She may be little, but Olympic style weight lifter Josee Gallant of Restigouche, N.B. has proven that she has the drive and the courage of a champion.
The 24-year-old won a national title at the Canadian Senior Weightlifting Championships in Quebec last month while her mother was battling terminal liver cancer.
Gallant said shortly after she smashed 158 pounds and clean and jerked 207 — two types of Olympic-style weight lifting — to take home the title on May 21 in La Prarie, Que., she spoke to her mother Linda Gallant, who was back home.
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“I did it mom I really did it,” Gallant told her mother.
It would be their last words.
Gallant said to her mother fell into a coma only two hours later, “It is like she waited for me.”
“It’s like a storybook really, you can’t make that up,” said Gallant’s coach, Adam Westfield.
At 5-foot-2, the 24 year old Gallant weighs in at 125 pounds and has been a body builder for years. Last fall, Westfield said he encouraged her to ramp up her workouts and start training to compete in Olympic-style weight lifting.
Gallant said she agreed hoping that the extra training would help her cope with her mother’s illness.
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“She was diagnosed with cancer and weight lifting was a great way for me to get through it honestly,” Gallant said. “It would take the stress away and it definitely helped me a lot.”
Gallant said after moving from Halifax to Restigouche to care for her mother, she would hit the gym for three hours a day.
At first, she said her mother was a little apprehensive about her weight training.
“She always was against it, like the bodybuilding aspect. But then when I got into weight lifting she could see how happy it made me, so I guess she got around it and started to be a big supporter,” Gallant said.
After only four months in training, she won at the provincial weight lifting championships in February and that is when her coach knew she had what it took to compete at the nationals.
But he worried that it be too much for her to handle, while she continued to care for her mother.
“She would always reassure me that no, this is the one time in her day where she can go and be on her own and it kinda be like her therapy,” Westfield said.
While her mother’s health was failing, Linda encouraged her daughter to push on. Gallant made it all the way to the Canadian Senior National Championships and won.
She said her first thought, of course, was her mom who was back home fighting cancer.
“I got to talk to her after so that was one of the best moments,” she said.
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After her mom fell into a coma, she passed away two days later with her daughter by her side.
Gallant said it is her mom who is the true champion
“She let me live my dream and then moved on.”
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