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Catriona Le May Doan, O.C.

Olympic Champion Speed Skater | Olympic Broadcaster

Catriona Le May Doan
Never Give Up
Catriona
Catriona Le May Doan
Never Give Up

Catriona Le May Doan was the fastest woman on ice, and the first Canadian to defend a gold medal at any Olympic games. Having held the world record in the 500 metre speed skating event for 10 years, Le May Doan is a world champion athlete and an inspiration to every crowd she addresses. At ease speaking in both official languages, Le May Doan motivates audiences to dream bigger and reach farther than they ever thought possible.

Le May Doan’s accomplishments have earned her the Lou Marsh Award as Canada’s Athlete of the Year (2002) and she is a three-time recipient of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award for Canadian Female Athlete of the Year. She has received three Honorary Degrees from the University of Calgary, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina; was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Sports Hall of Fame; and was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Le May Doan joined Sport Calgary in 2016 as the Senior Director of Community Engagement and Marketing and later became the organization’s president and CEO, a position she held until 2025. During her tenure, she championed amateur sport in Calgary, building connections with more than 400 community sport organizations and advocating for 400,000 active amateur athletes.

Le May Doan is actively involved in community and charity associations including The Saskatoon Foundation Catriona Le May Doan Endowment for Children and Youth. She is a spokesperson for the SpinaBifida and Hydrocephalus Association of Canada, and involved with Special Olympics Canada. She was on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Organizing Committee Board and is a board member of the Canadian Sport Institute Calgary and member of the Canada Games Council. At the 2018 Olympic Winter Games, she was a Lead Athlete Mentor for Team Canada.

In the media, Le May Doan has covered five Olympic Games. She co-hosted CBC’s primetime show Countdown to Beijing; joined the CTV Olympic broadcast team for the Vancouver 2010 Games, which earned her a Gemini Award for Best Sports Analyst; and for the London 2012 Olympic Games, she was co-host of the Olympic Morning Show.

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

  • Personal Excellence: Achieving Your Full Potential

    Catriona will share her insights on achieving goals and her career highs and lows. You can achieve your full potential through passion, a winning attitude, commitment, and teamwork. Her years as a speed skater have taught Catriona how to deal not only with obstacles, but also with success.

    What does it take to be the best? What does it take to stay there?

    The journey of Catriona LeMay Doan will take you there and inspire you to reach farther than you thought possible.

  • Managing Expectations

    Changing situations means changing expectations – and mounting pressures to meet those expectations, both from within and from the outside world. Dealing with pressure and the fear of failure (and fear of success) is a reality for so many. Catriona will share with you, and help you learn from her own experience, as someone who dealt with changing expectations in the public eye.

  • Breaking New Ground

    What does it mean to be the first person to accomplish something? When no one has ever been in the same situation as you before? Quite simply, a lot of responsibility. As the only Canadian to defend a gold medal at any Olympic games, Catriona will tell you about the stresses, tell you how you can help pave the way for others to follow like a true leader.

  • Women and Careers

    Catriona Le May Doan can tell you about being an Olympic Champion Speed Skater and an Olympic broadcaster, about being tirelessly involved with her beloved community and those in it, about being a spokesperson for the SpinaBifida and Hydrocephalus Association of Canada, Co-Chair of the Special Olympics Canada Champions Network, and, most importantly, about being a woman and mother.

    Women are constantly pulled in many different directions. Find out how balance of work, life, and motherhood is possible while working towards own goals.

  • Leadership with a Purpose

    Catriona’s career has taken her from standing on top of the Olympic podium, to promoting community sport, being a broadcaster and an athlete mentor for the 2018 Olympic Games. In each of these leadership roles the purpose and definition of success is different. Being a great leader is helping others to achieve their full potential. Sometimes we lead from the front and pave the way for others to come after us. Sometimes we guide from the back – as mentors and support. Either way, being a leader is committing that we will try to go farther than we thought possible and along the way, showing others that success is a discovery that has many adventures! Catriona will bring her stories of success and the leadership lessons she has learned along the way in achieving excellence.

  • Corporate Hosting

    For all your corporate banquets and award evenings, have an Olympian/broadcaster who can engage with and entertain individuals, in both English and French.

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Related Content

More great information and resources.

Books

  • Going for Gold

    In Going For Gold, Catriona tells the story of her life with assistance from Calgary writer Ken...

    → Read More

Articles

Client reviews

  • Investors Group

    Catriona was awesome! Great presenter, great role model, great Canadian! She was very gracious in the time she committed and spent with our group and she received three standing ovations! They loved her.

  • Osum Oil Sands

    We recently hired Catriona Le May Doan, to speak at the Osum Science of Innovation and Sport Challenge, an event aimed at inspiring optimism and creativity in the young scientists of tomorrow. I feel compelled to write this letter to let you know how moved I was personally by her speech, and how impressed – no impressed is not the right word – totally blown away I was by her outstanding work in terms of customizing her speech to fit the event, accommodating the teachers and students throughout the day, and in general spreading joy and passion everywhere she went. Catriona is definitely the whole package. It is easy to see why she won two gold medals. She is a very, very rare calibre of person and all I can say is we got our money’s worth.

  • Canon Canada

    Thank you for helping with booking Catriona.  She was GREAT!! The group found her very inspiring and easy going it was a pleasure to have her at our meeting.

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