A Tecumseh woman will be making her Olympic debut this summer, believing it to be her last chance at realizing her dream.
Linda Morais beat Alexandra Anghel of Romania 4-3 to win a bronze medal in the 68kg weight class last weekend at the final World Olympic Qualifier in Istanbul, Turkiye to secure her spot.
There's only 16 athletes in her weight class that go to the Olympics, and Morais says she had to grind through a tough tournament that saw her hit the mat for six matches over two days.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Morais says the Olympics are now just two and a half months away.
"So for now I'm going to take at least a week, maybe even two weeks off the wresting mats and just do an active recovery. And then back to the grind as soon as I'm back in Montreal. Just going to continue back to the normal schedule, nothing really changes, there's no need to increase or decrease volume. Just keep doing what I'm doing," she said.
Morais says the sport has really grown on the women's side over the years.
"Compared to even like 20 years ago, I mean, wrestling only started in the Olympics back in 2004 for women. So it's very new as a sport for us, and it's really cool to see all these athletes coming in. Even you see it in Ontario, we lost a lot of girls after COVID, but now it's rebuilding and it's cool to the younger generation of girls thriving out there."
At 30 years of age, Morais admits she's on the older side for competition internationally but says in Canada it's not so out of place.
"Canadians tend to peak a little later on. So four years ago when I tried to qualify all the other girls were in their 30s. So Canadian athletes, the women at least, kind of peak around this age but internationally I'm very old, they're peaking at like 20 over in Europe," Morais said with a laugh.
The world's top wrestling athletes will gather at the Paris 2024 Olympics from July 26 to August 11.
Morais says she'll be getting her debrief on Friday about the specifics for her schedule, but believes she'll be competing around August 5 and 6.
- with files from AM800's The Morning Drive and CTV Windsor