Olympics to be La Roche’s water polo swan song

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This article was published 04/07/2024 (430 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If this is to be Shae La Roche’s final appearance at the Olympics and the swan song for an international water polo career that began when she was in high school, she will have earned it.

The 31-year-old former Winnipegger, a mainstay on the senior national women’s team for more than a decade, is planning to retire following the Paris Summer Olympics.

Or at least, that’s the plan.

“It’s a weird concept because the national team has been so much part of my identity since I was 15,” said La Roche from Laval, Que., earlier this week. “But I think at this point, I’m ready to kind of move on. I’m never gonna stop playing. My husband plays water polo and we’ll be involved with our club here. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. But it’s a weird thought process to move on and to not be thinking of next year in terms of what tournaments are coming or what training cycle you’re in.”

Perhaps triggering her thoughts of retirement are the major injuries she has overcome in the past four years.

Prior to the 2021 Tokyo Games, she was hampered by a back injury.

In 2023, she had surgery to repair a torn labrum and bicep tendinosis in her non-throwing shoulder followed by further surgery to fix a torn meniscus in her left knee.

“She’s pushed her body past a lot of limits,” said Team Canada head coach David Paradelo. “She’s been through so much to get where she is right now. The only way that someone can do that is by being the most professional person that you can be in terms of recovery and planning the recovery and being on board with all the different (national team) staff members that are part of this work group.”

La Roche was absent from the national team lineup for several months but returned in February to play in Canada’s Olympic qualifying bid at the world championships in Doha, Qatar.

“My (left) shoulder is totally fine — you wouldn’t even know it had surgery,” said La Roche, who debuted on the junior national team as a 15-year-old. “It’s amazing, honestly. It’s my knee that I really need to be careful with but I don’t notice it in a game anymore. I’m 100 per cent back to all my mobility and movement.”

La Roche and the Canadians almost missed their return trip to the Olympics.

Canada lost its final game at the worlds, an 18-12 decision to Italy in the seventh-place match, which was supposed to determine the last Olympic qualifying spot. The bitter taste lasted only hours, however.

The South African team, which had earned a trip to Paris by virtue of its status as the top team in Africa, was suddenly pulled from Olympic participation by its national governing body due to a poor 14th-place finish at worlds and suddenly, the No. 8 Canucks were in.

Hours earlier, La Roche and some of her teammates had been making off-season plans.

“The final last chance came down to the Italy game and we lost and of course everyone’s crushed,” said La Roche. “We went back to the hotel, everyone thought they were done. We did know about the rumours of South Africa because the water polo world isn’t very big. We knew there was a possibility but we still lost our qualifier game so everyone was obviously distraught and we were getting ready for dinner and they called us back.”

Since claiming their Olympic berth, Team Canada players have been busy training at home and abroad.

Paradelo’s squad went on the road to Spain and France for an exhibition trek against top European opposition. Last month, they spent two weeks on tour in Hungary and Greece, where they faced steamy conditions — the temperature didn’t dip below 35 C — that should be good preparation for Paris later this month.

“I have to concentrate on my recovery and my stretching and my rehab but I played in all of the scrimmages and all the games while we were away,” she said. “So I’m tired now, obviously, but I’m really happy that my body’s holding up really well.”

Unlike the spectator-less Tokyo Games, fans will be in the stands at the water polo venues in Paris. Shae’s husband, Guillaume La Roche, and sister-in-law will be on hand to cheer her on.

Prior to Tokyo, the Canadians went on an extended road trip during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and arrived at the competition exhausted.

“Last Olympics we were on the road for just over three months, so we went in feeling super not ready,” said La Roche, who helped her squad to a seventh-place finish.

“But then we played so much while we were away that (our game fitness) built up. Whereas now, we’ve been back and forth — the last two weeks in Greece and Hungary — which was good because it helped us show like what areas are doing really well and what areas like we need to tweak a little bit. It feels like everything’s coming together.”

La Roche said the Canadians are capable of challenging international superpowers such as the U.S., Hungary and Greece.

“We did finish top eight at worlds and so we’re consistently there with all those top teams and now it’s just really making sure we put together full games to beat those teams,” said La Roche, who serves as an assistant to Canadian captain Emma Wright. “Historically, the thing we’re missing is stressful game experiences because European teams get so much of that, right? They just play such a massive amount of games, whereas we don’t we just don’t play as much as them.”

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Paradelo knows he can depend on his oldest and most experienced player.

“Shae has always been a solid defensive player and she’s one of those players that doesn’t make mistakes in the water and is able to understand the game from start to end,” he said.

The La Roches, married since 2020, would like to start a family.

“He would support me for anything I want,” said La Roche of her husband. “We not so half-heartedly joke about, ‘Well, I can have a kid and I can go back and play.’ He’s helped support me in whatever I want to do.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca