Maddie Norman is a Laurentian Nordic Ski team member that just captured a silver medal at the 2023 OUA Championship
Maddie Norman is a Laurentian Nordic Ski team member that just captured a silver medal at the 2023 OUA Championship. Along with a team silver, her individual performance earned her a top 5 finish during the Women’s 15km event.
Maddie was born into a family of athletes. Her father, Larry Norman, is a two-time Olympian, competing at the Atlanta and Barcelona Olympics in the Canoe and Kayak Slalom events. Her sister, a recent addition to the Laurentian Nordic team, is also a slalom racer that competed at the 2019 PanAm Games.
With athleticism in her blood, playing sports and being outside came naturally to Maddie and growing up in Ottawa came access to many ski hills. It was a given that the Normans would encourage their kids to ski.
Maddie recalls her first memory of skiing when she was four years old on the bunny hills. Soon after, she started competing.
She never stopped competing, doing it all through high school from any distance from 1 km to 24km marathons; she was, and still is, a very versatile racer. Those skills led her to receive an offer to compete at the OUA level at Laurentian University.
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Although spending most of the winter competing, living in a four seasons climate allowed her to do the other sport she was passionate about; kayaking. The Earth Science student would spend her summers on the water doing anything from racing to whitewater rafting, even playboating, which she describes as being in a little boat and doing tricks on the rapids. She also got to experience doing it with her family, as they could often be seen heading out on canoe expeditions when she was younger.
Although she competed for a couple of years, it was more the thrill and the enjoyment of the sport that was called to Maddie. So much so that during the summer of 2021, after her first year at Laurentian, she spent 60 days in Yukon on an expedition canoeing through the province with a summer camp.
She admits to being one of the only ski racing athletes who don’t compete and train 12 months a year. But, as the third-year student describes being a varsity athlete, a full-time student in a program that has 15 hours of labs on top of 15 hours of class, it’s a nice reset during the off-season to not train every day, instead focusing on cross training and doing what she loves.
Today, Maddie spends her summer working as a white water rafting guide on the Ottawa river at a company named OWL Rafting, which takes what she loves to do in a way that allows her to make money.
As the days get longer and the school year finishes, Maddie knows her days on the water are slowly approaching, but before that, she will compete in her longest-ever nordic race. She will compete at Nordiq Canada Ski Nationals in Thunder Bay, where she will race in the 50km event.
With soon-to-be three years of earth sciences and a couple of OUA seasons under her belt, she looks forward to finishing her Earth Science degree, which will allow her to return to the Yukon on a canoe expedition for some thesis fieldwork.
After those four years, she is not entirely sure what’s next for her, but no matter where she ends up, she knows it will be somewhere with four seasons that will allow her to do what she loves, no matter the climate.