Former Olympian and Woodstonian Catherine Bond-Mills Talks Olympics With Heart FM

Friday, 23 July 2021 10:51

One of the greatest athletes to come out of Woodstock and a two time Olympic athlete Catherine Bond-Mills shared her experience at the games and breaks down what she is looking forward to in Tokyo.

WOODSTOCK - The Olympics start today with the opening ceremonies.

Heart FM recently caught up with Catherine Bond-Mills, a former Olympic athlete from Woodstock. Bond-Mills currently lives in London and works as a pharmacist but she still has strong ties to the Friendly City and Woodstock will always be her home town.

Bond-Mills is one of the greatest athletes to come out of Woodstock and was a dominate track and field athlete. Her resume is extremely impressive.

In 1990, she was named the Athlete of the year with the University of Toronto. She represented Canada at two Olympics in the Heptathlon at the 92 games in Barcelona Spain and again at the 1996 games in Atlanta Georgia. She finished 21st and 25th at those competitions.

Bond-Mills also competed at three Commonwealth Games, winning a bronze medal and at four World Championships.

She is a member of the U of T, Woodstock and London Sports Hall of Fame.

Bond-Mills recently caught up with Heart FM to talk about her Olympic experience. She remembers the bombing at the Atlanta games quite well.

"That was the morning of my first day of the Heptathlon and I remember my team manager knocking at the door, very early around 4 am to do a head count to make sure everyone was ok, so it was not without it's dramatic moments."

The athletes at these games will have a much different experience at the Olympic Village than Bond-Mills did. She still remembers getting to see some of her idols in person.

"Here are these women that I had watched on TV over the years, just performing at a high level and it was really cool to rub shoulders with athletes from across the spectrum, whether it is a team sport, really exciting to be a part of a team with all of these athletes that I followed on TV over the years and then getting to share an experience with them."

You can listen to the complete interview below where she also discusses the following:

- Her first Olympic experience in Barcelona Spain.

- The 96 Olympics, the bombing and her experience.

- What it was like to live in the athletes village.

- How different the experience will be for the athletes at the Tokyo games.

- The events she is most looking forward to and where she thinks Canadians might find some medals.