Championing Resilience: Inspiring Stories from Olympic Athletes Kelly Curtis and Melissa Bishop
Shining a Spotlight on Women in Sports
In a world where the roar of the crowd attempts to drown out the voices of female athletes, a recent Classroom Champions Town Hall event on March 25, 2024, brought a powerful spotlight to the forefront of the discussion. Olympic athletes Kelly Curtis and Melissa Bishop took center stage, sharing their journeys, triumphs, and successes.
Classroom Champions Town Halls are a chance for the Classroom Champions Community to come together and spend time with athletes that are living and breathing the Champion Mindset that we hope to instill in kids every day. In this specific Town Hall, we heard from Kelly Curtis and Melissa Bishop, two powerhouse women in sport who epitomize the essence of pushing boundaries and shattering expectations. Their journeys embody the spirit of resilience, determination, and the pursuit of excellence.
Read on for a glimpse into the conversation that unfolded during this Town Hall, shedding light on the challenges, victories, and enduring impact of women in sports.
Don’t miss out on our next Town Hall! Be sure to visit our Classroom Champions Community for more information.
Get to know Kelly Curtis and Melissa Bishop!
Melissa: My name is Melissa Bishop. I’m a 3 time Olympian, in track and field representing Canada. I run the 800 meters. I’m also a mentor and head of athletes here at Classroom Champions. I am a mother to 2 kids, 2 little girls. I am a wife. I am a daughter, I am oh, so many things. I’m a teammate.
As athletes we identify as one person for so long like you are only an athlete, and then, when you become a mother, or you take on another role, you all of a sudden realize. Oh, I actually wear way more hats than I thought I did.
So I guess my journey started when I was probably in University. I always had the dream of being there. I didn’t know how I was going to get there, didn’t know what it took, but I knew that I wanted to be there, and so I actually made my first Olympic games in 2012.
I didn’t make it out of the first round of the 800 of my first games, and I remember coming home, and I was feeling somewhat disappointed in myself because I knew that wasn’t the Olympic experience that I wanted. Like I wanted to be on the podium. I wanted to have see that flag about me. I wanted that kind of experience from the Olympics.
And so the next 4 years I really dedicated to training full time as an athlete. And what happened was I finished fourth at the 2016 Olympic games, so I didn’t quite make it to the podium. But I did have a lot of really great experiences and events like a silver medal at the world championships in between those years.
I stepped away from sport at the peak of my career to start our family with my husband, Osi. Our family welcomed our first daughter Corinne, and then I came back for the Tokyo 2020 games, which were postponed till 2021. I ended up having an injury. I tore a hamstring like days out of the Olympic start of the first round. So that was heartbreaking in a whole other way.
But it also led to another daughter joining our family after those games. And now I find myself here as a mentor and working really closely with athletes just like Kelly.
Kelly: I’m a team USA Olympian in the winter sport of skeleton. It’s similar to bobsled or luge. We go head first down a mile of ice.
I also have a track and field background. I did the heptathlon in college, and then I was coaching collegiate track and field in upstate New York. Then found bobsled, just in proximity to Lake Placid, and then found skeleton from bobsled. And this is going on year 10 of me being inside sports.
I made my first winter Olympic games in 2022. So during the Covid times it was different in Beijing. You know, we were in there in the Olympic village and people were still testing positive 2 weeks into quarantine, still being there. So pretty different experience, I think, than than most Olympians have had prior to that.
I recently had my first daughter, Mave. You might hear her every now and then, I had her back in November. I’m still on maternity leave, but I’m coming back currently in Lake Placid now returning to sliding, and everything is different but for the best.
So my journey is that I was at the top of my sport. I’m working my way back. And this is my second year with Classroom Champions, and I’m happy to connect with this group I’ve known about it for a number of years. So yeah, just happy to answer any questions.
Oh, and also I should probably also put in there I’m also in the US Air Force. So I’m stationed out in Aviano, Italy and thankfully they have a world class athlete program. So I’m able to once I’m in the program train full time for skeleton, and when I’m out of the program I’m full time, airmen, so that as well, another hat.
Enjoy the Journey and Make Your Younger Self Proud
Kelly: I would say, can you believe you’re making a lifestyle out of adult sledding? I’m just trying to keep this window of opportunity open as long as possible. See where my potential really lies. And then.
You know, just try. Just try to make her proud. You know she’s in that little nineties fit. She doesn’t really know what’s gonna happen with her. She thinks she’s gonna be a summer Olympian, and that’s not gonna work out. And she’s gonna find a path in the winter Olympics.
Melissa: What I would have told myself is to enjoy every single moment of the journey, because truthfully, it is a journey to get where we are in sport right now.
