Myriam Glez has always marched — or, more accurately, swum — to the beat of her own drum.

Born into a family of skiers in Lyon, France, Glez pursued synchronized swimming, reaching the Olympics in 2000. Then, after a successful career in the hospitality industry, she came back to sports, working first in synchronized swimming and then launching Athletes Soul, a nonprofit that helps athletes with their transition to a post-athletic career. And now, Glez has joined the #ClimateComeback by becoming an EcoAthletes Champion.

EcoAthletes CEO and founder Lew Blaustein looks forward to working with the trailblazing Glez.

“Myriam is one of those rare people who sees ‘two moves ahead’ and that will be an incredibly valuable trait for the EcoAthletes Champions,” Blaustein enthused. “The #ClimateComeback just accelerated a bit with her addition to the Champions roster.”

Glez’ story begins in the skiing hub of the French Alps. While most of her family’s sporting history was on the slopes, the young Myriam found herself attracted to a very different sport.

“I first saw synchro on TV when I was five and I knew then and there that that’s what I wanted to do,” she asserted. “My mom said, ‘we don’t know anything about it,” but I had none of it. So, I started at six and loved it immediately. I’d imitate the older girls and stay after practice to do more.”

Synchro — now known as Artistic — swimming turned out to be a perfect fit for Glez’ unique skill set and passions: In addition to being a strong swimmer (“I loved speed swimming training, the feeling of the water, the cardio”) and an avid gymnast (“The diverse acrobatics and its cerebral nature spoke to me”), she also had the ability — necessary to succeed in synchro — to hold her breath for more than half of a four-minute routine.

This allowed her to progress quickly. Glez joined a competitive team in Lyon at ten, winning her first national championship at 12, making France’s youth national team at 13, and moving to Paris at 15 to refine her craft at the National Training Centre.

“Even though I was young, this was what you needed to do to have a chance to make the Olympic team, which was my goal,” recalled Glez. “I enjoyed the freedom for the first few months I was there and then I locked in.”

That focus eventually helped propel her to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when she was 20 years old.

“Australia loves sports, so the crowds were amazing,” she shared. “Our team did well, coming in 4th, above our usual results.”

Glez returned to Paris and almost immediately started training for Athens 2004, teaming up with Virginie Dedieu, the best synchro swimmer of all-time to that point.

This pairing turned out to be quite challenging for Glez.

“We were a great team, but I didn’t think I was good enough to partner with Virginie Dedieu,” she said. “My mindset was off, I was constantly playing catch-up, and I ended up getting burned out.”

At the same time, Glez began preparing for life after synchro, as she was accepted to business school at ESCP – the European School of Management. Her coaches were not happy about it.

“The coaches and federation gave me an ultimatum, saying I needed to choose,” she lamented. “I was very upset because I knew I could do both. The school was ready to be flexible, but the coaches were not. So, I decided walk away and went to school. And I wanted to prove myself in a different field.”

After Business School, she went back to Sydney, getting a job in communications and sports sponsorships with the Accor Hotels chain. Glez jumped back into synchro, more to keep in shape than anything else. Her talent and guile led her to win the Australian National Championship.

“Artistic Swimming Australia asked if I would swim for them,” she remembered. “I told them no, not least of which because I wasn’t an Australian citizen.”

The Accor CEO at the time stepped into the breach, offering Glez this deal: The company would let her keep her job at her full salary while getting time off to train and to go to competitions. It would help her expedite the Aussie citizenship prospect — she ended up getting it only six months. In exchange, she would become an ambassador for Accor, writing articles, speaking in public, and performing in the hotels’ pools.

Glez qualified for her second Olympics — Beijing 2008 — for her second country, competing in two events. She and her partner finished 18th in the duet, while notching a respectable 7th with teammates in the eights.

Retiring for a second time after Beijing, she moved to London and then New York in support of her husband’s jobs. And she kept her hand in synchro in both places, serving as an assistant coach for Team GB’s senior team in advance of the London 2012 Games, and then working with the USA Synchro as high-performance director.

After one more move, this time to San Francisco, Glez became the CEO of USA Synchro and then moved again to LA where she began her transition out of synchro. “I wanted to spend more time with my family, but I also wanted to directly impact athletes’ well-being and work with athletes from different sports.” At that point, Glez began to take the steps towards what would become Athletes Soul.

“Retirement from a career as an athlete is different than leaving almost any other field,” she said. “An athlete’s retirement is most often forced, not chosen, and it happens at a relatively young age. Those factors and others lead to unique challenges, and I felt that there was a lack of resources to help athletes in their transitions to their post-athletic careers.”

Glez and other former athletes launched Athletes Soul in 2019 as a nonprofit with a holistic approach to 1. Supporting athletes as they transition away from sports, 2. Raising awareness of the challenges of athletic retirement, and 3. Empowering athletes to develop beyond sports.

Athletes Soul’s structure is unique.  It:

• Is a non-profit organization founded and run by volunteer former athletes.

• Offers educational resources, group and individual coaching, and networking opportunities to support athletes before, during, and after athletic retirement.

• Is independent from sporting organizations

• Supports athletes from all sports and levels and at no cost to them

The result was that, to paraphrase the classic 1989 film, “Field of Dreams,” Myriam Glez built it, and the athletes came: “The number of athletes using us has doubled every year since we started.”

Increasingly, those athletes would ask Glez and her team about jobs in sustainability.

“So many of them are interested in making their post-athletic careers in the environment and on climate,” she enthused. “They want to make a living and a positive impact. Some tell me that ‘sustainability is the new finance’ for them.”

With that in mind, Athletes Soul is connecting athletes and former athletes with EcoAthletes so that they can find opportunities and work in that space.

“I think athletes live with purpose and passion and after retirement, they want to continue to live by those values and contribute positively to society.”

The passion for the #ClimateComeback among Athletes Soul’s retired sportsmen and women mirrors Glez’ own ethos:

“I’ve always been interested in a lifestyle that minimizes my environmental impact,” she shared. “I’ve long looked for ways to take actions that will support a healthy environment for all, not just those who are well off.”

One way Glez is taking action is by becoming an EcoAthletes Champion herself.

“I was asking myself, ‘is there an organization that can help our athletes become climate literate, more climate active?’,” Glez mused. “And then I happened to find EcoAthletes on LinkedIn. The more I learned about the group, I saw that Athletes Soul athletes could benefit from the EcoAthletes family and my being a Champion. Let’s get to work!”

You can follow Myriam Glez on Instagram