Getting To Know...Marilou Dozois-Prévost, Olympic Weightlifter (Part 1)

For many of us who watched the Beijing Olympics of 2008, we were in awe by the many record-breaking feats, the triumphs, the heartaches, and countless stories of the athletes, teams, coaches, and personnel who were a part of one of the most exhilarating Games of all time.

Among one of the stories from last year's Olympics was 23-year-old Marilou Dozois-Prévost, who hails from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Making her Olympic debut in the 48 kg (for my American neighbors, that's 101.41 lbs) women's weightlifting event, Prévost placed among the top 10 amongst her competitors.

Prévost is no stranger to success, having won the bronze medal in the 2006 Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne, Australia, one of the athletes aiding Canada's efforts to a third-place finish in the medals race.

She may not be a household name in the sporting world yet, but Prévost is certainly an athlete that you may want to keep your eye on in the future.

As you'll see in the interview, she's as conscious and detailed about her sporting career as she is precise and informative in this interview piece.

Through email correspondence, I decided to give my rendition of a 48-kg weightlifting event with the "Tiongson 12-Test", a series of questions aimed to reveal some new insights and details to my interviewees.

All I can say is that Prévost aced the test, no doubt, a mark of her being a truly stout and focused athlete and individual.

She was an absolute delight to interview and it has given me even more respect for her and what she does as a competitor in her sport.

This will be the first of two parts, with the first half of the interview looking into her preparation into her sport as well as some of her reflections of last year's games in Beijing.

Part two will focus on her future in weightlifting as well as some of the more personal look into this sensational athlete.

I hope you'll enjoy getting to know Marilou Dozois-Prévost as much as I did! She is a treat to talk to and hopefully, she'll be a force to be reckoned with in weightlifting and in the sporting world's future.

Rob Tiongson: Starting off that bat, I'm curious...how'd you get into weightlifting?

Marilou Dozois-Prévost: I started lifting totally by pure coincidence. I was bored at school during lunch time and one of my friends at the time dragged me in the lifting room and said it would be fun.

Her friend actually had a crush on a guy there, but we still attempted to lift weight (we had to pretend we were not there for the guy in question).

It was fun and I came back everyday of the rest of the week. The coach there noticed me and started to give me more attention. I had also started to train for real.

I was not just hanging out with my new friends I had made there. There was something attracting for me in weightlifting. Here I thought it was a strength sport, but every time the coach was giving me advice, it was concerning my technique.

I learned to be faster, to have a better balance, to gain flexibility, to be more fluid, and that was it for me. After my first small competition (a month only after starting lifting), I really fell in love with the sport.

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