TORONTO —
After enduring an unexpectedly long wait for Tokyo 2020, Canada’s top athletes will face the opposite challenge as they get ready for the next Summer Olympics.
The Paris Games are only three years away, meaning they will have to compress their usual routine of training, practising and qualifying in a way they never have before.
One thing is certain, though: whichever athletes emerge from that process and end up in Paris will be looking to build on the 24 medals that Canada won in Tokyo – itself a record.
Some of the athletes who captured Canadians’ hearts over the past two weeks have already said that they intend to return to the Olympics next time around. That list includes decathlon champion Damian Warner, and swimming sensation Penny Oleksiak.
Gymnast Ellie Black, who just missed a place on the podium after suffering a sprained ankle, has also indicated that she will attempt to represent Canada in 2024.
Although he hasn’t said anything definitive about his future plans yet, it’s hard to envision sprinting star Andre De Grasse not attempting to defend his crown in the 200 metres. The same could be said of Canada’s last gold-medallist of these Games, track cyclist Kelsey Mitchell, and out-of-nowhere swimming champ Maggie Mac Neil.
Then there are those athletes who arrived in Tokyo with high expectations and left with disappointment. Rosie MacLennan, who won gold in both 2012 and 2016 in the trampoline but finished fourth this time around, was non-committal about her future when asked by CTV News Channel on Sunday.
“I love my sport, and I always will. Each Games, I just try and take time after to recover and process what happened – particularly after a kind of bittersweet experience in Tokyo – so right now I’m just focused on spending time with my family [and] recovering fully,” she said.
More certain of her future plans was Sarah Pavan, who along with partner Melissa Humana-Paredes won this year’s beach volleyball world championship but was bounced out of the Olympics in the quarter-finals.
“I’m not done. I’m planning on pursuing Paris,” she told CTV News Channel on Sunday.
“I love this sport so much, and I’m not ready to walk away yet.”
Also not quite ready to call it quits is one decorated Canadian Olympian who opted to skip Tokyo. Eric Lamaze, the equestrian star who has three Olympic medals to his name including a gold from 2008, withdrew from this year’s event in May, citing health concerns – but left the door open to a return to top-level competition.
However, not every athlete has the chance to make that choice for themselves. Canada won’t be able to defend its softball bronze in Paris, nor will Evan Dunfee get a shot at a second Olympic medal. Both of those events are being discontinued for 2024, along with baseball and karate. Joining the program, meanwhile, will be the first-ever Olympic competition in breakdancing.
Softball and baseball had just returned to the Olympics after a 12-year absence, at the request of Japanese organizers. Kaleigh Rafter, the Canadian team’s catcher, told CTV News Channel that she and her teammates are hopeful their sport will once again be reinstated by the time the Olympics arrive in Los Angeles later this decade.
“We’ve been in, we’ve been out, we’ve been back in. We’re hopeful that we’ll be able to be back in for 2028,” she said Sunday.
Weightlifters also face an uncertain Olympic future. Repeated doping violations in that sport have led the International Olympic Committee to warn that weightlifting could be dropped from the Olympic roster as soon as 2024.
Maude Charron, who won weightlifting gold for Canada in the women’s 64-kilogram competition, acknowledged on Sunday that whether she’ll be allowed to defend her championship is out of her hands.
“We’re paying [for others’ wrongdoing] … and that sucks,” she told CTV News Channel.
Top-level competitions scheduled between now and the time the cauldron is lit in Paris include next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England and the 2023 Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile.
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