Emilie Heymans of Canada smiles after completing her last dive in the women's 10m platform diving at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 21, 2008. Chen Ruolin of China won the gold medal, Emilie Heymans of Canada took the silver and Wang Xin of China the bronze. Getty Images / Greg WOODGreg WOOD/Getty Images
In Émilie Heymans's world, disasters are fleeting. They are not forever.
As the 29-year-old from Saint-Lambert, Que., pushes toward the London Olympics next year - and the world aquatics championships in Shanghai July 16 to 24 - she trudges past naysayers and makes believers out of them, with an astonishing calmness and strength.
"She's teaching us things," Mitch Geller, chief technical officer for Diving Canada, said. "We're learning more about people's capabilities by watching her."
Heymans has already tested herself against the best, winning medals at three consecutive Olympics. She was a world champion in 2003. But all of this was in 10-metre platform diving. After winning a silver individual medal at the Beijing Olympics, Heymans wasn't finished. She sought new goals - on the three-metre springboard, which had never been her forte.
While platform diving suited Heymans's strengths - precise technique, finesse - springboard is for power divers. It's highly technical, too. "On springboard, there are way more places to make a mistake," Heymans said. "On tower, not so much."
Still, Heymans won an unexpected silver medal at the 2009 world championships on three-metre springboard, not long after making the switch. But it's never a given.
At the Commonwealth Games last year, Heymans was poised to win gold on the three-metre springboard, but on one of her dives, she almost missed the end of the board during her takeoff, and fell off. She finished ninth.
She came back after taking time off, getting the self-pity out of the way and refocusing. "People lose confidence after something like that happens at a major games with big expectations, and it throws off their training," Geller said. "Maybe it will take them a few months, and they lose their motivation and confidence and they question themselves."
Not Heymans. She just keeps plowing onward. It's not just having a sense of purpose for a higher goal, Geller says. It's almost like a belief that everything will be okay, no matter what. Self-doubt is not in Heymans's world.
Heymans has everyone marvelling over her attempt to master her most difficult dive, the inward 2 ½ somersault in the pike position, with a degree of difficulty of 3.0. "She's doing this dive that coaches from around the world would never thought her capable of," Geller said. "It's the iffy one for her."
In this dive, Heymans faces the back of the board and rotates backward and away from it, with her feet sweeping upward in an arc past the board. Trouble is, Heymans has never been known as a power diver, and her legs are so long, the possibility of them striking the board as she rotates away from it is greater.
It takes strength to move far enough away from the board to avoid such mishaps, but the farther away a diver gets from the board, the harder it becomes to rotate.
"You watch her kill herself, over and over," Geller said. "She'll do it for months, landing on her stomach. And she just says: 'It will come.' I don't know who can take that kind of a beating physically and psychologically. And then it starts to come."
Geller says Heymans is not the strongest woman in the world, unlike her synchro partner, Jennifer Abel, a powerhouse. Heymans begs to differ.
"I have as much power as she does," Heymans said. After dealing with a hip injury last season, Heymans says she has gained a lot of strength this year and can use the springboard better.
It hasn't come without an intense program of strength and conditioning training, set up for her by the Centre of Excellence of Montreal, a multisport complex. While she focused on technical training when she was a platform diver, now her aim is to build up strength.
The quirky dive is still a work in progress, but there will be no holding back in Shanghai.
Geller learned quickly that Heymans's dedication and desire are her best tools. At a recent event in Edmonton, Heymans defeated Abel on the three-metre springboard, although Abel has usually had the upper hand.
Geller told Heymans afterward that he'd bet $5 on her.
Heymans looked at Geller and said: "Well, who would bet against me?"