Team Behind the Team: Meet Veronica Brenner, two-time Olympian in freestyle skiing and Senior Manager of Sport Strategy and Performance Integration at the COC  

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) is proud to put athletes at the heart of everything it does. At all levels of our organization, from our Board of Directors to our interns, our team is composed of people who truly believe in the power of sport – including an impressive group of Olympians, Paralympians, Pan American Games athletes, former national team athletes, rec league athletes, and passionate sport lovers. In this series, we’ll share stories from members of our team who have competed at major multi-sport Games and who are now dedicating their professional lives to helping the next generation of Team Canada athletes live their dreams.

Veronica Brenner is a two-time Olympian and silver medallist from the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympics. In 1996-1997, she was the World Cup Grand Prix champion in aerials. In the years since she retired from competitive sport, Veronica has travelled the world working in various roles in sport and has worked at 16 different multi-sport Games and counting.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

What does sport mean to you?

I think sport is critical. All around the world, sport and play are fundamental elements of human development. In communities of all socioeconomic backgrounds, you’ll see kids engaged in play activities such as kicking balls around. It just comes naturally. 

Skiing and soccer were the two first sports I participated in. I was about four and they only had seven and under soccer, so I was one of two girls on a team full of seven-year-old boys. My parents used to cheer every time I touched the ball, which wasn`t very often. 

You’ve been involved in sport practically your whole life. What’s been the biggest highlight? 

Obviously winning an Olympic medal was a pretty big highlight, finishing second in Salt Lake City. It was special because I had to come back from injury. I had dislocated my shoulder and blown out my knee leading up to those Games. I finished ninth at the previous Olympics in Nagano in 1998, which was a huge disappointment for me, because I was supposed to do well there. As a result, Salt Lake City felt almost like a relief, and that event shaped me in different ways. I was never the most talented athlete out there. Whenever I was successful, it was because I worked harder and smarter than my competitors. 

Can you talk a little bit about your post-Olympics journey, and what led you into the position you’re in now at the COC?

I like to say I’m an expert generalist, good enough to have a decent conversation at a cocktail party about a bunch of different subjects. As a winter athlete who travelled ten months a year, I couldn’t attend university in the traditional way. I took a lot of distance education courses, on a variety of topics that interested me. I ended up with a liberal arts degree. Then I did an MBA. I applied the same curious and generalist mindset to my career. I have worked in all kinds of different jobs all over the world, on Games Organizing Committees, as a coach, media, supporting athletes, and at Multi-Sport Organizations, nationally and internationally. I’ve been fortunate to be part of 16 multi-sport Games. The combination of all this knowledge accrued from different sources really helps me with what I do today. It gives me a holistic picture of the sports world. It gives me the ability to see the connections and how things fit together from multiple points of view.

Tell us about your current role at the COC?

It is an ever-evolving role. I work on a number of different projects within the Games team and act in a consulting role across the organization as the voice of performance within the COC. I look at things like what we can do at Games that will create a better performance environment and how we can work more effectively with National Sports Organizations. It’s about setting NSOs up for success and providing some understanding of what a multi-sport Games environment is going to be like, particularly for those who haven’t been before. Then I’m also looking ahead to future Games. What do we need in Los Angeles? What do we need in Brisbane? I am looking at ways in which the COC can be a world leader.

The Olympic Games are a different beast altogether, not like World Cups or other competitions. How much of your personal experience do you bring into the decisions you make in your current role?

My experience provides a lens. But Olympic sport in Canada, I believe, is so much more professional than it was in my day. Each environment is unique. Each Games is unique, but I think there are some overriding features that are always the same. The Olympics are once every four years for an athlete, and many times you only get one shot at it. I was very fortunate that I got a do over but that doesn’t always happen. I remember when I was in Salt Lake, there was a journalist who came up to me and said there’s no crying in baseball, but athletes are always crying at the Olympics. Why do you think that is? I’m not the quickest to come up with a good answer. But I kept thinking about that question. The reason there’s so much crying at the Olympics is it is not like the World Series, an annual series that could potentially go seven games. And those games are long. When I was competing, I had two jumps, three seconds each.  So that’s six seconds, once every four years. Of course there’s going to be crying. You barely have time to process anything. That’s part of the reason I work in Games, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a draw for many people at the COC–being part of that emotional rollercoaster. As an athlete, you get one shot to put everything together that one day, or maybe multiple games if you’re in a team sport. You can’t afford to make a mistake. That’s what is so challenging but also what makes the Olympics so special. 

You talk about how so much has changed since you competed. What does it mean for you to see so many athletes and Olympians like you now working at the COC? 

I think most important to me is that the athletes aren’t all in the same department. When I first started at the COC a few jobs back, all the athletes were in athlete services. That was pretty much it. I think there was one in marketing. So having the athlete voice across the organization now with different perspectives is really important. But I also think it’s important to acknowledge that not all athletes are the same. Even now, I hesitate to tell people what I used to do because I don’t like being labelled as “the Olympian” or “the athlete”. To me, we’re so much more than that. It’s great that there are athletes in the workplace that can add perspective. But everyone’s experience is a little bit different. It’s great that we have athletes who have different backgrounds from winter sports and summer sports, medallists, non medallists. It creates more diversity. 

Is there one piece of advice you would maybe tell your younger self or another athlete who’s starting out now or just coming up through the ranks based on your experience, and what you’re now doing at the COC?

As you can probably tell from my journey, I don’t think it has to be a straight path. I have made many lateral moves. There are some people who know exactly what they want to do. They want to do one thing and they go straight towards that. Whereas, I think my sports and post-sports careers are similar. I didn’t find aerials until I was 16. I did every single sport I could possibly do before then. If it looked like fun, I tried it. That’s the same approach I have taken with my career.  I do things because I think they’re interesting, they’re fun and I like to learn. Sometimes I do it because it’s hard and I like a challenge. I don’t like doing the same thing every day. I love that I can maybe have a small impact behind the scenes, but I don’t fool myself into thinking that I’m really doing all that much. Athletes, their coaches and everyone else who’s around the athletes put in so much time and effort. But if I can offer that extra one per cent to help, I think that’s pretty cool.