The waves that lap onto Mathea Olin’s backyard on Cox Bay in Tofino become somewhat metaphorical when they roll back out. On the other side of the Pacific Ocean is Tokyo, site of the next Summer Olympic Games in 2020.
Surfing is an iconoclastic pursuit that doesn’t readily define itself within the norms of so-called organized sport. But the International Olympic Committee’s decision to include surfing in the Games, beginning at Tokyo, has changed the sport’s perspective in many ways.
Riding that new wave are the likes of Olin, the 14-year-old prodigy who last week, at the Pan American championships in Peru, put herself in the forefront of Canada’s potential team to Tokyo 2020, by winning the first-ever international gold medal in longboard surfing by a Canadian.
She also won the Pan Am bronze medal on the shortboard to lead the Canadian team to fourth-place overall.
“It was an honour to win the first Canadian medal in surfing and I can’t wait for more to come,” Olin said.
“It involves a lot of dedication and training, and I try to stay focused and not get carried away.”
After every Olympics closing ceremony, the Times Colonist runs a story listing the top-10 young Island athletes set to potentially debut at the next Olympics. Olin made that list for Tokyo 2020, following Rio 2016, and she seems right on target.
It doesn’t hurt coming from Tofino, the epicentre of Canadian surfing, and where Olin grew up idolizing the likes of Canadian greats Peter Devries, Mike Darling and Noah Cohen.
“I started on a foam board and learned so much from watching those top surfers in Tofino, and then doing it myself,” said Olin, who began surfing at age eight.
“The ocean is our backyard and it’s part of everyday life in our community.”
That lifestyle has made Olin both the Canadian Under-16 and women’s overall champion and No. 9 at the 2016 world junior championships. Her sister Sanoa Olin is the Canadian U-12 champion and three-year-old brother Maveric is coming up in the wake.
Tofino has hosted several pro events, in which Mathea Olin and the other hometown surfers have competed, such as the Rip Curl Pro Tofino event and SurfCam Classic. Yet this is still Canada, not California or Hawaii.
“It’s all beach break and mushy [waves in Tofino] as opposed to point break [in the truly epic wave-producing venues of the sport],” Olin said. “But it’s all surfing and I like both.”
If that’s the nurture, there is also the nature, as Olin comes by her athletic genes on both sides of the family. Her mom, Dion, was a dancer and dad, George Dempfle, was on the German national ski team and is now a heli-ski guide.
Olin describes her surfing style as “graceful yet powerful. I feel I am very fit and quick and agile.”
As for musical tastes, it’s “amped up” on the earbuds during competitions, but “soulful at home.”
The outdoors-loving family came to Tofino from Canmore, Alta., when Mathea was two.
With family trips back to Canmore, Olin became adept at also handling herself on a snowboard. But Alberta’s loss, and possibly that of Canada’s Winter Olympics team, became the Island’s and surfing’s gain.
Even at that, thoughts of the Summer Olympics were confined to the mats, rings and balance beam, not the waves.
“I was also a gymnast [training at a club in Port Alberni] and dreamed of going to the Olympics in gymnastics,” Olin said.
Then came the IOC decision, which opened up vast new vistas for Olin and surfing.
It has allowed her to hook into sources of funding not available to those athletes in non-Olympic sports.
In September, Olin received a $10,000 Petro-Canada Fuelling Athletes grant for potential future Olympians.
“It will go toward training, and travelling expenses, to places like California for competitions,” said Olin, who is home-schooled, to allow her the flexibility to pursue her Olympic ambitions.
