After the Dream, Then What?

Not long after leaving Beijing’s Olympic Village in 2022, speedskater Brooklyn McDougall, BSc’21, found herself back home, lying in bed, watching an event she had just been part of from the other side of the world. The shift was immediate and disorienting. One moment, she was fully inside the most intense, structured environment of her life, competing the 500m event and the next she was back in a quiet room, thousands of kilometres away, trying to process how quickly it had all ended.

“I remember flying home and it was such a long travel day, and then all of a sudden I was back in my own bed watching [teammate] Laurent (Dubreuil) skate the men’s 1,000 metre,” she says. “I was just there, and now I’m on the other side of the world. It was a really weird feeling, just being pulled out of that environment and put back into regular life.”

It’s a part of the Olympic experience most people never see. The build-up is well documented. The performances are broadcast to the world. But what happens after tends to unfold more quietly, often without the same level of understanding or attention. For athletes, the transition from that environment back into everyday life can feel abrupt, even if it is expected.

It’s a moment that feels uniquely Olympic, but the emotional shift is one many people recognize after a defining chapter comes to an end.

The Olympic Blues

At the Games, everything is heightened. Every day is scheduled. Every detail matters. There is a singular focus that defines how time is spent and how energy is directed. When that disappears, it leaves behind more than just physical fatigue. It creates space, and not always the kind that feels comfortable right away.

For McDougall, that period after Beijing was difficult to make sense of in real time. There was pride in having reached the Olympics and in everything it had taken to get there, but it existed alongside a quieter, more complicated emotional response that she would only fully understand with time.

“It was post-Olympic depression for sure, and I don’t think I really understood it right away,” she says. “It took me a while to kind of work through that and figure out what I was feeling.”

Part of that process included working with a psychologist outside the sports world, something McDougall says became an important source of perspective and grounding during the transition.

“Sometimes an outside perspective is exactly what you need to stay grounded,” she says. “It was one of the best decisions I made throughout my career.”

Without training or school to anchor her, she found herself navigating a period where the next step was not immediately clear. She had already completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary, which meant returning home didn’t come with a built-in transition. Instead, there was time, and with that time came questions she hadn’t needed to answer before.

“You come home and you’re like, okay … what’s my plan now?” McDougall says. “I knew I wanted to keep skating, but I’ve always been someone who needs other things going on too. I can’t just have skating in my life.”

That realization stayed with her in the years that followed. By the time she arrived at her second Olympics in Milano Cortina 2026, she carried a much clearer understanding of how she responds to both the intensity of competition and the emotional drop that can follow it. She had developed ways to manage those moments and had a stronger sense of perspective around what the experience meant to her.

Grounded By Family

Part of that shift came from something simple but significant. In Beijing, COVID-19 pandemic restrictions meant competing without her family and friends present. In Milan, they were there. Having that support in the stands changed the way the experience felt from the inside.

“In Beijing, I didn’t realize how much not having my family there affected me,” McDougall says. “Then, in Milan, having them there was just night and day. It brought me back down to earth a little bit and reminded me that, no matter what happens, my family is proud of me. My worth isn’t dependent on how I do at the Olympics.”

That perspective didn’t remove the pressure, but it shifted how she carried it. The moment felt less like something to prove and more like something to experience fully.

“I remember standing on the start line and just feeling really grateful,” McDougall says. “Like, I get to be here, I get to do this, and I’m doing it because I love it, not because I feel like I have to.”

Even with that awareness, the transition home still required adjustment. The difference was that this time it felt more familiar. She recognized the pattern and had a better sense of how to move through it without getting stuck in it.

“I knew that feeling was probably coming again,” McDougall says. “And it did, but it wasn’t as intense. I think I just had more tools this time and knew what I needed to do to work through it.”

Small routines and moments of connection also became important grounding points during those years on the national team. McDougall and fellow Olympian Isabelle Weidemann even started a small “coffee club” while travelling, inviting teammates into their room for fresh ground, pour-over coffee between training and competition.

