We’re now a couple of days out from the Olympics, and it’s time for a medal overview (you can probably tell I got lazy at times )
Canada is sending what could possibly be our strongest team yet, with a bunch of medal contenders, and what could be the swimmer of the Olympics in McIntosh. Here’s where Canada could win medals in Paris, and an overview of my picks.
Archery - Eric Peters is the current #5, having won a surprise silver at last years World Championships. Archery is a very unpredictable sport though, especially during the Olympics so who knows.
Artistic Swimming - I know absolutely nothing about this “sport”, but I believe Lamothe/Simoneau in duet and our team will be medal contenders? They’ve been performing quite well at the last few World Cups.
Athletics - As always, athletics will likely be one of the two sports making up the majority of our medal haul. This time around our team is even stronger, with multiple world medalists and Olympic champions looking to make it onto the podium.
First of all, let’s start off with Ethan Katzberg in men’s hammer throw. He’s the reigning World Champion, has the world lead, produced a monster throw of 84.18m in Nairobi, and has the four best marks of the year, including a further three over 81m. None of his competitors have been over 81m so far this season. Next, we have Camryn Rogers in women’s hammer throw. She’ll be coming into the Olympics as the slight favourite over Price for gold with Andersen fouling out at the US Olympic Trials, as the reigning World Champion (also won silver the year before), while also having thrown the two furthest marks of the year. Besides those two, the rest of the field is highly inconsistent. Sarah Mitton in women’s shot put is another one of our field contenders. She’s the reigning world silver medalist, and has been over 20m in four competitions this season, including a massive 20.68m NR at the Throws U Series in May. Wrapping up the field events, we have Alysha Newman in women’s pole vault. Looking at her recent marks you might see this as a bit of a stretch, but the hight is there she just can’t seem to find the technique. Switching over to the track, I’ll start off with the “always showing up” Andre DeGrasse, who has won six Olympic medals in six events so far, despite not producing any eye popping times in season like the rest of the athletes do. He’ll be in contention in the men’s 100m and men’s 200m (his specialty event), and will anchor the exact same men’s 4x100m relay that won gold at the World Championships in 2022 and silver at Tokyo 2020, although with the times that have been produced this year it’ll likely take a NR to podium in the 100m. Speaking about relays, our women’s 4x400m relay will look to FINALLY get on the podium, having finished 4th at just about every single international competition. Marco Arop is the reigning World Champion in the men’s 800m, but despite him being just off his PB at the recent Monaco Diamond League with a 1:42.93 (if you watch the race video, he was in front by a lot but faded badly), he’ll be coming into the Olympics as the 10th fastest, and about a second slower than Wanyonyi, Tual, and Sedjati. So yeah, very concerning. Christopher Morales-Williams is the third fastest in the world this season in the men’s 400m with 44.05, but I’d probably classify him as an outside chance, as NCAA athletes rarely ever medal at the Olympics with their tiring as fuck in season schedules. And finally, to cap off the field events, we have Mo Ahmed in the men’s 5000m (his specialty event, he’s the reigning Olympic silver medalist) and men’s 10000m. It’s hard to gauge where he’s at given he rarely races, but he should be right in the mix. For the multi events, we have reigning Olympic Champion and reigning World Championships silver medalist in the decathlon Damian Warner who has said that he’s in the “form of his life”, despite being 37 years old. Excited to see what he’ll do in Paris, hopefully he can get through it injury free unlike in Eugene. Lastly, Evan Dunfee in the men’s 20km race walk, who is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist in the 50km race walk (and will be for a while, as it got axed from the Olympic program), finished 4th at last years World Championships (what a surprise… not), and has produced his second and third fastest marks this season, I could see him breaking his NR if the weather and conditions allows it. Unfortunately Pierce LePage, the reigning World Champion in the decathlon had to withdraw from the Olympics recently as he’s not in competitive form to even be competitive due to countless injuries (including a disc herniation), and it was either “compete and get 7000 points… or not” or “get a surgery done for his back and focus on preparing for next season”)
Basketball - Men’s basketball team beat France in an exhibition by double digits yesterday, which bodes well for Paris. We also won bronze at the World Cup last year. Women’s basketball team has underperformed at past two Olympics, despite coming into each as medal contenders. Given how much they struggled during the Olympic Qualifying Tournament, and even their exhibition games against Spain and Belgium (against Belgium they got demolished, however both were without our 4 WNBA stars), they’re on the outside looking in.
3x3 Basketball - Women’s team won silver at the World Cup in 2022, made it to the quarterfinals in 2023, and have rarely lost tournaments in the last few years. This year, the quartet played tournaments in Springfield and Edmonton (in addition to the OQT’s of course) and won both. Edmonton was a couple of weeks ago in July, and they absolutely demolished their opponents (19-10, 21-10, 21-5, 21-10, 21-11) so they look like they’re in good form. There’s many solid teams going to the Olympics in this sport nonetheless, none of the matches will be easy. We’re a gold contender but I wouldn’t be surprised to see us miss the podium entirely.
