Olivier “Ollywood” Rochon, featured in today’s Star, is a product of a development program backed by Own The Podium and headed by former Canadian aerials ace Nicolas Fontaine.
Rochon was originally a gymnast on the junior national team and a hopeful for the 2012 London Olympics. He was also a moguls skier on the weekend with a regional club, but still managed to finished third at junior nationals. He was at one point third ranked nationally in gymnastics and moguls skiing.
But then he had stress fractures on both wrists and spent the summer with both writsts in casts. He was told by a specialist he’d need surgery and that he’d be in casts for a year with another year of rehab after that. It forced him to give up on gymnastics.
Fontaine heard about this through the Quebec sports grapevine and recruited him for the 2010 Own the Podium program he was running. Rochon jumped his first summer of water ramp training with both wrists still in casts.
Rochon remembers seeing the aerialists train when he was a young moguls skier and thinking they were nuts.
“I was maybe 13 and I saw some of the aerial guys jumps and I was like ‘Wow, these guys are crazy. I don’t think I’ll ever be doing that in my life.’ A couple of years later, here I am doing it. It’s pretty funny.”
Here’s a video of Rochon in action last season:
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