And to enjoy those really tiny moments like, I can remember as a pro athlete, we’re traveling over in Europe, and I would be sitting, you know at a little coffee shop next to the hotel, and not even really like taking it in like where I am. Like, I’m in Rome, Italy, ready to race. So often what we do in our careers is, you fly in and you fly out. You see the hotel, and you see the track, and anything in between is on a bus. You don’t get to enjoy, you know, truthfully being in that country or being a tourist in that country.
So I think if I could go back and tell myself anything, it would be to enjoy every tiny piece of the journey, because it happens so fast. Even the bad stuff. Our careers are not always about high moments. There are a lot of low moments, and those are the moments that make us the women that we are today and have formed us into the athletes that we are today.
How to Enjoy the Little Things
Melissa: We get so caught up in life and we all have a day to day routine or a day to day job. And for a lot of everybody watching this, like your 9 to 5 is helping and impacting children, and that can seem like Groundhog’s day, maybe like over and over again. And for athletes that’s so much of what our lives are too, like it’s Groundhog’s day over and over again, because the training can be quite monotonous and boring.
Sometimes you’re like why am I doing this? And it’s really trying to find that motivation and thinking little you would be so proud to see where you are right now, and just giving yourself permission to say, like, I am making a difference in this world, and you don’t have to be an Olympian to do that.
Teachers are those people, like you guys are making such a big impact on the world. And that’s amazing.
Unveiling The Journey: How Did You Get Here?
Kelly: I think I went into it a little bit with the sports journey so far. With the military side. That was a bit more unexpected.
I knew that I had to become a national level athlete in order to be accepted into the World Class athlete program. So in order to get good enough to join that program, I just took all the odd jobs that I could find. I’ve lived in a number of different places in the United States. I’m from Princeton, New Jersey, originally, but I’ve had so many different odd jobs from being a dog Walker in Princeton to being an extra on a TV show in New Orleans, and a lot of places in between there and for me to just be able to get good enough to get to that national team so I can join finally join.
The military has been a journey that has been unexpected. It’s brought me to meeting my husband and us, bringing our daughter Mave into the world. It’s twists and turns, and now we get to live in Italy and Melissa like like how you were saying you’re you’re enjoying a cafe in Rome…I requested to be in Aviano, so I could slow down that time of of living abroad, and not feel like I have to take in every single moment as it happens because I have a little bit more time to spend out there, and I can focus on the competition when I need to, and then I can go home and have the best gelato in the world.
That’s my journey so far. Working towards the Milan, Cortina 2026 games and then getting right back into Air Force. I’m on the enlisted side right now. I’d like to go on the officer side, so I have some goals. In my professional career outside of sliding as well. And yeah, that’s that’s just a little snapshot of where I’m at right now.
Melissa: My journey really started somewhat similar. I was graduating from university, and I knew that I had some potential to make the Olympic team. I had applied for my masters, I got accepted, and last minute my coach said, you know, Melissa, I think we should take a shot at the 2012 Olympic games, and this was in 2011. We need to try training full time and see where it gets you. Worst case scenario you defer your masters, and you can come back and complete your degree when you’re done. So, I deferred my masters, and I put all my eggs into one basket, and I had really great support from my parents, my now husband, my coach, and a lot of teammates that supported me. And we did end up making my first Olympic team.
But part of the journey that a lot of us don’t see is how hard financially it is to put yourself on a national team. You have to travel to races. You have to feed yourself like the best quality food nutrition is very important. You have to rest.
I actually purchased an altitude tent because it was one way for me to get that much better. You know. There’s paying coaches, and there’s physio, and there’s massage, and the list can go on what you pay for so I actually started my own fundraising campaign.
I’m from a small town called Eganville, Ontario. It’s like Northeastern Ontario and I went around to my local dentist and the local hardware shop and people who knew who I was, and I asked for their support on my journey to the 2012 Olympic games, and this community showed up. They are the definition of community.
It was a huge starting point for me that they were able to help me achieve my dreams. And when I came back from the 2012 Olympics this community was so proud they hosted the biggest parade, and, like everybody, showed up. It was I was so emotional because I had never had that kind of moment before, but what it allowed is for everybody in my community and in the surrounding communities, to really jump on board and follow me through the rest of my career, and out of that was born, you know, new track fans, new fans to running, new fans to track and field, and even the Olympics. It will always stand out in my mind as one of the most heartfelt moments of my career, because that little community of Eganville in the Ottawa Valley literally put me on the map and allowed me to get where I was today.
That was a huge part of my journey that you know not many are aware of, but many athletes do go through as that financial struggle.
