Team Behind the Team: Meet Derek Drouin, two-time Olympian in high jump & Program Manager, Athlete Marketing and Olympian Legacy
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.
Derek Drouin won gold in the high jump at the Rio 2016 Olympics, the first Canadian to do so in a field event since 1932. Impressively, he managed to win without missing a single attempt. Drouin took home a bronze medal as well from the London 2012 Olympics. This past summer, he was invited to the Paris 2024 Games to receive an upgraded silver medal after the disqualification of the original gold medal winner for a doping violation. Drouin was also the 2015 World Champion and won gold at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games and Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. He now works at the Canadian Olympic Committee as Program Manager, Athlete Marketing and Olympian Legacy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I hear there is a fun story about how you got your start as a high jumper. Can you tell us about it?
My parents were always looking for a way for me and my two older sisters to burn off energy. Growing up, we always played sports and I kind of feel like high jump chose me.
One of the sports offered by my elementary school was track and field. The older I get, the more I realize how fortunate I was to have elementary school teachers who were so devoted to creating an environment where sports were part of the curriculum. One of those amazing teachers was my kindergarten teacher, Ms. Gilhuly, who I am still in touch with today. She got us to try the high jump. Obviously for a bunch of four, five- and six-year-olds, it was a lot of just jumping on the mat. But I can tell you, it made an impact.
Did I read that you went home from that gym class and set up a high jump in your basement?
Yes. I wanted to keep doing high jump at home and so I found the perfect setup in my parent’s basement. We had a couch that looked a whole lot like a high jump landing pad, and we had a bunch of stuff around the kid’s playroom. I would place books on the couch to add height when I felt I was progressing.
You ended up having quite a successful career in the sport with many highlights. How did your Olympic dream start?
When I look back at my career, I’m very proud of what I accomplished. If you had told a 10-year-old Derek, who had maybe just done his first high jump competition, that I was eventually going to win an Olympic gold medal, I wouldn’t have believed you. Even dreaming of going to the Olympics was crazy for me. I didn’t know anybody who had ever gone to the Olympics. That was until one day we had an Olympian come into my school when I was 10. Her name was Michelle Conway. She was a member of the artistic gymnastics team at the Sydney 2000 Games.
I don’t think I ever went into a competition where I thought I was the most athletic person out there or the best jumper. My strengths lay in the mental aspect of the sport. High jump is unique in the way it tests you mentally. It’s a sport where you can win, you can have a very successful day, but you can still end on failure…on a missed jump.
When I retired, I wanted to step away and work outside of sport, combining the interest I had in psychology from my university days with the experience I gained in high jump. I wanted to help professionals who deal with pressure and mind games to be at their best. I wanted to help people who have to give big performances whether it was a musician or a business executive. For me, it was different at every Games and kind of art form I grew to appreciate.
Tell me about how you ended up at the COC?
This past summer, I went back to the Olympics to receive my upgraded medal from London. Being able to enjoy the Games without the pressure that comes with being an athlete, I saw the Games from a new perspective and that reignited a passion for me. I thought, I love this. I want to be involved again. I knew that when I was an athlete, I was the beneficiary of the work that the COC did behind the scenes. But I didn’t have any idea of the extent of it. I had no sense of how stressful it can be and how close things are sometimes to not coming together in time. All I saw as an athlete was how seamless it was at the Olympic Games. I realized I wanted to help the next generation of Olympians have that same kind of Olympic experience.
You started out on the Social Impact team. Can you tell us more about the work this team does?
Social impact is broadly responsible for education at the COC. We have awareness days, things like Pride events that happen throughout the summer. We have events around Black History month and to help raise awareness around Indigenous history. We use the COC platform to get the voices of our athletes heard.
My personal portfolio was more geared towards Olympic education in general and our school program, which I really love. My first day on the job at the beginning of 2025, I had to go through applications for our Team Canada Olympic Day school grant program that had closed the day before. I really identified with the teachers who had written the applications for these grants, who wanted to start programs and give more opportunities to their students in sport. It brought me back to my own childhood. All of these schools get an athlete visit as part of the grant, so now I can be on the other side of the curtain shining the spotlight on the current Olympians and planning school visits just like when the Olympian visited my school when I was 10.
What are some of the grant applications that stood out for you?
These grants can be used to start a program at the school, so we had a couple that are looking to start a lacrosse or cricket program, for instance, sports that are either new to the Olympics or haven’t been in the Olympics for a long time. Those are some of the school visits I’m most excited about where kids might be exposed to new sports they’ve never tried before. Hopefully there will be some little kids like me out there who will become inspired.
We have quite a bit of diversity in terms of geography in the schools that receive these grants. We have a couple of the territories represented, places that are far north, very remote. We have set up an athlete visit to go see these kids, which I’m sure is a rare occurrence.
This year we had three different types of grants. We had grants for equipment, grants to start a sport program and another one that was an infrastructure grant. There’s one program in the Northwest Territories that really stands out to me that was awarded one of those. They applied to create a modern wrestling or Inuit wrestling facility at their school and so the athlete that we’ll be sending to speak there is an Olympic wrestler. I think it’s a great opportunity to incorporate Olympic style wrestling with their Inuit traditions. In speaking with the school, a big part of them wanting to build this and have the athlete come and visit is because they will be sending wrestling athletes to the Canada Summer Games in August for the first time. I can’t wait to see the impact this has.
And you have recently transferred over to the Athlete Marketing & Olympic Legacy team. What excites you most about this new role?
I’m excited to be on the other side of the team working with athletes. Throughout my career, I was able to give back to the COC and the community throughout athlete engagements, and now I can facilitate such opportunities for a new generation of athletes. I was never a huge fan of being in the spotlight, so this is a much comfortable role for me. It’s a great opportunity to get to know athletes, the causes they care about, and to set them up with a platform for advocacy.