Ahead of the Pack
by Women's Brain Health Initiative Young Person's Cabinet:
With the Olympics officially underway, we want to highlight trampoline gymnast Rosie MacLennan, who, in addition to being one of Canada’s most accomplished athletes, is also a fierce advocate of brain health.Rosie, a native of King, Ontario, started taking trampoline lessons at age seven.
By the time she became a teenager, she was already competing internationally. She made her Olympic debut at 20, when she placed seventh in the Beijing games.
That would be the only time in her life that she didn’t finish atop the podium at the Olympics. In London in 2012, she won gold in trampoline gymnastics.
Four years later, in Rio, she made history by doing it again. With that victory, she became the first trampolinist in the world to win back-to-back golds. This month in Tokyo, she has the opportunity to extend that streak.Rosie’s legendary medal count—which also includes five World Championship and Pan Am golds—is all the more impressive considering she almost never made it to the Olympics.
In May 2012, mere months before a career-best performance at the London games, she suffered a concussion and missed the Canadian championships. While training for the Toronto Pan Am Games in 2015, she hit her head on the side of a trampoline, leading to another concussion. Remarkably, she won the gold at the Pan Ams two weeks later.After that competition, however, Rosie knew something was wrong.
Every time she jumped, she felt dizzy. Her sense of spatial awareness was off, and she was mixing up words in conversation. Terrible headaches prevented her from sleeping. As the Rio qualifiers approached, Rosie was anxious and depressed, worried that she’d never compete again.Rosie’s symptoms were typical of a traumatic brain injury.
Concussions—usually the result of a blow to the head or a hit to the body that causes the brain to jolt back and forth rapidly—often affect cognitive and physical function, resulting in difficulty speaking, learning or remembering things. In some cases, they lead to the development of dementia years later. Though women account for a third of traumatic brain injuries, they are about twice as likely as men to suffer concussions in sports that both men and women play.Concussion symptoms typically dissipate within weeks.
Fortunately for MacLennan, her condition improved before the Rio qualifiers, where she earned a chance to win her second gold. She improved her condition by exercising regularly during her time off. Research shows that, in people who have suffered concussions, various forms of exercise—including aerobics, resistance training, tai chi and yoga—can help sharpen memory, improve vision, enhance learning abilities, decrease stress and stabilize mood.
Since recovering from her injuries, Rosie has worked with Women’s Brain Health Initiative (WBHI) to advocate for the importance of exercise and keeping your brain healthy. Sitting on our Young Person’s Cabinet and now an Honourary WBHI Board Member, she has shared the lessons she learned from her setbacks. “What trampoline has taught me is the value of struggle and the value of failure,” she said before the Tokyo games, “and the opportunities that it creates to learn and to grow and to get stronger."
To cheer her on, a cup of coffee may be necessary. Trampoline gymnastics is scheduled to compete on July 30 at 1:00 PM JST (July 30 at 12:00 AM EST). Join us in celebrating Rosie’s strength, determination and courage as we wish her a fantastic and safe competition representing Canada at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics!
Check out highlights form our recent Engaging Millennial Minds event featuring Rosie's TBI story below.
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