Boxing - Tammara Thibeault is coming into the Olympics as the undisputed favourite for gold, she hasn’t lost since Tokyo. She won gold at the Commonwealth Games in 2022, gold at World Championships in 2022 (2024 one was boycotted by many nations including Canada), and gold at the Pan American Games in 2023, in addition to winning gold this April at the Pueblo World Boxing Cup defeating all of her opponents 5-0 (including Olympic bronze medalist Qian). Wyatt Sanford might be a dark-horse for a medal, he 5-0’d all of his opponents on route to gold at the Pan American Games including a very impressive win over 3x Olympic medalist Alvarez, although hard to judge his form since he hasn’t competed at all this year. Could see him missing the podium at the same time.
Breaking - Philip Kim is about as close to a podium lock as can be in this sport. Three straight World Championships medals, silver in 2021, gold in 2022, and silver again in 2023, and he’s also the reigning Pan American Games gold medalist/Pan American Champion. But as I’ve mentioned about 100000 times, I really don’t care.
Canoeing - Majority of our chances will come in women’s canoe, with Katie Vincent and Sophia Jensen in women’s C1-200m and Vincent/Sloan MacKenzie in women’s C2-500m. At the World Cup in Szeged back in May, Vincent and Jensen went 1-2 and Vincent/MacKenzie won silver. Michelle Russell who was 4th in women’s K1-500m, is also in with a shot at a medal.
Cycling - In road cycling, Alison Jackson in women’s road race, Michael Woods/Derek Gee in men’s road race, all have small outside chances at a medal. On the track, we have reigning Olympic champion in women’s sprint Kelsey Mitchell, reigning Olympic bronze medalist in women’s keirin Lauriane Genest, and Dylan Bibic in men’s omnium. Genest and Bibic seems way more likely. Genest won bronze in women’s keirin at Adelaide and Milton, while Bibic finished 4th at Milton and won gold at Adelaide in men’s omnium.
Diving - Caeli McKay, Rylan Wiens and Nathan Zsombor-Murray are all really talented divers. Unfortunately, their ceiling individually looks to be bronze at best (China divers will likely go 1-2, the only event where it’s precarious is men’s 10m), which means Canada’s best chances will come in synchro. Wiens/Zsombor-Murray won bronze at the World Championships in Budapest, and finished 6th at the World Championships in Doha, and McKay/Kate Miller won silver at the World Cup in Hamburg and the World Cup Super Final in Xi’an (albeit in somewhat depleted fields)
Football - Women’s team has won medals at the last three Olympics. It’ll be tough to make it 4 in a row, but this group has the potential to do it. As far as form goes, the She Believs Cup went well, but the exhibition games were meh.
Fencing - Canada has never won a medal in Olympic history. Despite that, we have a shot at making history. First, Jessica Guo and Eleanor Harvey in women’s foil. Guo is ranked #8 in the world (will be #7 at the Olympics), won bronze at the Pan American Championships (lost 15-12 to #1 and reigning Olympic champion Kiefer, she was 13-12 down at one point), and has produced top 10 finishes in all eight of her WC/Grand Prix competitions this season (two bronze medals in Dec 2023/Jan 2024). Harvey, is ranked #14 in the world (will be #12 at the Olympics), won silver at the Pan American Championships (defeating #10 Dubrovich and #13 Weintraub), and has produced four top 10 finishes in her eight WC/Grand Prixs this season. Ruien Xiao is a longshot, having won bronze at the Vancouver WC in addition to having one top 25 finish this season (has been largely inconsistent outside of that)
Golf - Corey Conners has 7 top 20 finishes in 18 events this year, with 3 top 10 finishes.
Gymnastics - Another sport that I don’t follow, but Ellie Black (women’s all around and balance beam), Felix Dolci (men’s floor) should both have decent chances. They won’t be among the favourites, but they’re not too far either. Women’s team has a minuscule chance at a medal, we’ll need a bunch of mistakes from other teams to have any chance (like at Birmingham in 2022)
Judo - World #1 in women’s 57kg (by a fair bit actually) Christa Deguchi won gold at the World Championships in 2023, and silver in 2024 after a controversial decision in the final against Huh. She’s made the podium in all seven events she’s competed in so far this season, including 3 Grand Slam gold medals, 1 silver medal, and 1 bronze medal, although she did lose in the final to Silva at the Pan American Championships. Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard is another Canadian World #1 in the women’s 63kg category, is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist, and has won two Grand Slam medals this season (silver in Baku, gold in Tbilisi) but finished 7th and 5th at the last two World Championships (2024 had a weaker than usual field), and 7th at the Tokyo and Antalya Grand Slams. So the momentum doesn’t seem to be there. Now moving on to the men, World #3 in men’s -100kg Shady El-Nahas is probably our biggest medal hope, he’s been on the podium in all four of his competitions this season, including silver at this years World Championships (withdrew from the final due to injury), and gold at the Pan American Championships, in addition to two silver medals at the Antalya/Tbilisi Grand Slams. World #5 Francois-Gauthier Drapeau has recorded top 5 finishes in men’s 81kg at all four of the competitions he’s competed in this season, including bronze at the Paris Grand Slam and silver at the Antalya Grand Slam, and won a silver medal at the Pan American Championships. Arthur Margelidon in men’s 73kg also has a chance at medaling this summer, winning bronze at the Baku Grand Slam and gold at the Pan American Championships.
