Artistic swimming great Sylvie Frechette could barely stand the uncertainty in the moments before Canada's Jacqueline Simoneau won a world title at the world aquatic championships in Doha, Qatar.
Frechette, the last Canadian to win gold in the women's solo free competition at the worlds, was serving as a remote analyst for Radio-Canada on Tuesday and could only see live feeds from duet and team events.
The seconds felt like minutes as she waited for solo results to be updated online.
"You should have seen me sitting at the table and just hitting refresh, refresh, refresh," Frechette said with a laugh.
Eventually the order of finish was confirmed. Simoneau ended Canada's long drought by reaching the top step of the world podium in the discipline for the first time since Frechette's gold in 1991 at Perth, Australia.
"Thirty-three years? It sounds like a good year to take over," Frechette said Wednesday from Mont-Sainte-Anne, Que. "This is it, and who better? I admire Jacqueline. I love her dearly. I admire her personality, her work, her career. She's just a great human being.
"So I was like, 'You know what, you go girl. You take the flame for the future and hopefully it won't be 33 years (until the next gold).'"
Simoneau, from Montreal, topped the total difficulty and execution categories for a total score of 264.8207 points. Greece's Evangelia Platanioti was 11.5374 points behind in second place.
"For the rest of her life she will be a world champion," Frechette said. "But what she's giving back to our sport and our country, it's priceless. It's amazing."
Frechette received seven perfect 10 scores and set a record overall score at the 1991 worlds. The Montreal native was 23 at the time, four years younger than Simoneau is now.
"It's so long ago but the feeling is still so present," she said.
Frechette was originally given silver the next year at the Barcelona Olympics but her medal was later upgraded to gold when the International Swimming Federation admitted a scoring error was made.
She also won team silver at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Frechette was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.
"Being a world champion to me, I wanted it so bad but I did not expect it to hit so hard too," she said. "All of a sudden, you realize that you're on top. You are the one.
"There's only one person on top and all of the sudden it was me ... I was so humbled."
Once she was finally able to watch Simoneau's performance, Frechette described the level of difficulty as "sky high."
"She almost didn't breathe for her whole routine," Frechette said. "So she went all out. It was like, 'I win or I sink.' Either it's going to work or it won't. So she had everything to lose and everything to gain at the same time. And you know what, she did it.
"I am so proud of her and so happy for her and the whole community."
It was Simoneau's second medal of the world championships. She won silver in the women's solo technical on Saturday behind Platanioti.
For a Canadian team with many young, talented swimmers, Simoneau's success will have an immeasurable impact, Frechette said.
"I feel that now they have a guide," she said. "They have someone. They have a mentor soaking in the same pool as them. She's showing them the way.
"They thought they were working hard. Now they know what working hard is."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 7, 2024.
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Gregory Strong, The Canadian Press
