At a very young age, Lusignan started out as a gymnast. His father, Sylvain Lusignan would bring Xavier and his little sister Naomie to a gym in Pembroke to practice while Sylvain was training to lift competitively. When Xavier was around 10 years old, he took interest in weightlifting and tried it out, from that point on he never looked back.

His sister followed suit as she started competitive weightlifting. Xavier touched on what it’s like to be training as a family.

“Sometimes we’ll treat it like a competition. We’ll compare our numbers, our records and see who had the better day, but usually we work as a team. We encourage ourselves and we face every obstacle in competitions together,” he said.

The athletic roots in the Lusignan family can be traced back to the siblings’ father. Sylvain practiced martial arts from age 8 all the way until his late 30’s he then began weightlifting at the age of 40.

“I’ve been promoting their competitive spirit since they were young so they could achieve their big goals,” said Sylvain.

“As a father, you need to support them all the way and be there for them.”

Sylvain touched on the feeling of watching his son compete at high levels as well as the support the family has been receiving from the rest of the community.

“There’s a lot of support from the community, when we watch him[compete], there’s a lot of family members, and friends that’ll stop by the house and have a big celebration,” he added.

“It’s really exciting from our standpoint…to see him on the platform with the Canadian flag on his suit. It’s a sight to be seen.”

Xavier most recently represented Canada at the 2021 Junior Pan American Championship in Colombia. He felt like it was a major step in the right direction and gave him a big confidence boost.

“This was my first international event so it was going to be a learning experience. We didn’t know where I would place but it happened to be a great competition. We managed to lift great numbers and we’re excited to compete again at the international stage,” he said.

Xavier is aiming at big targets later on in his career. He hopes to qualify for the Canadian Olympic team as well as to bring home a world championship in the sport. He gave credit to the support system around him for his success thus far.

“I’m not surprised at all (to represent Canada) because I have a great team, I have my father and my weightlifting coaches. They’ve helped me a lot.” he said.

Xavier explained that star athletes who come from small towns similar to Mansfield have helped inspire him to follow his dreams of competing in weightlifting’s biggest stages.

“I look up to a lot of big athletes and a lot of them come from a small place, but they all say that ‘If you have dreams, you have a strong mindset, you have goals and the support of your environment, the sky is the limit.’”

Xavier’s next step on his journey to the Olympics is to represent Canada in the 2022 Commonwealth games which will be held in Birmingham, England.

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