Olympic medalist speaks at chamber women’s event

The Tillsonburg District Chamber of Commerce’s Empower Up was the only event for International Women’s Day in Tillsonburg. A healthy crowd, pictured here, turned out for the event led by Olympian Erika Polidori. (Jeff Helsdon Photo)

Jeff Helsdon, Editor

A packed facility greeted Olympic bronze medalist Erika Polidori when she was the guest speaker at The Tillsonburg and District Chamber of Commerce’s International Women’s Day event.

Called Empower Up, the event was held at the Tillsonburg Soccer Club. It featured displays from female-owned businesses that attendees could browse in the morning prior to lunch and Polidori’s presentation, which was meant to inspire those present.

Born in London and raised in Brantford, Polidori credited her parents for their support and her grandmother for her inspiration. Her grandmother played slo-pitch on a senior women’s team into her 60s and had definite goals with her game.

“Thinking back now, I see how important it was to see the goals she had with slo-pitch,” Polidori said. “Having that unofficial mentorship was important to see how my grandmother went after her goal.”

Growing up, Polidori was the only girl on her T-ball team, but that didn’t hold her back.

“It bothered me because they didn’t know how to play,” she joked. “I was always pretty competitive.”

It was important for her to go places others haven’t been – which she did. She made the Senior Women’s Softball team in 2013, was successful at the Olympic qualifier in 2019, and was part of the Canadian Olympic team in 2021. She is now also an RBC Olympian.

Her path to the Olympics was a little unusual, as the 2020 Seoul Games were delayed by a year due to Covid. However, that wasn’t known immediately, and the team trained inside from January to March 2020 in Halifax.

“It was a real challenge to be honest,” she said. “We were away from home. We talked to each other. When we didn’t have much else, we had each other.”

This turned into a competitive advantage down the road because they relied so much on each other. The three months of training included bringing in experts from various areas, including former Olympians, strength and conditioning training, and even Navy Seals to talk about training.

Then Covid hit in mid-March, and the team was sent home, not knowing whether they would compete in the Olympics. Team members kept in touch via Zoom. The team members worked on the concept of being one rather than 15 individuals.

“How can we beat the team in a moment when we can feel as one,” she said.

The players were also taught to know their role and what their individual role is.

“Once you know what your expectations are, you go about achieving those,” she said.

With the calendar turning to 2021, it looked like the Olympics would go ahead. Although the Canadians had qualified as a team, individuals had not qualified. Polidori qualified in May 2021.

She said players learned their individual strengths and weaknesses, and a culture was created where they could fail at practices.

“We were in a training environment where we would grow and fail,” she said. “This way failure would happen in a training environment.”

Team members also learned about delayed gratification, where they would not see the fruits of their labour immediately.

Despite pouring her heart and soul into planning, Polidori was struck with plantar fasciitis about a month before the Olympics. This set back her training, but she kept at it.

At the Olympics, six teams played round-robin games, and the two with the best records played for gold. The third- and fourth-ranked teams played for bronze. Going into the games, Canada was ranked third and had never won a medal before in silver. The team won all its games except for 1-0 losses to Japan and the U.S., which won gold and silver, respectively.

The entire 2021 Olympics was held in an empty stadium due to Covid restrictions. Women’s softball wasn’t played in 2024, but Polidori is gearing up for the 2028 games in Los Angeles.

In the meantime, she has a regular job as a nurse, as Canada doesn’t offer much financial support for its Olympians.

Polidori’s parting advice to the crowd was that if people have ambitious goals, they should approach them head-on and go for it.

“You’ll be surprised what you can accomplish,” she said. “Even if you don’t succeed, you can still get so much out of it.”