People, Student Profile

UBCO’s Joanna Brown an Olympic inspiration

Heat athlete went from running cross-country to Olympic triathlon and back again—and ‘there’s always more to come’

March 7, 2023

FOR AN OLYMPIC TRIATHLETE AND A FIFTH-YEAR STARTER for UBC Okanagan women’s cross-country running team, Joanna Brown admits her athletic career started with a rather surprising purpose.

The Bachelor of Science major says she began running cross-country because it was a chance to get out of school.

“I got started in cross-country kind of by accident,” says Brown, who finished 15^th in the mixed relay triathlon at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games. “I remember my best friend in elementary school attended cross-country meets, and I was always so jealous that she got to miss school for a day and go run.

“I remember asking in Grade 6 or 7 if I could go, too. That was my first cross-country race experience, and I was awful. But at the end of the day that paid me so much service.”

That’s for certain. She hasn’t stopped running, biking and swimming since, ultimately competing in two Olympic triathlon events. You might say UBCO owes that elementary school friend a thank you, too.

Brown joined the Heat from University of Guelph, where she represented the Gryphons on the USports All-Canadian Team three times. Accolades followed her to UBCO. She won the 2021-22 Canada West championship, and finished second overall in 2022-23. She helped UBCO to a pair of CanWest silver medals in the team event both her years at UBCO.

She was the Canada West Athlete of the Year, a second-team All-Canadian and won the Cross-Country Leadership and Community Service Award. The Heat finished fifth as a team at USports nationals, where Brown was eighth overall individually.

“Coming back to run for the Heat was honestly one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. You have to balance school and training and relationships and do well at all of them,” she says. “There’s so many awesome ladies here we just need to celebrate each other. There’s more to come. There’s always more to come. There are no limits, and that’s a really exciting part about being a female athlete with the Heat.”

As accomplished a cross-country runner as she is, it was triathlon that took her to the Olympics. As a junior on Team Canada, Brown twice won bronze at International Triathlon Union Junior and Under-23 championships.

At the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, Brown again won bronze as an individual while helping Canada to a fourth-place finish in the team event. From Australia, she qualified for Tokyo, where she also competed in the women’s individual triathlon.

“I remember sitting down once with my triathlon coach, and he asked me what my goals were; what I wanted to accomplish. I said, ‘I’d really love to make the national team and go to the World Championships.’

“He said, ‘That’s not good enough. You have to want to win the Olympics.’ That was a massive switch in my brain. It was the first time I started to believe in myself that not only could I go to the Olympics, but I could place really well. Having that shift in mentality, that ability in sport, makes you really believe and work that much harder towards it. It becomes a focus.”

In Tokyo, Brown was teammates with Heat cross-country coach Malindi Elmore, who finished an astounding ninth in the women’s marathon in Tokyo. From that relationship Brown opted to spend her fifth and final year of USports eligibility with her teammate—and now new coach—in Kelowna while finishing her degree.

“Having Joanna join the team last year was such a huge plus,” Elmore says. “And not only the sense of performance, but just in what she brings in her leadership skills. Her energy creates a lot of momentum. We’re going to see the legacy of what she has brought in, hopefully, for years to come.”

Having an Olympian on the roster brings the whole team up a level, Elmore says, which is a role that Brown embraces. She’s happy to demonstrate to her Heat teammates that setting ambitious goals—be they athletic or academic—is the first step in realizing them.

“The Olympic Games is an entirely different experience,” she says. “Being in the Olympic Village and realizing you’re among the top one per cent of athletic humans in the world, it’s a pretty incredible feeling.

“Being on the start line in the Olympic Games, and knowing that as teenager I decided to commit however much time it required to getting there, it was an incredibly empowering feeling.”