A selfless athlete and leader during his skiing career in Moguls, Jennifer Heil will bring those qualities and others to his role as the Canada mission chef for the Olympic Milan-Cortina Games in 2026, the Canadian Olympic Committee announced Tuesday.
As a team spokesman, the native of Spruce Grove, Alta., Will also serve as a mentor, supporter and animator with the aim of motivating and inspiring athletes while protecting their performance.
“This is a massive honor,” Heil told Anastasia Bucsis of CBC Sports. “I have a lot to resort to athletes. But I think that more than that, I have a perspective. And sometimes the perspective is missing as an athlete who enters his games, which can sometimes be too much and too much pressure.
“I have that experience to release the pressure valve a little for the equipment.”
The key position is occupied by an athlete who represented Canada in the international scene, particularly the multisport games.
“Jennifer has not only broken the barriers, but has found ways to do it while lifting others and returns to his community,” said Tricia Smith, president of Coc, about the four -time Olympic. “Jennifer really understands what the Arce sheet means using and living the Olympic values every day. We are extremely fortunate and excited that our chef of Milano Cortina 2026 is.”
Heil inspired his teammates at the 2006 Olympic Games, winning gold for the first Canadian medal in Turin, Italy. Then he won the first medal of a Canadian (silver) four years later in Vancouver in his third and last games before retiring in 2011 with 58 World Cup podiums, including 25 gold.
“I could go for an Olympic game,” Heil told journalists at that time. “I am still at the top of my game, but for me I feel that it is an important moment to build my future. I want to be as successful as I have been on the clues and I feel that time is now.”
Look | Heil called Mission chef for Milan-Cortina Olympic Games:
The Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Heil has seen everything, since being the rookie, to be a favorite for the overwhelming pressure of the expectation. He is now ready to lead the Canada team as a mission chef for Milano Cortina 2026.
Heil’s Moguls teammate, Alex Bilodeau, won the country’s first Olympic gold in Vancouver the day after she went up to the podium.
“She has given me a lot and I think that a large part of why I am here,” Bilodeau said about Heil, an honest member of the Canada Sports Hall since 2015. “It is definitely a legend in our sport.”
Something lost to the performance of Heil Olympic medals in Vancouver is the fact that she opted for her final event prior to the games to give other Canadians the opportunity to qualify. She was on a streak, after winning four consecutive events of the World Cup.
Leave the sport in a high
Heil left the sport on a stop, capturing gold in magnates and dual magnates in the Free -Liard World Ski Schist Championship in 2011. Months later, she was the winner of the Rosenfeld Bobbie Award as the athlete of the Canadian press of the year.
At 41, the four -time gold medalist of the World Championship will try to help Canada’s athletes reach his dream next February in Italy.
Heil believes that sport is part of her current efforts and challenges when she depends on sand, emotional control and perseverance.
“They have retired for a while, but I don’t feel that those lessons have left me,” he said. “I think if something, I have become a better leader.
“I am excited to trust what I experienced as a athlete, from being a rookie to being a favorite to have overwhelming pressure.”
In the period prior to Milan Cortina, Heil will attend preparation seminars for athletes and coaches and will serve in committees related to the games that end the team’s selection and another that decides the carriers of the Canada flag for opening and closing ceremonies.
She will emphasize “joy” at the forefront of the athlete’s experience.
“That does not mean that we are enjoying the routine of each moment and does not hurt,” he said. “But joy has to be part of this. And there is a lot of resistance. There must be a lot of adaptability. There must be the ability to disable noise.”
Heil began to ski at the age of two and during his incredible career he was five times General World Cup champion. Heil fell in love with Freestyle when he was a young man who looked at the Canadian Jean-Luc Brassard winning gold at the 1994 Olympic Games.
Far from the slopes, Heil supported the initiative “due to I am a girl” of Canada Plan, which worked from 2012 to 2018 and raised millions in their efforts to get girls out of the world out of poverty.
In 2022, Heil graduated from the Stanford University Business School in California.
It has also actively contributed to charity initiatives through its B2TEN Foundation that provides training and technical support to candidates for Canada elite athletes.
“She has been an incredible model and leader,” said Beckie Scott, CBC Sports Sports presenter, Scott Russell in 2015.
