MACLENNAN Rosannagh

General
SPORT AS A PROFESSION
She said that achieving good grades at school was her priority growing up, and that she did not consider sport to be a viable career path until later on. "It wasn't until after high school when I was 18 that I specialised in trampoline. Still, ever since I was a kid I wanted to go to the Olympics before I even really knew what that meant. Sport was such a big part of my life growing up, but it was always positioned as a hobby. Education was priority number one and I could only play sports if I got a certain grade. I never saw it as a viable career option until much later and only after watching and interacting with other athletes. One of my biggest goals is to show younger athletes, and especially young girls, that being a professional athlete is a career option. For Olympic athletes, it is a career and it should be valued the same way you would another career path. The lessons you learn through sport translate into other careers too, and in so many other aspects of your life." (thegistnews.ca, 06 Aug 2019)

OTHER ACTIVITIES
She has served as vice-chair of the Canadian Olympic Committee Athletes' Commission. She has also served on the advisory board of the children's non-profit organisation Right To Play. "I learned about Right To Play in high school as an organisation that combined things I was very passionate about. At my first international competition in South Africa I was 11 and staying at this beautiful, luxurious resort, but just outside the gates was a slum. At that age I didn't know how to reconcile that, but it stuck with me and triggered an interest in international development. Then, at Beijing in my first Olympics there was a Right To Play tent in the village, and I went there right away to learn about it and get involved." (thegistnews.ca, 06 Aug 2019; LinkedIn profile, 01 Jun 2018; cbc.ca, 23 Mar 2020)

FURTHER STUDIES
She has also studied for a master's degree in kinesiology and exercise science at the University of Toronto in Canada. (speakers.ca, 01 Jan 2017; LinkedIn profile, 01 Jun 2018)

At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, she became the first Canadian gymnast to win an Olympic gold medal in trampolining. After her gold at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, she became the first Canadian athlete to successfully defend an Olympic title at the summer Games, and the first Canadian woman to win two gold medals in an individual event at the summer Games. (SportsDeskOnline, 14 Oct 2018; olympic.ca, 21 Aug 2016; cbc.ca, 18 Dec 2014; olympic.ca, 01 Dec 2014)