0:04  
Jennifer Hawkrigg, Crikey.

0:07  
The Canadian myth number 10. That chat is just opening up for Jen of Chania Hall Craig. Now that was sent to Canadians through to the semi finals. That's a fantastic result. The Canadian kids engines at the bottom of just screaming with joy, wonderful stuff.

0:27  
She'll be just rubbing her hands with delight to Nicole Couric goes through.

0:35  
For athletes, their sport is their world. They spend their childhood teen years and young adult life training everyday to compete. For many, it's all they know. But there comes a time when athletes cannot compete professionally anymore, and they have to make the tough decision to retire. What happens after retirement? How do athletes deal with this loss of identity?

0:56  
For Jennifer Hawkrigg a Canadian snowboarder who retired after Beijing 2022. The world after sports is all about finding new passions after a life of snowboarding. I'm Cassie argao. And I'm Samira Balsara. And this is what comes next. I think every single kid gets forced to do some sort of extracurricular, if they're lucky, and it becomes such a big part of your life, even not at the professional level. I was in sports for a very long time and kind of stopped cold turkey as soon as I graduated high school, and even that final like volleyball game or football game, I was devastated to be giving that up.

1:39  
I experienced like the sadness part of it more when I had to stop doing ballet. I did that from about three years old to when I turned 18. And it was really weird to not be going to classes every day. And not like we're trying to relate to this Olympian athlete. But when we spoke with Jennifer, she was describing how she started snowboarding at a very young age and now I can only imagine what it would be like to stop something that you've dedicated your entire life to.

2:13  
My family has always had to ski place in Ellicottville New York. So just over the border, and my mom has always been a snowboarder. I never took the lesson. My mom taught all three of our three of us how to snowboard and I started snowboarding at four and just sort of fell in love with it. I quickly joined the snowboard race team when I was nine I think when I was 15 You turn phys age and I started doing international competitions and sort of just took off

2:40  
in the 2019 to 2020 Season Jennifer won the overall nor am Cup title for alpine snowboard after winning three gold and four silver medals on the circuit. It was also in 2020 that she was crowned Canadian champion in parallel giant slalom. Jennifer had lifelong dreams of competing in the Olympics and finally made her dream a reality at Beijing 2022. But Alpine snowboarding isn't an easy sport to pursue.

3:06  
On this episode of what comes next we're sitting down with Olympian Alpine snowboarder Jennifer Hawk Greg and discussing how retirement impacts female athletes specifically, we will also be looking into burnout and stress post retirement and how female athletes cope with this major transition.

3:26  
I'll find something so small in Canada that you really have to sacrifice a lot to pursue it. It was definitely really tough for so long, I grew up snowboarding and I really succeeded in snowboarding because there wasn't a lot of pressure. Then once you are making your career and it's like it's a make or break you realize that there's a lot of mental hurdles that you have to work through. And as you got older, it's really like there's way more pressure there's way more stress and it's really hard to focus on like the why you are doing it and why you started this.

4:01  
Kimberly Dawson is a professor in kinesiology and the physical education department at Wilfrid Laurier University. She's also a practicing mental performance consultant and a member of the Canadian Sports Psychology Association. We spoke with Kimberly about how retirement affects athletes differently.

4:19  
The athletes where they've really fulfilled what it is that they wanted to accomplish and they close the doors the deselect themselves, they transition better than an athlete that is forced to transition because perhaps they don't make the next team or they don't qualify for the Olympics, or they're just too tired or run out of resources to be able to continue. Those athletes really struggle with transitioning away from

4:39  
sport,

4:40  
but the gender of the athlete may also impact the way they react to this transition.

4:45  
It depends on the athlete itself. Females are seeking out the resources more that they're looking for that support and they're trying to figure out what is the next step for them. I worry for men sometimes because unfortunately they are a little bit more siloed and they try to take this on individually so they don't have those conversations perhaps about identity foreclosure, which is a state where athletes begin to shut down all other aspects of themselves. So they're not as open and they're not as accessible. So they might tend to go to some negative behaviors, coping responses, maybe in terms of alcohol or drugs or anything like that, that might help them a piece it.

5:20  
Jennifer spoke with a sports psychologist through her transition out of professional snowboarding to help her adjust. But Jennifer situation is unique. Before she even got to the Olympics, she had told herself she wouldn't make snowboarding her only option.

5:34  
I looked at those snowboarders who were older than me, and they only focus on somewhere and their whole life was snowboarding. And when they retired, they had a really hard time going back to normal life. And since I was literally 17, I was like, my goal is to not It sounds bad, but it's to not be like them. I was really one of the first people who was like, I'm going to get my undergrad and I'm going to get work experience while I'm snowboarding. And that was like no pressure from anyone else. That was literally just my personal decision. Because I knew I couldn't make life in my sport. I hope that for the younger generation, I really set a tone of it is important to get educated while you're doing it. And I think there is a good thing of having something outside of snowboarding too. When you're having a bad day on the hill. If you don't have anything to get your mind off of it. It can be really hard.

