'Dead last. Then nine months later, standing on a podium' - Olympian Karina Leblanc on the value of tough love

Five years ago, Karina Leblanc stood on the podium with her teammates at the Olympic Games in London and watched the Canadian flag rise. With a bronze medal around her neck, Karina thought about her parents, the sacrifices they made, her teammates and the incredible journey they had taken together.

Karina's soccer career is studded with successes: two Olympic Games, four FIFA Women's World Cups and three Pan Am Games. Karina has devoted her life to soccer and is now a UNICEF Canada ambassador, using sport as a way to reach out and help improve the lives of young girls in the developing world.

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Karina's own life was transformed through sport, specifically soccer. She arrived in Canada from Dominica at the age of eight, feeling out of place, isolated and lonely. But an invitation to try out for the track team, and later the soccer team, changed her life. Soccer made everything possible.

However Karina's success in thge sport was not always a guarantee. As a young player, at the top of her game, it all came to a screeching halt when she was cut from the top team in her age group. For Karina, it was utter devastation. Soccer was life. And now there was no soccer.

Karina remembers sobbing in the car on the way home from that fateful tryout, her mother trying her best to comfort her daughter. But it was Karina's father, stoic and matter-of-fact, who turned to her and said, "What are you going to do about it?" He refused to let Karina wallow in her sadness. He forced her to think about how she could help herself. And help herself she did. She returned from that devastation stronger than ever, eventually making the national team, and eventually, the Olympic team.

Today, Karina considers that early failure a turning point in her life. It taught her key lessons about perseverance and self-reliance, lessons that eventually got her to that podium with an Olympic medal around her neck.

"It wasn't actually the winning of the medal — it was the process and the journey, and that I was on the podium with some of my best friends. And that we'd been through everything together."

"Dead last in 2011, and then nine months later, standing on the podium."

About the producer

Naheed Mustafa is an award-winning producer, writer, and broadcaster. She began her career as a freelance reporter when she left Canada and moved to Pakistan where she worked for both local English language media and newspapers back home. After coming back to Canada, Naheed added broadcasting to her list of media platforms and became a regular documentary contributor at CBC Radio. Alongside documentary, Naheed has also worked as a producer for a variety of news and current affairs programs at CBC Radio including Dispatches, As It Happens, The Current, and Ideas. She will spend the upcoming year as a William Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto as the CBC/Radio-Canada fellow.