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Margo Erlam is calm and confident heading into her Olympic Games debut.

Those haven’t been everyday feelings for the Calgary diver on her path to Paris.

Not even close, given the highs seemed to be outweighed by lows in her past few years.

“There were definitely challenging moments — 100 per cent,” admitted Erlam, being open and honest about the obstacles, especially with her mental and physical health, in her quest to become a 2024 Summer Olympian.

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“There’s been so many challenges, like almost quitting the sport multiple times,” continued the Dive Calgary graduate. “Even just in the last year-and-a-half, just not being able to be mentally there.

“But in the last six months, I would say it’s just been like full steam, knowing this is what I want.”

It’s what she’s always wanted, really.

Erlam has been on this push for Paris dating back the better part of a decade.

She was nine when she first took up diving and it progressed to the point of her needing to make a move to Saskatoon when she was just 16 — away from family and onto high-level instruction under national coach Mary Carroll.

“These Games have always been my goal,” said Erlam, who begins her maiden Olympic odyssey Wednesday with the women’s three-metre springboard preliminary (7 a.m. MT) — and follows hopefully with the semifinal on Thursday (2 a.m. MT) and the final on Friday (7 a.m. MT).

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“Like going in 2021 to Tokyo would have been a surprise or just a bonus,” continued Erlam. “But I actually missed out on the Canadian trials due to a shoulder injury that I eventually got surgery on. It’ll be two years in September that I had surgery. So … yeah … it was not easy to get to this one.”

‘I do love diving, and I want this more than anything’

Indeed, that injury — a torn labrum — cut into her preparation for Paris.

“It was a repetitive injury,” Erlam said. “I was diving on it for like a year-and-a-half to two years. I was just diving in constant pain, so then I eventually got an MRI, because it got to the point where I couldn’t even like put my blinker on or grab a glass. It got so doing normal daily tasks was just too much. And that was around the time where I was thinking I might not want to keep going, and it was really hard to keep motivated just because of the pain. So it was a rough go there with the shoulder.”

Then came the idea of stepping away entirely from the sport, with her place in school at the USask’s College of Arts and Science as a sociology student occupying her mind.

“I was definitely enjoying being a regular student,” said the 22-year-old Erlam. “I was just doing classes at that point, and I kind of got a taste of just what it would be like to not be an athlete. But then two weeks went by of doing that and I was extremely bored, and I just wanted to be at the pool every day, all day. So just the motivation came back during that time. I think I needed that little stint of like a break and then I realized that, no … I do love diving, and I want this more than anything.

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“I can’t not do it.”

But rediscovering her passion for the sport didn’t automatically put Erlam in perfect harmony with her dives.

“My first and only world championships was a complete bust,” continued Erlam, of competing in the 2024 World Aquatics Championship back in February in Qatar. “I had a mental breakdown the morning of the competition. I did synchro with (Quebec’s) Mia Vallée and we came fifth, and that was like pretty good. In the one-metre competition, I made the finals and came ninth.

“But then in three-metre, I was having a really hard time with one of my dives that I actually took out for the last couple months, and so I was just having a mental breakdown that morning. So I was ranked 22nd, I think, and that’s my best placing in the world on three metres.

“So I’m not going into the Olympics contending for medals or anything like that.”

But Erlam is going in with confidence she hasn’t owned in quite a while, which can certainly help trend her upwards at the Aquatics Centre in Saint-Denis, France.

“I would say the inward-direction dive is 100 per cent my favourite and always has been,” Erlam said. “It’s one that I leave until last in my dive order, just because I know it’s a good one. It was my highest score at trials, and so that’s definitely my strength. And the reverse direction is usually pretty consistent.

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“The front direction is the one that is my nemesis. That’s the one that I had to switch out because it was giving me so much stress day-to-day and I couldn’t sleep because of it. So that one’s definitely the hardest one for me to overcome.

“But now that I’ve taken down my difficulty a little bit, it’s a lot better.”

And she’s ready for the Olympics.

“Yeah, I’m super excited,” Erlam said. “I actually woke up (in mid-June) one morning and was like, ‘I was like I just want to leave today.’ I’m so excited.

“I’ve been very consistent right now,” added Erlam, who also gets a boost from having parents Gerry and Carole, sister Marti and her husband, Noah, and family friends in Paris. “I’m feeling very confident in my training right now. My coach and I are working really well together, and I’m really just focusing on enjoying practice right now. And that’s never really been something that I’ve gotten to do is just enjoy myself.”

Locals on Day 8/9 of Paris Olympics

Calgary diver Caeli McKay is through to the final after Monday’s success on the 10-metre platform.

She qualified seventh in pursuit of the podium with 308.85 points in the semifinal set of dives hours after a third-best finish of 324.90 points in the preliminary stage.

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“The last step was getting into the final, and it was definitely a long day for me,” McKay, a 25-year-old graduate of Dive Calgary, told CBC late Monday. “It wasn’t my sharpest day. But I have a lot that I can improve on for (Tuesday) and a lot of little cues to work on, which is really good for me. I’d rather have that then have had a perfect day and then worry (Tuesday) that I’ll have to do the exact same thing.”

The final goes Tuesday (7 a.m. MT).

Also among locals on Days 8 and 9 at the Olympics:

• Calgary’s Sarah Orban and Canada finished eighth in women’s cycling track team sprint with a time of 47.631 seconds.

Orban, fellow Albertan Kelsey Mitchell and Quebec’s Lauriane Genest lost their group race with top-ranked Great Britain earlier Monday to fall out of medal contention.

Their time was 46.816s, while Great Britain posted a world-record 45.338s performance.

In the qualifying stage earlier Monday, Orban and the Canadians set an Olympic record of 56.749s. But all seven other countries’ representatives cycled even quicker on the fast track to push Canada into the eighth and final seed.

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Orban cycled to 19.092s on her first laps of both the qualifying and group races and then went 19.191s in her first lap of the seventh/eighth-place final.

• Calgary’s Rae Lekness earned an assist in Sunday’s women’s water pool performance by Canada.

Unfortunately, the Canadians lost 20-11 to the Netherlands, but their 1-3 record still puts them in a quarter-final match Tuesday against Spain (6 a.m. MT).

• Calgary’s Yvonne Ejim and Canada’s women’s basketball crew lost 79-70 to Nigeria on Sunday to wrap up their Olympic experience in Paris.

Ejim and Canada went winless — at 0-3 — in Group B action to fall shy of qualifying for the next stage of b-ball.

Ejim posted two rebounds in coming off the bench in the concluding contest.

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