Jacqueline Simoneau

Biography

Jacqueline Simoneau came out of a two-year retirement to qualify for her third Olympic Games. 

After rejoining the national team in the fall of 2023, Simoneau competed at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships where she helped Canada qualify a full team as well as the duet for Paris 2024. She also made some history on her own. Simoneau won gold in the solo free routine, becoming Canada’s first world champion in artistic swimming in 33 years. That followed her silver in the solo technical, which had been Canada’s first world championship medal in artistic swimming since 2011. 

After debuting with Audrey Lamothe in the duet at the 2024 World Aquatics Championships, they went on to win two bronze medals at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup that served as the Olympic test event of the newly built Aquatics Centre in Paris. They followed up with silver medals in the duet technical and duet free at the next World Cup stop at home in Markham, Ontario. 

Simoneau is a four-time gold medallist at the Pan American Games. At Toronto 2015, she stood atop the podium in the team and duet competitions (with partner Karine Thomas) not long after recovering from a bleeding stomach ulcer that had put her in hospital. It was a serious side effect of an anti-inflammatory medication she had taken for minor tendinitis in her right foot. By winning the duet gold, Simoneau and Thomas qualified for Rio 2016 where they finished seventh in Simoneau’s Olympic debut. 

At the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, Simoneau won the duet competition again, this time with partner Claudia Holzner. They were also part of the team gold medal, qualifying Canada in both events for Tokyo 2020. In her second Olympic appearance, Simoneau finished fifth in the duet event with Holzner before being part of Canada’s sixth-place finish in the team event. 

Simoneau first joined the national team in 2012 when she was still a junior competitor. That year she won a bronze medal in the solo event at the World Junior Artistic Swimming Championships. Simoneau improved to the silver medal position at the 2014 World Juniors. She made her World Aquatics Championships debut in 2013, competing in the team events, after which she also began competing in the duet event. As a soloist, Simoneau finished fifth in the technical event and sixth in the free event at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships. In the duet events, Simoneau and Holzner were seventh in both technical and free. At the 2019 World Aquatics Championships, Simoneau placed fifth in both solo events. She and Holzner were sixth and seventh in the duet events while the Canadian team finished seventh in both the technical and free events.

A Little More About Jacqueline 

Getting into the Sport: Started artistic swimming at age 9… At one point did all four water sports; narrowed it to artistic swimming and diving and then chose to focus on artistic swimming… Competed at her first international event at age 11 and made her first junior national team (for ages 16-18) at age 12… Outside Interests: Took a two-year hiatus from artistic swimming after Tokyo 2020 to begin pursuit of a degree in podiatric medicine at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)… IOC Believe in Sport Ambassador… COC Athletes’ Commission Member… Enjoys listening to podcasts, kayaking…Spokesperson for Coeliaque Quebec because she has celiac disease and wants to give back… Odds and Ends: Sports idols include Kyle Shewfelt (her mentor since 2013) and Natalia Ischenko (three-time Olympic champion)… Always eats a little piece of chocolate before a performance… Collects snow globes from every country she visits and now has more than 40… Favourite motto: Mens sana in corpore sano (Latin for “a sound mind in a sound body”)… Received the Olympians Supporting Olympians bursary from the Canadian Olympic Foundation in 2021…