Embrace and Savor Every Role You Play
Melissa: When I had my first daughter, it was in the middle of the peak of my career, and so, coming back to that made me really think about who I am, who I need to prioritize. And how do I do that?
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t something that was just like, okay, I’m gonna do this. This has been a work in progress. This is something that I’ve always tried to find. And I think balance is just thinking about the task at hand.
When I put on my mom hat, I come home, and I’m like, okay now I’m here and I’m present, being a mother. And I’m giving my kids everything that they need out of me.
Being able to compartmentalize each of those bigger hats that I wear in my career was really relieving, like I knew that I could go to practice and just focus on me. And when I came home I knew that I could just focus on my kids. And I could separate the two and for me, that provided a lot of balance.
Kelly: Some weeks are better than others. Some days are better than others. But for my sport it’s you know, my body and my mind are either ready to go 80 miles per hour, headfirst on a mile of ice, or it’s not. If it’s not, it can be pretty dangerous.
So, navigating the postpartum hormonal regulation, and trying to do everything that I can, and also taking the season of just trying to figure out what this means for myself and for my family moving forward has been difficult. It’s definitely been a difficult journey so far.
With Mave, the mom hat is the most important hat I’ve ever worn, and I’m so happy to wear it, and I’ve never felt I’ve never felt more fulfilled and so tired all the time. So yeah, it’s my favorite hat so far and I’m honored to wear it. And it’s a difficult journey to navigate, but I’m so happy to do it.
Practice Being Gentle with Yourself
Melissa: If I can offer you anything from a mom athlete perspective, it’s just to be gentle with yourself, and allow yourself to have those days and just be like, you know what? I can’t do it today because you are a human.
And humans are not meant to do everything. So I think, too, like we have big support systems that we lean on. I hope the teachers on this call and everybody on this call also have support systems. Because I think that a big part of how we are able to achieve success in our careers is with the help of others.
Championing Equality: Advocating for Women’s Rights in Athletics
Melissa: For the longest time, pregnancy was actually considered an injury. When you came back from being pregnant, you’d have to submit your injury card, but you can only have one injury card in your entire career.
I had to make a really hard decision to be okay with potentially, maybe never coming back again, because I had reached such a high level with so many great supporters and sponsors. I may never get that back again because I was taking a year off to have a baby.
The year before I had a baby, my coach’s wife actually had a baby as well, and she was handed an injury card, and she took it to the highest Court of Appeals that you can appeal, and she fought for our rights to have a pregnancy card put in place to support and protect women athletes here in Canada.
So you had a full year of protection, and then, once you found your way back to sport, you could build your body again, you still were able to take that injury card, and that really changed the face and the game when it came to women’s rights in sport, really.
You’re having a baby. You’re not injured. You’re not stepping away from sport forever. You’re literally having a baby, and you want to come back.
The support hasn’t always been there for us to choose to start families and put our career aside. But, over the years, the support has definitely changed, and I am grateful for that because it gives a space for women to start their families. It gives space for women to be able to think about family planning because a lot of it for a long time was considered career suicide.
Kelly: For my International Federation, they just put in this maternity leave policy 2 years ago. So I think I’m the second athlete that’s taking them up on the offer.
Seeing the maternity leave policies from different nations like living in Europe and hearing about the different maternity policies…we definitely have some catching up to do in the US.
Learning to Balance All the Balls Life Throws at You
Melissa left us with an activity anyone can do to help find who you are. Use this template to try it yourself or share with your students for an empowering activity of discovery!
- Draw 10 circles on a piece of paper.
- Place words in your circle that describe yourself, or is a role you play, or things you like.
- If you find you need more circles, you can add more.
- Next, draw one big circle around all of your circles.
- Note all the things you circled. This is the total picture of who you are.
A lot of times, when we’re in the thick of it, it can feel like one big thing is your whole identity. But, take a moment to look at the things you wrote down.
6. Now, draw a tennis racket in the bottom right hand corner.
7. Pretend the circles are tennis balls. You can’t possibly be expected to hit all of the balls at once. And that’s okay.
You are human, you can drop a ball, you can make a mistake. It’s about being kind to yourself and in the moment, choosing what ball is best to hit or use.
Empowering Reflections: Celebrating the Resilience of Female Athletes
While this town hall with Kelly and Melissa has come to an end, their inspiring messages remain. Their stories aren’t just about winning and success; they’re about overcoming obstacles, juggling roles, and finding the courage to be true to themselves.
This event highlighted the unstoppable spirit of two powerhouse female athletes, their grit, and determination. Join us next time for another inspiring conversation and a chance to connect with educators and athletes alike.
