Canadian Olympian Julie-Anne Staehli is again at Queen’s College, the place she spent 5 years competing for the college’s cross-country and observe applications between 2012 and 2017. This time, she’s working as an athlete service co-ordinator, serving to to make sure Queen’s student-athletes have the perfect collegiate expertise doable.
The job is a major shift from her earlier one as knowledgeable athlete with New Stability Boston, however Staehli sees it as a recent begin. The Lucknow, Ont., native spent the final three years coaching with U.S. coach Mark Coogan and Staff New Stability Boston on the model’s headquarters in Brighton, Mass.
“I cherished Boston, however I knew I needed one thing else to stimulate my thoughts,” says Staehli. “I obtained to some extent the place I needed to take my subsequent step, and that step led me again to Kingston.”
Beneath Coogan’s steerage, Staehli made a number of Canadian groups within the ladies’s 5,000m occasion and received nationwide titles in cross nation and on the roads. She was on her method to securing a spot on her second Canadian Olympic workforce when she ran 15:07 for five,000m (indoors) in February 2024. Weeks later, she suffered a stress fracture in her foot’s navicular bone and instantly, the whole lot was up within the air.
“It broke my coronary heart,” Staehli says. “Every little thing was on observe to get to Paris, and the whole lot flipped the other way up.”
However Staehli wasn’t able to let go of her Olympic dream. “It left me in a weak spot,” she says. “It was the whole lot I labored for, however past my management.”
Staehli fought her manner again by way of rehab for a last-chance run on the 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials in Montreal in June. Two days earlier than her race, she placed on observe spikes for the primary time since her harm. “It was the primary time I’ve gone right into a race feeling unprepared, however I’d’ve regretted not giving myself a shot,” says Staehli. “I needed to do it.”
The dangers had been excessive, however a win might have secured her a spot on the Olympic workforce through World Athletics factors. Her physician warned her that if she re-fractured her navicular bone, she would wish surgical procedure, which might significantly have an effect on her working profession. Staehli wound up tenth, in 15:50.08, lacking her objective by a large margin.
The 31-year-old says it took her some time to return to phrases with not competing for Canada in Paris. “Seeing the whole lot unfold and realizing I wasn’t there… It ate me up,” she says.
Staehli says she appears again on lacking the Olympic workforce as a part of letting go and shifting on as knowledgeable athlete. “The Boston expertise was unimaginable,” she says. “There have been simply so many different points I needed to deliver into my life.”
Although she has left her Boston workforce, Staehli stays supported by New Stability Canada as she searches for her subsequent goal within the sport. “I nonetheless have targets I need to accomplish, however I’m at some extent the place working isn’t my singular focus,” Staehli says. “The marathon has crossed my thoughts, and a few a part of me needs to strive an 800m. Each are bins I’ve needed to verify.”
Staehli says she’s trying ahead to placing the high-competitive atmosphere apart and discovering a spot within the Kingston working group as she adjusts to a 40-hour work week, serving to student-athletes as soon as in her place at Queen’s College.