As Connor Fitzpatrick recalls a drive he took with his mother a few months ago, the Canadian Canoe Sprint athlete becomes emotional.
“I asked her if she was prepared not to see me making a stroke again and she started bawling her eyes out. I just wanted to prepare her for the worst,” he said.
As an athlete training to compete at the Olympic Games, the 25-year-old received the worst news in November last year.
Diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter, a condition where a person’s heart beats irregularly and fast, Fitzpatrick’s world came crashing down.
“It felt like my body switched modes and I thought I was going to pass out,” he said.
To put this into perspective, the normal resting heart rate for an adult is 60 to 100 beats per minute while for Fitzpatrick, it was 160.
Olympians, however, are built differently - physically and mentally - and the Nova Scotia native was no different.
Taking it on the chin, he got a procedure done, hoping everything would be okay and left for California, where he started training for his second Olympic appearance in Paris.
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Just when it seemed like everything was going well, tragedy struck Fitzpatrick, with the symptoms returning, forcing him to stop training in February this year.
“I got a serious surgery called cardiac ablation. I was on the table for six and a half hours. That has fixed what happened but it has been a really tough road coming back to training. It took a lot of patience and a lot of nerve.
“My second procedure was actually in February. I remember sitting in my house, really emotional, thinking this wasn’t going to happen. I just rolled with it and said I would take it one day at a time. It ended up working out and I am really happy about it.”
From preparing to leave the sport he loves to making it to the Olympic Games, the last six months saw Fitzpatrick endure a rollercoaster of emotions.
In Paris, he finished sixth in Final B of the men’s canoe single 1000m, which saw Czechia’s Martin Fuksa claim gold.
Fitzpatrick labelled his performance as “disappointing” underlining his champion mentality and has already set his mind on LA28.
He is targeting a place in the top five within the next year-and–half and will take some time off to reflect with his family and friends, before getting back to the grind.
“Paris was a little disappointing for me but I guess the silver lining is that I am here. It was a goal that I thought was not possible. To be a two-time Olympian is super awesome. I am a bit sad with the result but it is what it is and I will come back stronger,” he said.
“There are days when you feel it is not going to happen. You leave your girlfriend for months, your family for months, your friends are off having a life and you are doing a completely different thing. So there are a lot of emotions. But without their support, this would simply not happen.”
