Simone Plourde, a middle-distance runner with a 4:05.92PB in the 1500m, is attempting to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Plourde, currently ranked thirty-ninth, needs either accumulated points or a time under 4:02 to earn an international flight to the Games. On June 21, she’s competing in the Montreal Athletics Classic and on June 29, she’ll line up at the Olympic Trials at the Claude-Robillard Center.
“I’ll give everything I have on the start line,” says Plourde, 23, who’s in a comfortable position points-wise to achieve her goal, but still aims to run the 1500m beneath the standard. “Any elite athlete has the Olympics in mind and competing at the Olympics has been a dream for the past six years. Running for Canada would be a dream come true.”
The 2024 Paris Olympics begin on Friday, July 26, and many top-notch Canadian athletes have already punched their tickets to compete. Athletes including Cam Levins and Malindi Elmore, Andre De Grasse and Ceili McCabe are all carefully minding their steps leading into the Games. For Plourde, who’s been racing competitively since she was 17, the lead-in to the Olympics is a time for concentration, but also measuring her stress levels. She’s focussed. But part of her focus is also on staying loose.
“The second I become too tunnel-visioned I drive myself crazy, and it doesn’t do me any good,” she says, adding that it’s not impossible to find her out eating a cheeseburger and fries. “Of course, as the races get closer, I’m more careful, but for me, the best recipe for success is to be 100% focussed at training, and outside of training to just be a normal person.”
Plourde is from Montreal and represented Canada in 2023 at the World Athletics Championships in Hungary. Though she holds several Quebec records, the young racer has her eyes firmly fixed on the world stage. The middle-distance runner trains with Nike and wants nothing more than to make her country proud. “Being passionate about running is what got me into the sport and I love that it’s accessible to everyone,” she says. “Anyone can do it and there’s no magic formula—it’s not about tricks, but about being consistent. I’m not motivated every day, but every day I get out the door.”
The same thing that’s fuelling Simone Plourde for the Olympics can also fuel you for your next race. Stay with it, dream big, and keep running. Do that, and have all the burgers and fries.
