Shalaya Valenzuela has not been resting on her laurels since winning an Olympic medal this past summer.
Valenzuela, a member of Tseshaht First Nation, was on the Canadian women’s rugby sevens squad that captured the silver medal at the Paris Olympics.
Though she took part in all team activities at the Games in France, Valenzuela was officially listed as an alternate with the club and didn’t see any game action. But she was still awarded a medal.
Following the Olympics, Valenzuela stayed in Europe, joining a couple of teammates and friends for some relaxation and sightseeing, with stops in Greece and Croatia.
Since then, however, it’s been go-go-go for Valenzuela.
For starters, she was on the University of British Columbia (UBC) team that captured the national women’s university (rugby 15s) crown in the fall.
And then she returned to the national sevens program, having already participated in a pair of HSBC SVNS tournaments in the United Arab Emirates and South Africa.
Despite a bit of a break following the Olympics, Valenzuela said she was keen to return to her sport.
“Even after that month I was so ready to start playing varsity,” she told HaShilthSa in a Dec. 7 interview from her hotel room in Cape Town, South Africa. “I think varsity was the perfect transition because there wasn’t as much stress and it was more for fun and there was still a good level of competition there where I could work on my skills and keep my conditioning. Now I’m ready to be back on the world stage and fighting every day.”
Valenzuela returned from South Africa to Canada on Dec. 9. Members of the Canadian squad have a few weeks off for the Christmas holidays and will reconvene and head to Australia on Jan. 12 for their next tour stop.
“I’ve been on the team now for three years,” Valenzuela said of the national sevens program. “Every year from September we start training and then our first tournament is December. And the season goes from December until the end of May.”
Unlike the last couple of years, the national sevens club is not centralizing in Victoria for the season. As a result, team members were able to do their own thing for a bit.
For Valenzuela, that meant returning to school. She joined the UBC squad while taking online Bachelor of Arts classes.
She was one of four members of the Olympic silver-medal winning side to suit up for the UBC club this season. The others were Piper Logan, Florence Symonds and Charity Williams.
Valenzuela said the obvious goal was to help UBC capture a national title this year.
“Going into it that was our goal,” she said. “My three other teammates and me – Piper, Florence and Charity – we went in with the mindset of this could be our year to win the nationals. We’ve never all played on the same university team together.
“Knowing that we were all together I think we felt like we could elevate the team and give them the shot of winning the nationals.”
Valenzuela added the UBC program has been rather strong in recent years as well.
“But they’ve had a tough outcome, usually in the first games of the nationals,” she said. “They hadn’t gotten past the first seeds, which is crazy because they had been so successful during the season but they got really hard matchups in the first games. So, when we made it past the first game this year, it was like let’s keep going, we can do this.”
UBC squared off against a familiar league foe, the University of Victoria Vikes, in the gold medal match. UBC prevailed 8-3.
Valenzuela will continue to take online classes for the remainder of the school year, while representing Canada abroad in tournaments.
“I think it’s good,” she said of the fact she is a student/athlete now. “It’s definitely a lot more to manage. I think this is my first time being in classes while going on tours with Canada so it’s definitely a bit of a mindset change. But I also feel like it’s my third year of being on Team Canada and doing these tours so I think it’s a perfect time to take more on my plate because I feel the excitement is still there but I don’t feel as distracted.
“I feel I’m more settled in to being on the road. So, being in classes again I think is just a nice balance away from rugby and keeps my mind busy in other ways so I’m not constantly thinking about rugby all the time.”
Valenzuela had previously spent two years, from 2017-19, at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, studying criminal justice.
Now that’s she’s taking Bachelor of Arts classes, Valenzuela is contemplating whether she should focus on taking more psychology classes. UBC does not offer a criminal justice program.
“I’m just kind of finding my footing and finding what I want to settle into now,” she said.
Following her Christmas holidays, Valenzuela will join her Canadian teammates and head to Perth. They’ll have a two-week training camp in Australia before their next tournament.
“I’m just excited to have that time there, especially with our new squad,” Valenzuela said, adding there are eight new players on the team this season.
Following the Paris Olympics, Canadian team players had the option of playing for pro squads in the U.K. or in other countries overseas if they were keen to do so.
“We are using it as a rebuilding year, so we brought in a lot of new players” Valenzuela added. “These first couple of tournaments is kind of just like getting connected and putting them to work.”
