Olympic skating medallist Rochette realizing dream of becoming a doctor
LAVAL, Que. — Joannie Rochette has swapped her glamorous sequined costumes and skates for scrubs and comfortable shoes. The long hours she once trained on the ice, she now spends in an operating room.
The Olympic figure skating bronze medallist is in medical school at McGill University, and said there are plenty of parallels between the two formidable endeavours.
“It’s interesting because I always thought skating would be my life for as long as possible, but now I’m back at school, med school, and it’s very similar similar in that you need to do it every day, study every day, it’s the same type of discipline,” Rochette said. “Except the first two years, sitting in class was such a long time, I would fall asleep. It’s very different, it’s a different type of exhaustion, but I think I can take a lot from skating to my new life.”
The 32-year-old from Ile-Dupas, Que., was one of the biggest stories of the Vancouver Olympics, capturing figure skating bronze with a performance that tugged on Canada’s collective heart strings just days after her mom Therese died of a heart attack at age 55.