National Post ePaper

WARM HOMECOMING FOR OLYMPIAN

Ottawa soccer star getting plenty of attention following gold medal success

KEN WARREN kwarren@postmedia.com Twitter: @Citizenkwarren

Vanessa Gilles jokes that she has been practising her Queen wave for the occasion.

Deep down, though, Ottawa's Olympic gold-medal-winning soccer star is humbled by the attention she's receiving after finally returning home, including being honoured by the Ottawa Redblacks at Wednesday's game versus the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

Last week, she was toasted at a city hall ceremony, where Mayor Jim Watson proclaimed it Vanessa Gilles Day.

Then there was that visit to her old soccer club, when she expected a couple of kids to show up. Instead, a throng of 200 young soccer players surrounded her, wanting to know anything and everything about the crazy dream gold-medal run in Tokyo six weeks ago.

The tense final ended with Canada knocking off Sweden, when even the round of penalty kicks went into overtime.

“I didn't realize the gravity of it until one of my old soccer coaches asked me to speak,” she said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I thought it was just going to be one team. The whole club showed up and I took pictures with everyone. It felt like I was walking into a daycare with a bag of candy.”

Gilles, 25, owns a modesty to go along with her sense of humour, seemingly still a little bit in shock about the Olympic experience and where her soccer life has taken her.

A former competitive tennis player, she moved on from that racket because she preferred a more physical, team-oriented environment. She hadn't given much thought to soccer, but when her Louis Riel High School team needed a goalkeeper, she gave it a shot. Turns out, she didn't much like the position, but she was a natural at the game.

“I felt too secluded (as a goalkeeper), so I moved to centre back, and I've been there ever since,” she said.

Eventually, that led to a scholarship and huge success at the University of Cincinnati, followed by signing with a semi-pro team in Cyprus.

Gilles is now in her second season with Bordeaux in France's top league, taking a break in the schedule to return home to Ottawa.

It has certainly been a wild ride for the past few months, as a newcomer to the national team who took on a larger role as the Olympics went on.

The family couldn't make it due to COVID-19 restrictions, but as the gold-medal celebration went on, she reached out to her brother, Sebastian, so they could enjoy the moment together.

The two have always been competitive with each other — “it was like World War III, growing up,” she said — but over time, he has become a voice of advice, support and humour in her life. Their personalities are similar.

“It was the first call I made on the field,” she said. “I asked, `Is this real life, did this really happen?' He said, `Yes, it's real life.' And then he hung up and went back to work.”

While much of Canada was still celebrating the Olympic soccer triumph, Gilles returned to France to play in Champions League games for her club team.

That, she says, helped keep her feet on the ground.

“When we were at the Olympics, we were of course on cloud nine, but when I went back to France, it was just another day,” she said. “France wasn't even in the Olympics for soccer.”

The Olympic soccer team has kept in touch through group chats, and she acknowledges there has been a “collective lull” at times, with everyone coming down a bit after reaching such lofty heights. The club will get together again next month during the “FIFA window.”

At this point, Gilles is relishing the time she can spend here with family and friends, who she says “chirp her” all the time in order to keep her level-headed.

She can't help but think about how cool it would be to play games in Ottawa, if there was a will and a way to have a professional women's league in Canada.

“Absolutely, I'm reflecting on that,” she said. “I'm at a cottage with three friends from Ottawa. They all have the talent to play in a pro league, but they just didn't receive the opportunity like I did.

“If I didn't have a French passport (her father, Denis, was born in France), I'm not sure I would have had this chance. I would have had to start my non-athlete career.”

In 2019, Gilles spoke at the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in New York, talking about the relative inequality in professional sports between men and women.

“Male athletes have 200 times more opportunities to play professional,” she said. “And then, when you factor in being Canadian, it's even a bigger (gap).”

Gilles is well aware of the difficulties the world's top women's hockey players have had in trying to establish a proper, workable professional league in North America.

“I think the more we talk about it, the more people will think about it,” she said. “People are incredibly shocked when they hear those statistics.”

It will be on Gilles's mind Wednesday, while the Olympic gold medallist is watching the Redblacks play.

“Hopefully, one day we will also have women's pro soccer on that field,” she said. “All those little girls wouldn't just have to see us every four years, they could see us every week, playing games here.”

Sports

en-ca

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://nationalpost.pressreader.com/article/282226603866734

Postmedia