Myriam Glez: Four Olympic Games for four different countries

After competing for the French National Team at the Sydney Olympics, Myriam retired from Synchronized Swimming to attend business school. She worked for Accorhotels in marketing and sponsorship in France, Thailand, and Australia and eventually resumed her sporting career to compete for the Australian National Team in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Following her second retirement, Myriam combined her business and sports knowledge to return to sport and worked in high performance and sport management in England and in the U.S for several years before founded Athletes Soul.

Where are you from?

I was born in Lyon, France. I have an older step-brother who lived with us when I was little and then it was just me, my parents and my cat.

When and how did you start synchronized swimming?

I grew up in a family of skiers. We spent a lot of time in the mountains in winter and summer. So there was no background in swimming in my family but I always loved the water. I saw Muriel Hermine (a famous French synchronized swimmer) on TV and knew this is what I wanted to do. It took me about a year to convince my mum to look into it. I was six when she finally registered me with the local club.

Can you give us a summary of your career?

I had abilities for the sport and pretty quickly I started training five days per week. We lived pretty far from the pool and, in middle school, it would take me 1.5 hours to get to practice from school. I would take the regional bus, then the city bus, the subway and another bus. But I had all my friends at swimming and I loved it so I never thought of it as difficult. I would use the travel time to do my homework.

I competed in age group national championships from 10 years old on. I won my first national championships at 12 and participated in youth national team every year after that. At 15, I moved to the National Training Center in Paris to train for the Junior World Championships. After that, I made the senior national team and participated in many international competitions: winning the silver and bronze medals in European championships and cups, placing in top five at world championships and cups, and fourth at the 2000 Olympic Games. I was promoted to the duet after Sydney and competed for another two years with the French Team. I retired at the end of 2002 and then went to business school. I returned to the sport at the end of 2005 and competed in the Beijing Olympics for Australia in 2008, placing seventh.

Learn more about Myriam here https://www.linkedin.com/in/myriam-glez-8682422/