Shallon Olsen

Biography

At the 2018 World Championships, Shallon Olsen captured silver in the vault for Canada’s best-ever result in the event. She matched teammate Ana Padurariu’s silver on beam for the country’s top finish by a woman in an individual apparatus. She also contributed to Canada’s best-ever fourth-place finish in the team event. Earlier in the year, Olsen had won three medals at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, gold in team and vault as well as bronze on floor. 

Olsen was the youngest member of Team Canada when she made her Olympic debut at Rio 2016 in her first year of senior eligibility. She achieved a career highlight by qualifying for the eight-woman vault final, a feat she repeated in her world championship debut in 2017 in Montreal. She qualified for her third straight vault final at the world championships in 2019 when she just missed the podium, finishing fourth. It was also at those worlds that she helped Canada qualify in the team event for Tokyo 2020. Earlier in 2019, Olsen helped Canada win team silver and earned an individual bronze in vault at the Pan Am Games in Lima. In her second Olympic appearance at Tokyo 2020, Olsen again qualified for the vault final and finished seventh. 

Olsen had a stellar junior career. In 2013 she won three gold medals at the junior national championships, taking the all-around, vault and floor exercise titles. She followed that up in 2014 by claiming junior national medals on all four apparatus (gold on vault, silver on uneven bars and beam, bronze on floor exercise) to go with an all-around silver. Olsen also enjoyed some standout international performances in 2014. At the Pacific Rim Championships she won silver in team and floor exercise to go with a bronze on vault. Olsen competed as a senior at the 2015 Canadian Championships where she finished sixth in the all-around but impressively won gold on vault. She would go on to successfully defend her national vault title every year from 2016 to 2019.

A Little More About Shallon

Getting into the Sport: Started in gymnastics at age 3 and began competing at age 7 against girls two years older after she was fast-tracked due to her ability to execute high level skills at a young age… Even before she got started, she would do cartwheels and somersaults on the grass field when attending her older brother’s baseball games… Has wanted to compete on the world stage since watching the Nastia Liukin-Shawn Johnson showdown at Beijing 2008… Grew seven inches from age 13 to 15, forcing her to gain more strength and adjust her skills… Outside Interests: Enjoys reading, doing word searches, baking, biking, going to the movies… Majoring in Communications at the University of Alabama… Odds and Ends: Nicknames: Shally, Doll Face… Admires the long lines of American Olympic champion Nastia Liukin and the elegance of Romania’s multi-world medallist Larisa Iordache, which she would like to emulate… Favourite motto: “Don’t tell people you dreams, show them”