“It was just nice to have something normal,” McDougall says. “Everything else is so structured and performance-focused, so having that little routine and having people come by, it kind of broke things up.”

Working Through it in Art

Between those two Olympic cycles, McDougall had already begun building something that extended beyond speed skating. After Beijing, she realized that focusing exclusively on sport, while necessary in certain moments, wasn’t something she could sustain long term.

That search for balance led her to art, which gradually became a central part of how she processes both her experiences in sport and the transitions around it. What began as a personal outlet gradually evolved into something more substantial. At the Paris Summer Olympics, McDougall’s work was featured as part of the Olympian Artist program, an experience that reinforced how deeply art had become connected to her identity outside of speedskating.

“I started to really dive into my art after Beijing because I felt like I was going through a lot of changes,” she says. “It gave me a way to work through those changes and figure out what I’m passionate about and what I want my life to look like beyond sport.”

Where speedskating demands precision and repetition, art offers something more open-ended. It allows space for expression, experimentation and uncertainty, and it has challenged some of the instincts that helped her succeed in sport.

“In skating, you’re always chasing perfection, and that can get you really far,” McDougall says. “But, with art, if you’re constantly thinking this isn’t good enough, it just doesn’t work. You have to let go a little bit and just enjoy the process.”

That shift has shaped how she approaches not just her creative work, but the broader transition out of elite sport. It has also helped her make sense of how similar this moment is to other transitions people experience, even outside of athletics. She recently launched an online shop featuring original works and prints as she continues building that side of her creative practice.

After the Finish Line

A four-year Olympic cycle builds toward a single moment in much the same way a university degree builds toward graduation. Both require sustained focus and commitment, and both end with a sense of completion that can be difficult to fully absorb before attention shifts forward.

Looking back, McDougall sees how easy it is to move too quickly through those moments without taking time to acknowledge what they meant.

“When you graduate, it’s such a huge accomplishment, but you move on so quickly,” she says. “You start work, you go to the next thing, and you don’t always sit in it. I think it’s really important to take a second and realize what you’ve done, because you’ll look back and wish you had enjoyed that moment more.”

Even now, McDougall can still clearly picture her final moment on Olympic ice.

“It was my Olympic race, and I remember being overwhelmed with gratitude,” she says. “I had a sense it would be my last race, but in that moment, I didn’t feel sadness. I felt so much pride in the journey that brought me there.”

That awareness carried into the decision that followed her second Olympics. Rather than continuing toward another cycle, McDougall chose to step away from speedskating and retire on her own terms in an announcement in early May, closing that chapter in a way that felt intentional.

“I wanted to end on a high in Milan, and it felt like the right time,” says the 12-year speedskating veteran. “It’s a privilege to be able to decide when you’re done, because not every athlete gets that opportunity.”

That decision opens the door to a different kind of uncertainty, one that is less structured, but also more expansive. Without the rhythm of training cycles and competition schedules, there is more space to explore what comes next without needing to have everything defined right away.

What’s Next?

For now, that includes a summer focused on her art and a return to the University of Calgary in the fall, where McDougall will begin the Master of Management (MGMT) program at the Haskayne School of Business. 

Beyond that, she is allowing things to unfold more naturally, approaching this next phase with a mindset that reflects both her experience in sport and what she has learned through her creative work.

“I honestly don’t really know what’s next, and I think I’m okay with that right now,” she says. “I’m just trying to let go of that need to control everything and just embrace whatever this next chapter looks like.”

For someone whose career has been built on precision and planning, that shift might seem like a significant change. But in many ways, it reflects a deeper understanding of growth, one that isn’t tied to a single outcome or timeline, but to the ability to keep making strides forward, even when the path isn’t fully clear.

“I am definitely in the process of redefining myself,” she says. “I think it will take some time to understand who I am outside of sport, but I have remained true to my values through every decision, both inside and outside of sport.”

And in that sense, what comes next doesn’t feel like an ending at all, just the start of something different.