Mum's the Word: S1E15 - Jessica Phoenix, Canadian Eventer

WiSP Sports

This week’s guest is one that Pam and Sarah have been looking forward to for a while. Jessica Phoenix is a top-ranked Canadian Eventer and member of the Canadian Eventing team, representing Canada at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games as well as three World Equestrian Games and four Pan American Games.
Jess grew up riding horses, started jumping at the age of ten and has never looked back. She tells us about the time she was preparing to travel to the UK with her horses for some international competitions when she found out she was pregnant for the first time. After gathering some advise from her doctor, she felt confident that she could continue to train right through her pregnancy, and did so with ease. She was keen to share with our listeners that we should not see pregnancy as an illness and so long as you are safe and receive guidance from health professionals, not to be deterred from exercising whilst pregnant.
Even though she had initially not seen herself having children, she now knows it was the best thing to ever happen to her and believes it actually enabled her to step up her game. Jess feels that with kids you have to be so much more efficient and focussed when you are at training, a skill that she takes around the world when she competes.
Of course, in a sport like eventing there are a lot of expenses and Jess felt some concern about her continued support from sponsors. (This is a topic in and of itself which will be covered on future episodes in more detail.)
Living in Ontario, Canada and traveling to Florida to train and compete for up to four months of the year, it takes a bit of a balancing for her family to manage but with the right support system, Jess has made history competing for Canada and is training towards the Tokyo 2021 Olympic games.
A short trip into Jess’s birth story left our hosts holding back the laughter as it was definitely one of the funnier—though surely not at the time—birth stories on the show so far.
Hosts: Sarah Newberry Moore & Pam Relph Jones
Podcast length: 46 mins
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