Melissa Bishop, Canada’s next track superstar

In January, Melissa Bishop was wondering if she would be able to race at all during the 2015 track season. She had a nagging sports hernia, which to a point she had been able to train through, but it soon worsened. For the elite 800m runner, even getting off the couch became excruciating. She couldn’t even laugh without pain.

Today she laughs freely over the phone from her cottage, only a few kilometres from Eganville, Ont., a small town near Ottawa where she grew up. She flew home from Beijing after breaking a 14-year-old national record and winning a silver medal at the IAAF Wold Championships in Athletics, catapulting her from an also-ran at the 2012 Olympics to one of the favourites to win gold going into next summer’s Games in Rio.

Back in January, the 27-year-old was faced with a terrifying decision. She was scheduled for surgery in hopes of fixing the hernia, but she decided against it after learning it would leave her prone to re-injury for the rest of her career and may never truly heal properly. “The recovery time was kind of an unknown,” Bishop says. “There were a few times when I remember talking to [my boyfriend] Osi and saying ‘I think maybe I should just call it a season and heal up completely because obviously my body is telling me that it needs rest.'”

Instead, she waited. Her patience and commitment to her career long-term paid off and the hernia eventually healed. The two-time national champion got back in shape, spending spring at altitude in Flagstaff, Ariz., a popular training destination for Canadian athletes.

From training in Flagstaff, she flew to Palo Alto, Calif., to race at one of the most competitive meets in North America at the Payton Jordan Invitational.

“Minutes before my race I contemplated putting on my spikes or doing more drills. I decided to do a few more drills and I sprained my ankle.” She laughs today, but at the time Bishop thought, for a second time, her season was finished. “This was May and I needed standard for Pan Ams and Worlds standard. The weeks went on and I still wasn’t able to race or run. It was hard to see the light.”

Bishop went into the Canadian track and field championships having run four races, none of them wins, but did manage to achieve her world championships standard in Portland, Ore. She was beaten at nationals by up-and-comer Fiona Benson, who would later accompany her on the Canadian team at world championships.

Bishop was named to the Pan American Games team in Toronto, an event which would end up being a warm-up for worlds. She ran a personal best in Europe leading up to the Games and, with the confidence of being back in shape, had her eyes on a medal.

“I had a lot of trust in the training that Dennis [Fairall, Bishop’s coach] and I had done,” she says of going into the Pan Am Games.

Dennis Fairall, the head coach of the University of Windsor Lancers, has coached Bishop for eight years, since she began university there. The school has a consistently high-achieving track and field program in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport system. In 2011, her senior year with the program, Bishop led the women’s team to a record 151.5 points, but while many of her teammates graduated and moved away, she stayed in Windsor to continue being coached by Fairall, largely without anyone of her own calibre to workout with. The following summer she qualified for the 2012 Olympics in London, her first major international team.

She’s quick to sing the praises of her coach.

“I bought in to his program a long time ago. Even through the CIS I saw a lot of success. […] It was a huge goal for both of us and for him to have an athlete who’s a world championship medallist and a national record-holder, I think that’s something he’s very excited about too and he can add to his very decorated resume.”

Bishop brought the Canadian crowd to their feet in front a packed stadium at York University in her Pan Am Games final. The crowd was there to see Andre De Grasse take on the 100m final, but she was Canada’s first gold on the day, another large confidence booster going into world championships.

In Beijing, Benson and Bishop both cruised through their heats to qualify for the semi-finals.

In the second semi-final, Benson failed to qualify for the final. Bishop ran, and won, the third semi-final, finishing in an huge personal best and Canadian record of 1:57.52. She had qualified for the finals with the second-fastest time of the year in the world, behind only Kenyan star Eunice Sum, whom she had just beat.

“I wanted to enjoy the Canadian record and all the emotions that come with it, but I think it was important for me in terms of recovery in order to get ready for the final and put it on the shelf for me to revisit all of those emotions after the final was over,” says Bishop.

In the final—her first at the senior world level—Bishop never looked out of place, kicking home to a silver medal, flanked by the best in the world, showing them she is also one of the best in the world.

I’ve been working on lot with a sport psychologist and she’s kept my on the straight and narrow and given me the confidence and belief that, yes, you belong here, you can win this, you do have a fast time, you do have the talent.”

“Four years ago I was so new to the international scene,” says Bishop when asked about the year ahead and upcoming Games, now only 11 months away. “I didn’t really have much experience in racing tactics or racing internationally or didn’t have a lot of experience in terms of recovery. I’ve learned so much from 2012, going into 2016. Those four years are an invaluable experience. […] I like to just work on me and not worry about what others are doing.”

Re-watching the world championships final, it seems as though on another, slightly different day, her silver may have been another colour. After nearly calling off the season in January, and less than one year out from the Olympics, it’s a good place to be.