another article on Emilie

Canadian Olympian killed in car crash

JAMES CHRISTIE

Globe and Mail Update

Olympic runner Emilie Mondor was killed in a car accident late Saturday afternoon, near Hawkesbury, Ont., one hour east of Ottawa.

Mondor, the first Canadian woman to run the 5,000-metres under 15 minutes, competed at the 2004 Olympic Games and was once the Canadian record holder over the 5,000-metre distance.

The 25-year-old runner's vehicle overturned on a highway, the Ontario Provincial Police said, adding they don't know what caused the accident Emilie was living and training in Ottawa looking to make her marathon debut on November 5 at the New York City Marathon.

“Emilie's loss is even more difficult because we didn't just lose a great athlete; first and foremost we lost an outstanding individual,” said Jean-Guy Ouellette, Chairman of the Board of Athletics Canada.

Born April 29, 1981, Mondor of Mascouche, Que., competed in a host of international events including the 2003 International Association of Athletics Federations world championships where she finished 12th in the 5,000. Her first taste of national success came in a win at the 1997 Canadian Cross Country Championships where she established herself as the nation's fastest junior.

Mondor missed most of the 2005 and 2006 seasons due to a bone condition where her body didn't absorb calcium, making her bones brittle, similar to someone with osteoporosis, causing her to suffer multiple stress-factures. Earlier this year she made her comeback in a 10-km race in Toronto, finishing 2nd.

On her website, Mondor would say about the race “I do not care being second here, it is a victory overall for me. My comeback is unbelievable.”

The step up to the classic distance of the marathon was “a dream” she always had in her head, she had written. A wiry 5-foot-6 runner, who loved racking up training miles on the roads, it seemed a perfect fit “and now it will come true.”

Mondor was described by fellow athletes as a talented and ferocious competitor who thrived on the solitary life of a long distance runner.

“That kind of passion is tough to describe, I haven't seen that very much in my whole career,” Athletics Canada's chief high performance officer Martin Goulet told the Canadian Press. “She had that very passionate way about her, it was so deep in her we could feel that fire just being around her. Running was very special to her, to the point where it was almost a spiritual approach.”

Mondor became the first Canadian woman to dip under 15 minutes for 5,000 metres at the 2003 world championships in Paris where she finished 12th. She led the Canadian women's team to a bronze medal at the world cross-country championships in 2004, and ran for Canada at the Athens Olympics later that year, finishing 17th in the 5,000.

“She really, really loved to run, purely for running. There's not a lot of athletes out there that absolutely love just the motion of running,” said three-time Olympic middle-distance runner Leah Pells. “She was an intense athlete, but her love of running always came through,” added Pells, who lived and trained with Mondor when she ran for Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. “You could just feel that in workouts, she was just glad to be there, glad to be running, glad to be part of the sport. There's no doubt she would have been an unbelievable marathon runner,” said Pells.

Provincial police said Mondor was travelling alone on Highway 417 on Saturday when her vehicle overturned around 4:30 p.m. ET near Hawkesbury. Constable Pierre Dubois said Mondor was not wearing a seatbelt, and was ejected from the car. She was taken by air ambulance to Ottawa Civic Hospital where she died Saturday evening of massive chest trauma.

“Emilie had an extreme passion for running and the sport of athletics and it was contagious to all around her.,” said her agent, former Irish international runner Ray Flynn. “Emilie had a bright future ahead of her and was very much looking forward to making her debut in the 2006 ING New York City Marathon,” said Flynn.

Mondor took up track when she was 14, and quickly made a name for herself on the national scene, winning gold at the Canadian junior cross-country championships in 1997.

She attended SFU where she dominated the distance events, winning the NAIA cross-country championships twice — one of the victories in course record time — and won the NAIA track title in the 1,500 metres.

“I don't know if the racing was the pleasure of her life, I think most it was just the running part of it she enjoyed,” said Mike Lonergan, who coached Mondor for four years when she lives in B.C. “She was really easy to coach, she was so self-motivated, you didn't have to work at that. In fact you had to work more at tempering it.”

She wore her love of her sport in the numerous tattoos that decorated her wiry body.

She had Canadian flag with wing on the inside of her left ankle to commemorate the first time she was named to a Canadian team. She celebrated her sub-15 minute performance at the world championships by having the No. 15 tattooed on the inside of her right ankle. Her time of 14 minutes 59.68 seconds was a Canadian record at the time. It held up only briefly, as teammate Courtney Babcock ran 14:54.98 a couple of heats later.

Mondor had the Olympic rings tattooed on the inside of her left forearm after she was named to the Athens Olympic team. She also had a tattoo of a wolf emblazoned on her shoulder blade, which signified her love of nature.

Mondor is survived by her two younger sisters Veronique and Marie-Christine, mother Nicole and father Francois.