Camille Martens: Surviving Sport, Red Flags & Becoming the Sports Parent Your Child Needs
Episode notes
Camille Martens survived fear-based coaching and abuse to become a Canadian champion, Commonwealth Games champion and Olympian in rhythmic gymnastics. But she always knew there was a better way, so she now focuses on helping parents build healthy, loving sport environments.
Camille has spent four decades in sport as an athlete, coach and parent. She competed at the World Championships and Olympics, founded the Okanagan Rhythmic Gymnastics Club, and became president of Gymnastics BC, a master coach developer, and National Team Coaches Chair for 16 years. She's also the author of MVP in the Stands: Becoming the Parent Your Child Needs in Sport.
In this powerful episode, Camille talks to Scott Rintoul about moving away from home at 13, training in Russia and Bulgaria under coaches who normalized fear, weigh-ins and abuse, and competing at the Olympics on a torn labrum. She shares the toll it took on her body and relationships, why she stayed silent to protect her access, and how she tried, and sometimes failed, to build something different as a coach and parent.
You'll learn:
- The difference between "Red flags" vs. healthy "growth edges"
- Why emotional regulation is the parent's real job
- How intention and impact can be worlds apart
- Tools: keyword check-ins, a fridge scratchpad, the "buddy system"
- How to build a strong coach-parent-athlete relationship
Chapters:
0:00 Opening
1:34 Introducing Camille Martens
3:24 Early path into sport
4:54 Discovering rhythmic gymnastics
7:15 Moving to Vancouver to train
9:03 Making the national team at 13
11:01 Protecting an unhealthy environment
12:01 Fear-based coaching in Eastern Europe
13:48 The physical and emotional cost
16:14 A horrific Olympic Games
17:26 Starting a club to do it differently
18:41 Training in Russia and Bulgaria
20:34 Limited contact with her parents
22:32 Training alongside teammates in silence
23:14 The teddy bear story
24:11 Why she stayed
25:18 How the sport has changed
27:12 What a healthy environment looks like
28:35 "Red flags" vs "growth edges"
29:04 The coach-athlete-parent triangle
30:12 Spotting red flags as a parent
33:10 Founding her own club
34:06 Repeating ingrained patterns
37:11 A hard conversation with her daughter
38:02 Intention vs. impact
39:45 How her coaching evolved
41:19 Why she wrote MVP in the Stands
46:07 Parents: sport's biggest stakeholders
47:33 Emotional regulation as the real job
50:55 Buddy system and keyword check-ins
53:14 The fridge scratchpad
53:55 Coach-parent talks done right
56:29 Why she never coached her own kids
58:47 Early specialization in gymnastics
1:01:23 Gymnastics in Canada today
1:03:19 Her relationship with the sport now
1:05:15 The number one issue in youth sports
1:07:07 The compliments that mean the most
Resources: