Paris 2024 beach volleyball: Olympic finalists find strength in immigrant roots to make history for Canada
Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes have many things in common: year of birth, athletic family backgrounds, alma maters and college majors, a passion for beach volleyball, and a home base in Toronto, Canada.
Those are their similarities on the surface. There are many more behind closed doors: English-language classes, family meals with non-traditional cuisines, a desire to fit in. In short, the life of an immigrant.
Wilkerson emigrated from Switzerland at age 7 with her family. Humana-Paredes is a first-generation Canadian raised by parents who emigrated from Chile.
On Thursday, 8 August, Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes did something for Canada no athletes had done before. By winning their semi-final at the Olympic Games Paris 2024, they guaranteed their adopted country its first ever Olympic medal in women’s beach volleyball.
"I think one of the biggest Canadian characteristics is grit, and we show that every chance that we can get," Wilkerson told Olympics.com.
"It's an honour for us to represent those stories. It means so much for us to have every single person in Canada feel like they have a space in this sport."
Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes: A journey in a foreign landscape
Wilkerson was born in Switzerland on 1 July, also known in her adopted homeland as Canada Day. Her mother was a Swiss native who represented the nation in athletics while her father was a pro basketball player from the United States playing in Switzerland at the time.
When Wilkerson moved to Canada at age 7, she did not speak English and also had to adapt to the customs in her new country.
Unlike her beach volleyball partner, Humana-Paredes was born in Canada and spoke English, but she sometimes had to help her Spanish-speaking parents with more complex expressions. Her father, Hernan Humana, was a member of the Chilean indoor volleyball team before their move.
Both Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes describe their immigrant parents as role models for the resilience they showed in moving to a new country and learning a new language.
This similar background is one of the things that helped the two athletes develop the strong bond that, ultimately, steeled them for challenges like the Thursday's victory in three sets over Switzerland.
"There are some similarities in our stories, and I think that's what makes us really special is we have an appreciation for each other, for our history, for our background." Humana-Paredes said. "We know the tough things we've been through. There was a moment, there, when we looked at each other and we said, 'I'm doing this for you.' I think we do a lot for each other because we've been through this journey. We know the ups and downs life has taken us over the last 30 years of our lives."
Wilkerson weighed in: "The relatability and the understanding of how beautiful and deep our multicultural backgrounds are, our language, food, culture, and jokes and family and ESL, all of that stuff is something we can really bond over."
The Canadian duo: From university teams to the Olympics
When it comes to cultural backgrounds, Wilkerson and Humana-Parades joke that they are polar opposites.
Wilkerson has a Swiss chill about her. Humana-Paredes has a fiery, talkative nature that reflects her Chilean roots. Once on the court, however, the two athletes look perfectly in sync in their Canadian uniforms, a red maple leaf stitched on the front. Wilkerson still remembers the first time she put it on.
"It was then I fell in love with beach volleyball, and I stuck in it forever because it was such an honour to represent a country like Canada and to be able to say that I have a home somewhere," Wilkerson said.
Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes met while studying for their communications degrees at York University in Toronto and playing volleyball together. They were the only rookies on the team in that 2010-11 season and remained in the lineup for four years.
After graduating from university, the two went their separate ways. Humana-Paredes partnered with Sarah Pavan and Wilkerson with Heather Bansley on separate Canadian teams at Tokyo 2020.
Both pairs advanced to the quarter-finals, sharing the honours of producing the best-ever result to that point in time for Canada at an Olympic Games. Curiously, had Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes managed to move on to the semi-finals, they would have faced each other.
With their first Olympic Games behind them, the York University teammates decided to form a partnership in October 2022. They made their debut on the Beach Pro Tour four months later. Another few months after that, in July, they won their first Elite 16 gold medal in Montreal.
More success followed. By the time the native country of her parents hosted the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, Humana-Paredes had earned the honour to carry the Canadian flag at the Opening Ceremony together with her teammate.
They went on to take a silver medal in that competition.
Melissa Humana-Paredes (right) and Brandie Wilkerson have guaranteed Canada its first ever Olympic medal in women's beach volleyball by advancing to the final at Paris 2024.
Roaring into the Olympic final for a Canadian first
Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes were jubilant as they jumped in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower on Thursday evening, a Canadian flag outstretched above their heads.
They had just completed a gruelling three-set match, coming back from the brink to get the upper hand over Swiss duo Tanja Hueberli and Nina Brunner.
Could watching their parents start a life in a new country have helped them in showing the same resilence on the beach volleyball court?
"I know it did," Wilkerson said. "For me personally, I feel like I had the strength and the power and the wisdom from generations of very strong people, making tough decisions and making tough times beautiful and turning anything that they can into an opportunity. That was another chance for me to do that on the beach volleyball court."
The last and only time a Canadian beach volleyball pair stood on the podium at an Olympic Games was when the sport made its Olympic debut at Atlanta 1996. That pair, John Child and Mark Heese, won bronze. Their coach was Humana-Paredes’ father.
On Friday, Hernan Humana could get credit for raising two Olympic medal pairs as his daughter and Wilkerson face off against Brazil's Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa for gold.
"It feels incredible," Humana-Paredes said of advancing to the final. "It's what we wanted. It's what we said we were going to do when we got together. It's what we've done for the last two years together, putting in the work. And to say that we have now made history and no one can take it away from us, it's something we'll have forever together.”