Signs of Katherine and Michelle Plouffe's competitiveness stem all the way back to before they were old enough to play on a basketball team.
As the youngest of five, the twin sisters, who are now the leaders of Canada’s 3x3 women’s basketball team, “grew up” in the elementary school gym while their siblings had practice.
One day, their sister’s coach encouraged them to pass the ball back and forth at recess, and even that mundane task was treated like a shot at Olympic gold.
"We would just be passing this big rubber ball back and forth and seeing how many times we could do it without dropping it, and then we’d come in and be like 'we got 50!'" said Michelle. "We are slightly competitive people, that is a drastic understatement, but we just always wanted to achieve, which is a double-edged sword, but it's taken us very far."
Now the 31-year-old twins from Edmonton are hoping to translate those back-and-forth passes on the playground into a killer pick-and-roll on the Olympic stage as one of Canada’s medal hopes in Paris.
The Canadian team won its fifth FIBA 3x3 Women’s Series title of the season on Sept. 3 in Montreal, capping a 15-0 run on home soil that also included wins in Edmonton and Quebec City this summer. This weekend they’re in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to defend their Women's Series final title.
The big event, however, happens next year at the Paris Games, and they’re setting their sights high.
"That long-term vision is being on the podium," said Katherine. "That's why we started, that's why we're still here, it’s to have that goal. It will be very special when we get there."
But first, they’ll need to qualify, something they didn’t have a chance to do when 3x3 basketball made its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games.
The sisters have played in the Olympics in five-on-five play, but in 3x3 a combination of puzzling rules limited Canada to sending only one team from one gender to the Tokyo qualification tournament.
Canada Basketball ultimately sent the men, who hadn’t had a five-on-five team at the Games since 2000.
Though the Plouffes say it was a gut punch, they’re also treating it like it may have worked out for the best.
Four years later, they’re the top women’s team in the FIBA 3x3 rankings.
"It was like, 'OK, that was a huge disappointment,' but how did we handle ourselves through that and how have we grown and how have we responded on the court and all those things?” said Michelle. “I think we've gained a lot of respect from even our opponents and the FIBA 3x3 community.
“I think it's definitely served a purpose for us in our journey towards Paris."
This time around, they’ll have two potential avenues to qualify. One is to win the AmeriCup in December, then win another competition between the winners of tournaments in Europe, Africa and Asia.
The other is through the Olympic qualifying tournament, which will feature the Top 16 teams besides the top three federations (China, United States, France), with no restrictions regarding one team per gender.
Canada would have to finish third in that tournament to qualify. Based on how this year has gone and the motivation they're carrying after missing out on Tokyo, the Plouffe twins believe they won’t just make it to Paris, but also make some noise once there.
"The belief is just there,” said Katherine. “We've had adversity and we fought back from that and the belief is just so high that we can win a medal in Paris."
The sisters credit the chemistry they’ve built with teammates Paige Crozon, Kacie Bosch and Jamie Scott for their success this year.
The twins have been building chemistry with each other for years, and that advantage of knowing one another better than anyone else is only bigger in 3x3 play where they both share the court for the majority of a game, compared to five-on-five where that might not be the case.
“We play significantly better with each other than anyone else, just because we know each other so well and we complement each other so well in our game,” said Michelle. “I think that's just because of playing so long with each other. Maybe it would be the same if we weren't twins, but I don't think so."
That doesn’t mean the transition to 3x3 didn’t come without growing pains. Katherine recalls a lot of collisions with each other when starting out.
“It was rough, like 'no, you're handing off to me' or like 'I'm screening for you, no you screen for me,'” she said. “It was just figuring that out and actually just accepting like, OK, what's the situation and who's in the best position right now to make a play."
At this point, it looks like they’ve figured that out.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 15, 2023.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press