Canadian speedskater Brooklyn McDougall poses with her art on display as part of the Olympian Art exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo during the Olympic Games in Paris on July 25.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
A Winter Olympian has made her mark in Paris with paint and brush.
Canadian speed skater Brooklyn McDougall’s portraits of the first women to win Olympic gold medals at the Paris Games of 1900 were unveiled Thursday in the same host city of the 2024 edition and in front of an audience that included International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
McDougall, who raced for Canada in Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics, was among seven international athletes selected to produce art projects for the Paris 2024 arts and culture exhibit under the IOC’s Olympian Artists program.
“I wanted to showcase the first three female Olympic champions to show where we started and now where we are today,” the 25-year-old Calgarian said Thursday at Club 24 Palais de Tokyo. “It’s amazing to be part of the Olympic movement in a very different way aside from my sport.”
Her three portraits entitled “The Trailblazers” depict American golfer Margaret Abbott, British tennis player Charlotte Cooper and Swiss sailor Helene de Pourtales, who McDougall feels didn’t receive the fanfare they deserved 124 years ago.
The 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris were the first to allow female competitors in five sports of golf, tennis, sailing, equestrian and croquet.
The 2024 Paris Olympics will be the first to achieve gender parity among athletes.
Margaret Abbott died without knowing she was an Olympic gold medalist. The 1900 Games were held at the same time as the World’s Fair in Paris, and took a back seat in importance to the latter. The 22-year-old American thought she’d simply won a women’s golf competition at the World’s Fair.
University of Florida professor Dr. Paula Welch, who McDougall contacted to research Abbott’s portrait, made the discovery of the golfer’s Olympic victory decades later. Through Welch, McDougall has made contact with Abbott’s granddaughters.
“All three women really inspired me,” McDougall said. “One of the women, Margaret Abbott, she really holds a special place in my heart. She actually lived and died not knowing she was Olympic champion. She was never told she was participating in the Olympics and her victory was never celebrated at the time of her accomplishments.
“I wanted to make sure that her story was not forgotten and to really amplify the voices of those women who were really silenced at that time, to make sure that we remember them for what they did.”
She painted the portraits in oil with an acrylic base on stretched canvas. The portraits’ headlines “The Unknowing Champion,” “The First One” and “The Golden Raquet” were constructed of modelling paste.
“I researched a lot of photos of them. There’s not many of them. They’re all black and white. They’re all very grainy photos,” McDougall explained. “I took certain aspects of them, the hairstyles they wore at the time. However, I wanted to make it a little more modern and make them look confident and trail-blazing women.”
McDougall ranked 22nd in the women’s 500 metres in her Olympic debut in Beijing. She won a world championship in women’s team sprint with Ivanie Blondin and Carolina Hiller in 2023.
A week before she left for Japan to start her fall World Cup season in October, she learned her concept had been accepted by the IOC.
“I started them as soon as I found out,” she said. “It’s a balancing act with speed skating because I was training and I was travelling for World Cups. I worked evenings whenever I could when I wasn’t travelling or training.”
McDougall wants to race for Canada in the next Olympic Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy.
“My sights are set on Italy in 2026,” she said.