As part of International Women’s Rights Day, the PSAC-Quebec Women’s Committee is proud to invite you to a conference by female weightlifter Kristel Ngarlem. During this luncheon, Kristel will talk about the place of women in sports more reserved to men, resilience and all the challenges and constraints she had to overcome in her life to get to the Olympics and perseverance in her sport and in life in general.
Our guest will be accompanied by Fedoua Hritel and Andréanne Samson, respectively Director and Alternate Director for the PSAC-Québec Women’s Committee.
Please note that the meeting will be held in French only. The event is open to all PSAC members.
Date and time: Tuesday, March 8, at 12:00 pm ET
Location: Zoom
Registration: https://psac-afpc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_xd-gTmwOTDqDDm9yucg3AA
The conference will be followed by a 15-minute question period.
Come and join us in large numbers!
Biography
Kristel Ngarlem is a three-time senior Canadian champion, junior world junior champion and triple medalist at the world weightlifting championships. More recently, she finished 8th at the last Olympic Games Tokyo 2021.
Kristel’s jourmey is very atypical. Unlike young athletes inspired by Olympians, Kristel was introduced to her sport by watching the movie “The Mysterious Miss C”, the popular Quebec film in which a young weightlifter is a key character. To the great despair of her mother, she gives up figure skating and becomes a 10-year-old weightlifter. At 13, she participated in her first Senior National Championships.
In the summer of 2014, the 19-year-old Kristel offered an excellent performance at the World Junior Championships in Kazan, Russia, where she broke her personal best at the 115 kg. At the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, she finished 5th in the combine. A year later, at the World Junior Championships in Wroclaw, Poland, Kristel won two bronze medals, a feat that very few Canadians have achieved.
In the summer of 2016, Kristel finished her junior career with the title of vice-champion of the world.
In addition to training, Kristel completed her BAC in 2021 at the University of Montreal in criminology and victimology.
Kristel wants to be a model for young girls and hopes to motivate them to play a sport they love, no matter what others think. She loves to challenge stereotypes and likes to prove that weightlifting can be a women’s sport!
Watch her documentary with RDS (in French), Ngarlem explains the adjustments she made to cope with her disease.