6:25  
But balancing school and training as an athlete was difficult for Jennifer to the stress of it all caused intense burnout for her. I had to

6:33  
really adjust my schedule to make it all work and especially working with time time zones working over like living overseas majority of time competing, taking exams, the night before a World Cup flying home for two days to take an exam. It was definitely tough when a lot of people weren't experiencing that. And I still had to perform to the same level as them when my mind wasn't fully focused on snowboarding, I definitely experienced a very tough period of burnout, like the epitome of burnout, and just started having a lot of mental health challenges. And as an athlete, it's pretty tough to deal with that just because like you sort of see the immediate effect on your athletic career when you're struggling mentally.

7:20  
There's a difference between burnout and staleness. Right. So these These athletes are very highly challenged, and the number of responsibilities that they have, they live these really big lives of these really big schedules. So we have to keep an eye on when they start to teeter over to the side of burnout. So we're always looking at this balance between resources and challenges. But when we feel that things tip the other way over their challenges exceed our resources, that's when we start to go into that little bit of burnout. And unfortunately, sometimes athletes will leave their sport if they continue to degrade in that way, because nobody wants to feel so depleted as you do when you're in burnout for a very long time.

7:58  
Francis Flint, a semi retired professor at York University has a PhD in sports psychology and sports medicine. Francis is a certified athletic therapist and a retired certified athletic trainer. She says she's seeing a lot of burnout and female athletes.

8:15  
Unfortunately, we're seeing quite a bit of burnout and stress in women's sport, particularly because the options for elite level players for women are few. And you may be able to play in Europe or somewhere outside of the country or the United States for some sports. But that increases their stress level because if they're not in the top 2% of the other elite players, then their their game may be finished. And they may have to look at something like ah, do I go into coaching? Do I want to be a coach? Do I go into management? So that that increases a considerable amount of stress on athletes? Up level athletes, we think oh wow, they've made it. But for women that yes, they are playing and the world is seeing them play. But behind the scenes, things like salaries and having families and making enough money to have a retirement that's relatively suitable.

9:28  
Frances added that the gender inequality in sports and societal expectation is a huge factor for the mental health problems many female athletes face.

9:37  
We're still living in a society that reveres men in sport, and not as much as women in sport. society accepts men being sporting heroes and staying in sport much longer than it does women. And so women may not get that. Those accolades. The money on Those kinds of things, and they've got the stress of do I take time off to have a family.

10:05  
Even without the promise of accolades or money Jennifer cherished her Olympic experience.

10:11  
moment I found out was like an outer body experience truthfully, like it was I definitely the first thing I thought of was like, wow, like that little girl would be so so proud to see like, where she came from and how she got there. And the 10 days of the Olympics feels like it was all like literally a dream just because it was a dream, like just landing. Getting on the shuttles like seeing the Olympic rings everywhere, like entering the village, for the first time taking, like, my first photo with the Olympic rings was like, such a crazy feeling. I can't even explain it. It's everything you could dream of and more.

10:47  
Jennifer knew she would retire before even completing her time at the Beijing Olympics. Even though it was an incredibly difficult decision. She said she never saw herself in the headspace to continue to compete in the next Olympics four years later.

11:01  
So I actually knew I was gonna retire before the season. It takes a huge investment, like physically, mentally, and just being realistic in my goals outside of snowboarding that I realized I was 25 Do I really want to keep doing this when I'm 30. And I just sort of had this realization of like, I think the longer I'm in this, it's going to be harder to walk away from it even. It's such a hard decision. Because I'm My sport is a bit older, like the average age is a lot older than me. And I'm very, very young to be retiring. And I know that I'm retiring at a point where I haven't reached my full potential and haven't had a season where I actually got worse or regress. So it's really hard to make that decision when you know that you could have still a future in the sport.

11:55  
While snowboarding will always be a part of Jennifer, she truly found a love for something outside of the sport.

12:01  
I really found a passion for my work outside of snowboarding. And there is a life for me outside of sport. And I, I was so lucky to have that. And but I also worked really hard to have that. And that sort of made saying goodbye a lot easier. It's there's days where I'm very at peace with my decision. But there's also days where I see like my fellow teammates or my competitors on snow training, getting ready for the World Cup season. And I'm just like, Oh man, I would love to be there. Like it's always going to be a part of my identity. And I'm always gonna have a love for the sport as well as probably a lot of days where I want to go back to it. And I think it's just being okay with the fact that it's going to be hard. I think it's just taking in waves and taking it day by day. And you know, finding new hobbies has been really fun. Like I've put my energy towards new things and being able to sort of finally live a normal adult life that I've never really had. I think I was always scared that I wouldn't find something that I loved as much as snowboarding and I realized that you know, you can set new goals you can continue growing in your professional careers.

13:10  
That was such an incredible story from Jennifer, It's so heartwarming to hear that she is truly enjoying her life post retirement and she was able to find a new passion that she really cares about.

13:22  
We wish all the best for Jennifer hope she loves her new job and that that's going well. And we hope everyone listening to this episode. enjoyed it as much as we did.

13:32  
Make sure to tune in next week for another episode of what comes next.

13:37  
This episode was produced by Samira Balsara and Cassie argao Thank you so much to Jennifer, Kimberly and Francis for being a part of this episode. Thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai