Niki Oudenaarden is happy and healthy as a medal contender at the XXI Commonwealth Games.
“There is a really good chance that I will stand on the podium for the heptathlon,” said the 2017 Canadian gold medallist in the combined events competition featuring the 100-metre hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin throw and the 800m. “I have to make sure that I’m being as consistent as I can be as a heptathlete. With seven events the trick is to be consistent through all of them.”
Oudenaarden’s 6,000 points at the national track and field championships in July at Ottawa punched her ticket to the Commonwealth Games, April 4 to 15 in Queensland, Australia.
“It pretty much put me up in the world standards so I’m excited to be going especially with my past with all the injuries I’ve had. A lot of people were like, ‘Oh, you’re done. You’re a washed up athlete,’” said Oudenaarden of surgeries to her right knee, which was injured while competing with the San Diego State Aztecs, left ankle reconstruction after the 2015 Summer Universiade in South Korea as the seventh-place finisher in the heptathlon and first-place javelin thrower, and the removal of a nerve in her left foot.
“To have the opportunity now to overcome those three surgeries, those things from the past, and to be able to say I’m a fully healthy athlete now and I’m finally able to start reaching my potential is a great feeling,” Oudenaarden said of being injury free for about a year and a half. “Last year I was healthy and now having a second year where it's nothing but healthy is amazing. There are so many possibilities.”
There were dark days when Oudenaarden was ready to call it a career.
“After my ankle surgery I was like, I’m never going to do it. There is no chance. My body is rejecting me and I’m done,” said the high school track and field star with the Paul Kane Blues. “But then I would say one more year, just give it one more year, and then all of a sudden things just started clicking for the better. I was progressing and I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me.
“It’s not just that my performances have been phenomenal by any means, the consistency has got so much better, it's just the confidence in the matter of moving forward so it’s been kind of crazy. This is what I’ve dreamed of because when I was 10 years old starting out in track I wanted to be at this level and now all of a sudden its all starting to work together. It’s amazing and I feel really blessed I have my family and a community behind me. There has been just so much support through all of this. They were cheering when I was broken and they’re cheering when I’m healthy. It’s just been so phenomenal.”
Oudenaarden, 24, is ranked fourth in the Commonwealth in the heptathlon and is also among the top 15 pentathletes in the world after scoring a personal best 4,269 points at the recent Golden Bear Open.
The pentathlon consists of the 60m hurdles, shot put, long jump, 800m and high jump.
“It was quite lovely actually because I PB'ed and it put me second in the world briefly in the pentathlon,” said Oudenaarden, who is pining for an invite to the IAAF World Indoor Tour series after her winning performance at the Golden Bear Open.
The 2017 U Sports female field athlete of the year with the Calgary Dinos as the pentathlon winner and silver medallist in the open high jump credits her coach, Les Gramantik, and training partner, Damian Warner, the bronze medallist at the 2016 Rio Olympics, for sharpening her athletic skills.
“Damian transferred here after the last Games to start training with Les, so him and Les combined have been the reasons why my performances have been going so much better lately. Having that elite level at training every single day has been absolutely phenomenal,” said the 2015 CIS (now U Sports) female field athlete of the year finalist as the pentathlon champion and bronze medallist in the open shot put.
The long-range goals for Oudenaarden are the 2019 IIAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar and the Canadian Olympic Trials for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games
“With the way my scoring has been producing because I have a nice little linearly progression going on right now there is definitely some really great possibilities there,” said Oudenaarden of achieving 6,200 points in the heptathlon for Olympic qualification. “I have a really good shot at going for that Games right now so it just needs to continue on that trend.”
Oundenaarden has one year of eligibility remaining with the Dinos after taking this semester off for the upcoming Commonwealth Games.
The kinesiology student is also busy growing her brand as an athlete for funding support.
“It’s been a little bit of a scramble trying to afford the life of an athlete but it’s been nothing but worth it along the way.”
