greatness. What did you have to sacrifice if anything?
“You sacrifice sleep, you sacrifice going out to parties and to movies, because you have to stay focused. You sacrifice being normal. But you still have to find balance- even with sacrifice. You have to ask yourself, if I’m not getting enough rest, what am I doing to my training?“
What has been the most important aspect of your training?
“The most important thing is being fit for your bike, same thing if you are going and getting a program. It has to be a perfect fit. For example the program that I am going to do is not going to be suitable for another track athlete that is just starting out.”
Was the Olympic match sprints final the best race of your life?
“I’d been working for this (Athens) for five years and it was the fastest, strongest and smartest week of racing of my career. I set a personal best, a Canadian record in the 500. But my focus was the sprints. We planned my whole year so that I would peak for that race.”
What kind of focus do you need to have in a race with that kind of pressure?
"All I was thinking about what I had to do to be the first woman across the finish line. I never heard the 6000 people in the velodrome. When I look back at the video now I realize how loud they were. The only thing I saw was the woman behind me (21-year-old Tamilla Abassova of Russia). And I made sure she stayed behind me- the whole time.”
What steps did you take to get to the Olympics? How did you map out the journey?
”You have to work backwards; you work for the end result. You think Okay; I want to go to the Olympics. So you ask yourself- what are the steps to get to the Olympics? Set your goals, and then write them down. Then you have to have major goals and minor goals to get to your big goal. Ask yourself -is a realistic goal that I’ve set or is it a fantasy goal? What are your time constraints? What are your time commitments? Because what you’re making is an incredible recipe here. You are in the driver’s seat. You control how hard you work, what kind of effort you put in.”
What happened when you encountered hurdles, obstacles?
“I’ve been injured a bunch of times. In 2002 I ruptured my appendix; I literally got knocked off of my feet- but still went to the world championships. It caused me to slow down though-, which was a good thing. I took up yoga because I had to start back slowly and it was all I could do.”
Did yoga affect your performance on the track?
“Yoga is all about connecting the mind, the body and the spirit. Working through the ego. We all have an ego – in different degrees. It helped me find that balance. It made me realize that I can be elite but still be normal. The two key things that I took away from yoga were the breathing and dropping your shoulders. It helped me to get a better body position on the bike- I didn’t have my shoulders up by my ears all of the time. I still do yoga three times a week.”
What advice do you have for women wanting to be competitive in their sport?
“No goal is silly. The potential for greatness lives within all of us and achieving it isn’t a matter of chance; you have to plan; and you have to put in a lot of hard work and time. It isn’t a matter of luck. As my mom used to say, luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”
