Marianne St-Gelais proud of the Virage series

On the air since September 15, Noovo's Virage series is causing a stir. Marianne St-Gelais, who took part as a content consultant, is proud to see for once the truth of a transition as important as life after an Olympic career. She is convinced that many will be able to identify with it, as it is never easy to start from scratch.

Marianne has been involved in the project for over two years. On the one hand, she took care of making speed skating credible on the film set and gave private skating lessons to the various actors.

As viewers could see, the retired Olympian was also involved in the ideation of the series, with his own story. “The series is freely inspired by my life, but also by those of twelve other athletes. The portion that I told, where I was comfortable going, is really the transition portion. I have the impression that everything that had been done before that, we already knew, ”comments the friendly young woman, during a telephone interview with Le Progrès.

She knows people can trace her true story, whether it's past news stories and articles about her or even her biography, so she's always been open to talking about it. But for her, the series was an opportunity to talk about a more difficult part that people didn't really know about her, which was the period after her Olympic career.

She speaks openly about the difficulties of her own transition from an athlete to a normal life since retiring from the sport, a time that has not always been easy. “I wondered, why are we making this taboo? Why do I get praised for talking about it? This is completely normal. In the case of Virage, we illustrate it for a high-level Olympic athlete, but people may one day in their lives go through a transition. A transition is when you're so anchored in something and, overnight, you leave it and lose your bearings. There are people who will perhaps experience this identity crisis during their lifetime, so the series will perhaps challenge them. All that, it called me, ”she continues. She didn't want to show this transition as a weakness. And so far, the reactions of the viewers are very positive, which makes her very proud.

She admits she knew viewers would find similarities to her relationship with Charles Hamelin, who recently disassociated himself from the character on his social media. “It belongs to him,” she stipulates, confident that viewers will increasingly dissociate her story from the series over the episodes.

Her parents have seen a few episodes already and she admits they have been emotional at times, as they relive some of the highlights of their daughter's career, even though that's not exactly how it went for them. she. In addition, the comforting and reassuring character of the athlete's dad in the series really resembles that of Marianne's father. "That comes to get us and it's really touching," she says.

CRCE

Speaking of her own transition, Marianne still loves her coaching role at the Canadian Regional Training Center (CRCE) in Montreal. A role she had never thought of, but which happened in a good way, according to her. It's not a pace of life she thinks she'll keep for many years, but she's happy to do it for now and making the most of it. She also wants, with this role, to better prepare athletes for the reality of sport, for competition, but also for the future. “I really value the relationship I have with these young people. In the end, skating is my expertise, but I don't emphasize performance, but rather this relationship that I build with young people. I want to leave them something else, that they value themselves through something other than performance and results, something that is lacking in high-level sport, ”continues the coach. She wants to better equip them and finds this role very rewarding.