Sask. athlete racing toward 2020 Olympics after fractures, surgery
Jessica Furlan has her sights set on the 2020 Olympics in Japan, but she's had to overcome some hurdles along the way.
In 2015, Furlan achieved an Olympic qualifying time in steeplechase. After the race, her foot was sore.
"It turned out that I had a stress fracture in my heel," Furlan said. She took six weeks off then started training again.
In early 2016, just months before the Rio Olympics, she went for a run while at a training camp, but something wasn't right.
"I then found out that I refractured it or it had maybe never healed fully in the first place," she said.
Furlan tried nearly everything to help her fracture. She trained on an antigravity machine, in a pool, on the ground and tried strengthening the bone through variety of ways, but the fracture could not have been healed without surgery.
A scan in early 2016 showed the fracture was caused by two bones in her foot not moving properly because of tissue in between the bones.
"One bone would hit the other one every time my foot would hit the ground," she said. "It was probably something that I was born with."
After missing the Olympics, Furlan had surgery to fix the fractures. Despite the setback, she never thought about giving up.
"Surgery was the only option for me to be able to keep competing," she said. "It would be a year and a half, almost two year process."
She said the challenging part of recovering was not being able to train or compete at the same level, but she didn't let it discourage her.
In 2017, Furlan was running again and competed in some light races.
Since then, she has stepped back onto the track ready to race competitively.
"I knew that I was in better shape and capable of running fast again," she said. "It was exciting."
In her first major races since surgery, Furlan won silver in Ninove, Belgium and bronze in Leuven, Belgium.
"It's been a long time since 2015 till now to just finally be back," she said. "Just being able to train like a normal person again is really nice."
The injuries and surgery have changed how Furlan looks at competitions. She said they're less stressful.
"I've just realized that I'm very fortunate and lucky to be able to do what I do," she said.
"I went through two years of wondering whether I was going to be able to run at all or if my foot was going to break," Furlan said. "Now when I go to the track, it's more a mindset of 'What can I do today?'"
To get to the Olympics, Furlan will need to compete at the Canadian Olympic trials and get a qualifying time or qualifying world ranking.
