By Mark Campbell

How do you make new friends when you move more than halfway across Canada? Mark de Jonge (BEng‘09) took up kayaking.

It was shortly after his family relocated to Halifax from Calgary in 1997 that de Jonge took up the sport, frequenting the Maskwa Aquatic Club on Kearney Lake. He made friends, but something else happened: he realized he had a passion for the sport, and that he was really good at it. Just two years later, de Jonge was earning his first national titles, and he has racked up an impressive 30 national gold medals since then.

De Jonge’s performance is particularly notable given the considerable time and effort he devoted to completing a bachelor’s in civil engineering while training. As you might expect, there were times when he found it difficult to balance his studies with the sport.

“The national team training program required me to train in Florida for one month every semester, in November and March. The team trained in Florida from mid-November to mid-December and from February to April, but because I was in school, I only trained in Florida in November and from the beginning of March until the end, and then I would return to Halifax in time for exams.”

Given the demands of training, you might wonder why he chose to pursue a degree in engineering. “Because I knew it would challenge me and because I knew the value of the degree,” replies de Jonge. “It was tough trying to accomplish two high-level goals, but it was worth the hard work. It felt good.”

Upon graduating, de Jonge found employment with Stantec, a significant achievement to be sure. Even so, there was another dream he wanted to fulfill: competing against the world’s best kayakers at the 2012 Olympic Games. Last year, he made the decision to go for it and began training full-time. The pressure was intense leading up to the Olympic trials, even more so after he broke a finger, preventing him from participating in the World Cup races last May.

“Once that happened, I had to do everything in my power to focus and put my nose to the grindstone. My favorite quote is: “It’s how you show up at the showdown that counts.” This has always resonated with me. All the preparation is great, but you have to be ready to go on the day.”

His hard work paid off: de Jonge earned a bronze medal in the K-1 (kayak singles) 200m at the London games with a time of 36.657. Proud of his accomplishments, and inspired by this experience, de Jonge has set his sights on Rio in 2016. “It’s been great. You feel like you’re on top of the world.”