Even in the year in which she achieved what appeared, for so long, as the unachievable, establishing a new national record in the triple jump, Caroline Ehrhardt could not dodge adversity.
The period of time from May 28th (2023) through to April of 2024 is in so many senses a snapshot of the incredible career of the Espanola native, ten time Canadian champion in her trademark event and with a list of accomplishments that could easily span the 14.03 metre distance she soared to find her well-deserved place in the record books.
Less than a year after a truly signature jump in a athletic journey that has been filled with so many, the resilient young woman who lost both of her parents by the age of 24 would be forced to retire from the sport that she loves, victim of an ankle injury that was as headstrong as the 32 year-old who now transitions to coaching.
Given the ebbs and flows of the past two decades or more, small wonder that Ehrhardt looks back with pride and emotion.
“I wasn’t some outstanding phenom where it was all based on natural talent,” she stated recently from her home in London (Ontario), having been named last month as one of 18 mentor coaches who will receive funding under the U SPORTS Female Apprenticeship Coach Program.
“I think I just worked really hard and loved it a lot.”
“I just feel that on paper, I really should not have been able to do what I did,” continued Ehrhardt, who rose through the teenage ranks as a member of both the Track North Athletic Club as well as the Espanola Spartans high-school team. “I had to build grit from life circumstances to make it happen for myself.”
Given the rigid Athletics Canada guidelines and standards, it might be easy for most folks not to recognize just how truly exceptional the northern product was.
To wit – her record-breaking jump last summer (14.03m) would have placed her comfortably in the top half of the 32-athlete field at the recent 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games – even if it still wasn’t enough to earn her a spot on Team Canada.
Blessed with the kind of determination that becomes the battle cry for countless elite athletes, Ehrhardt cannot help but feel a tad wistful given how well she had come to terms with the process that marked her strive for excellence, even if results could be much more hit and miss on competition day.
“I think in the last few years, I really started enjoying the training component and the lifestyle component more than actually competing,” she said. “It’s just so challenging. What my heart really ached for and continues to ache for, depending on the day, is that chunk of my day that I devoted to getting better at my craft.”
“That’s the time I miss.”
Noting that closure, as an athlete, in her particular case, is clearly non-linear, Ehrhardt is more than a little thankful for the athletic segue that coaching has provided, even as she begins what she hopes will be a segment that runs for several decades still.
“I think I probably knew right away in my first year of coaching (2021) that this is definitely going to be the next chapter for me,” she noted. “It’s such a perfect way to stay involved in the sport that is very near and dear to my heart. If I didn’t have the coaching aspect, I think the retirement (as an athlete) would have been even more challenging than it already was.”
“It’s definitely a pathway that I want to continue to move forward with.”
Ehrhardt is certainly not the first former athlete to find therapy in coaching.
“I get more nervous as a coach than I ever did as an athlete, because you truly have no control,” she explained. “But I would also say that I get more excited. It’s almost like being on the outside looking in. I can now see how impressive it is, what the athletes are doing, in a way that I couldn’t really see with myself.”
“I obviously knew I was a good athlete and I knew that I worked really hard – but it kind of took that outside looking in perspective to realize the kind of adversity these athletes need to overcome, how dedicated they really need to be,” Ehrhardt continued.
“It’s really cool to realize how truly impressive it is.”
She would certainly get no argument whatsoever from the friends, family and followers of her athletic voyage, folks who truly appreciated just how many obstacles were overcome as Caroline Ehrhardt fought her way to the top of the triple jump mountain.
