Elyse Lemay-Lavoie: Collegiate Water Polo Player, 2020 Olympian and Soon-To-Be UH Graduate

After playing for the University of Hawai‘i women’s water polo team for three seasons and competing in many international competitions — including the 2020 Olympics for her native Canada — Elyse Lemay-Lavoie still isn’t quite ready to hang up her jersey. At 27, Lemay-Lavoie will be graduating this spring from UH with a degree in women’s, gender and sexuality studies.  Her graduation marks the end of a chapter for her, but even then Lemay-Lavoie has huge aspirations ahead of her. Looking to 2024, she hopes to compete at the international level again in the Paris Summer Olympics.

        “Water polo has opened up a lot of things for me,” Lemay-Lavoie said. “I traveled the world. I came to UH and I went to the Olympics last summer … playing water polo was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

        Lemay-Lavoie's journey with the sport started when she was 15. It was then that she switched from competitive swimming to water polo. Her father introduced her to the sport, a sport he played when he was younger. Growing up in Montreal, Quebec, water polo was not as popular as the winter sports that Canada is so known for. But that didn’t stop Lemay-Lavoie from falling in love with it. She joined her local club team,  graduated from high school and then started training with Canada’s national team. It’s with the national team that she first learned about UH and the Canadian players who competed for the Rainbow Wahine.

        “For me, it was like, ‘Hawai‘i is a paradise,'” Lemay-Lavoie recalled. “It was a dream that one day I would be able to go. But how could I? I'm from Canada. Hawai‘i, for me, was unattainable.” 

        But that didn’t stop her from one day contacting  UH water polo head coach Maureen Cole , asking if she could one day play for Hawai'i. To her surprise, Cole said yes. A decision motivated by simple curiosity ended up being a big opportunity for Lemay-Lavoie. But Lemay-Lavoie's dream to compete for Hawai‘i would have to wait a few more years. She had to turn down the offer and stay in Canada where she studied and trained a little more. 

        A few years later, Cole reached out to her, asking if Lemay-Lavoie would still like to come to Hawai‘i, but this time, just for one semester. And this time around she was able to commit.

        “I'm really thankful for that phone call,” she said. “Because I would have never came to Hawai‘i if it wasn’t for that call.”  

        But this wasn’t the only dream she was able to fulfill. Competing for Team Canada in Tokyo was another childhood dream she always wanted to accomplish. But for her, this dream came with momentous sacrifices. For almost two years, Lemay-Lavoie had to dedicate her entire life to prepare and be ready to compete at a moment’s notice for the Olympics. In 2020, she moved back to Montreal to train with the rest of her team. But when lockdowns and travel restrictions occurred, the dream of competing for the Olympics meant having to go through a gauntlet of challenges.

        “We couldn't train, practice, see our family sometimes, “ she said. “You had to be isolated, yet, you still had to train. For three months, we would train in our apartments or our homes separated from each other.” 

        This also meant not even going into the water for three months. Instead, Lemay-Lavoie used just weights and body movements to exercise. “We all made the decision to put our lives on hold,” she said.

         Lemay-Lavoie intended to come back to Manoa in 2020, but because the Olympics had been postponed until 2021, she decided to postpone her college education until after the Olympics. When reflecting on her overall experience, she said, “I think it was an experience of a lifetime. It was training in a global pandemic and going to the Olympics in a global pandemic. So there's a lot of mixed feelings. But at the same time, I'm so happy that I did it. I’ll remember that experience forever.”

        After the challenge of competing  during a pandemic, Lemay-Lavoie would like a second shot as she sets her eyes on the Olympics in 2024. Upon her UH graduation this spring, she’d like to play pro, mostly likely somewhere in  Europe. Not every detail  is set in stone. It’s sort of like her original decision to come to Hawai'i. 

        “I just let things flow… I didn’t really think ahead,” she recalled. "I really thought on the present and I went with it.” She  repeated the same sentiment regarding the next chapter in her life. “I'll let it flow too,” she said. “I’ll see, when the time comes.”

#HawaiiWWP