Rowing - Women’s eight are the reigning Olympic champion, and won gold at the Lucerne World Cup this year. They did however finish only 5th at the World Championships in 2023. Jill Moffatt/Jenny Casson in women’s lightweight double sculls finished 4th at the World Championships, and 5th/4th at the Varese/Lucerne World Cups.
Rugby Sevens - This year on the HSBC SVNS World Series, our women’s team finished 7th in Perth, 3rd in Vancouver, 4th in Los Angeles, 6th in Hong Kong, 7th in Singapore, and 4th at the Final in Madrid.
Sailing - Sarah Douglas finished 6th in women’s ICLA6 at Tokyo 2020. Douglas finished 5th at the Paris Olympics Test Event in 2023, 23rd at the World Championships, 26th at the World Championships in 2024, and 17th at the Princess Sofia Regatta. Georgia/Antonia Lewin-Lafrance finished 20th at the Paris Olympic Test Event in 2023, 10th at the European Championships in 2023 (it was open entry), 10th at the World Championships in 2023, 8th at the World Championships in 2024, and 4th at the Princess Sofia Regatta. Lewin-Lafrance sisters have been more consistent and have the momentum, but Douglas finished higher at the Paris Olympic Test Event, honestly I don’t know who’s more likely to podium.
Skateboarding - Outside chance with Cordano Russell in men’s street, as he was 4th at last years World Championships in Tokyo. This year, he finished 12th at WST Dubai, 23rd at OQS Shanghai, and 10th at OQS Budapest.
Surfing - Sanoa charged Chopes when she went to Tahiti back in September according to Surf Canada’s Instagram admin, obviously she’s not among the favourites and I’d be surprised to see her medal but it wouldn’t be a huge shock.
Triathlon - Charles Paquet has recorded top 10 finishes in both of his WTCS events so far this season. 5th in Yokohama, and 7th in Cagliari. He’ll be entering Paris with a good chance at a medal.
Swimming - The common trend in the past two Olympics, and the most recent (non-bathtub) World Championships is that we won 6 medals in each. I see us improving on that number in Paris. We’ll start off with the one the only Summer McIntosh, who has the potential for four individual medals. She’s what you would call a “lock” in the 400m individual medley (her PB is the WR that she set in May, around 6 seconds faster than the rest of the field), the marginal gold medal favourite in the 200m butterfly (2x World Champion in both, reigning in my books), the silver medal favourite in the 400m freestyle (… or she could finish 4th again like Worlds last year), and one of four medal contenders in the 200m individual medley. Then we have the reigning Olympic champion in the 100m butterfly Maggie MacNeil, she’ll have her work cut out for her if she wants to have any chance at defending it however, with Walsh recording the two fastest times in history (by at least a few tenths) at the US Olympic Trials. The ever consistent Kylie Masse is yet again expected to be contending for medals in the 100m backstroke and 200m backstroke, though given the gap between her and McKeown/Smith it’s unlikely that we’ll be seeing her win anything better than a bronze. On the plus side, barring an unexpected surprise, it looks like it’ll be a dogfight between her and the second American in each event for bronze. As for the relays, the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay is our best bet, but we’ll either need Oleksiak and Ruck in 1:57ish form, or one of them and Brousseau dropping a whole bunch of time. I’d also give chances to the women’s 4x100m medley relay (really depends on Angus), and women’s 4x200m freestyle relay (really depends on Ruck, as Oleksiak has said “I’ve been going times I’ve never been seeing myself go in training”). For the men, the main star is Josh Liendo, who has medal chances in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, and 100m butterfly (his most likely event to medal in, having won bronze at Worlds in 2022 and silver at Worlds in 2023). He went 50.06 in the 100m butterfly, 21.48 in the 50m freestyle, and 47.55 in the 100m freestyle at the Canadian Olympic Trials, all NR’s. Illya Kharun is another medal contender in 200m butterfly, although he had a mediocre Trials and was around 6/10ths off his NR from Fukuoka 2023. Possible that he was still in heavy training, given the quality of the field. “Reigning World Champion” Finlay Knox reset his NR in the 200m individual medley at the Canadian Trials with a blistering 1:56.07. That would’ve been good enough for bronze at Fukuoka 2023. Still think he’ll need to shave a couple of tenths off his PB in order to medal. Men’s 4x100m relay would be an outside chance, nevertheless not totally impossible.
Taekwondo - Hard to assess her medal potential given she’s rarely competed this year, but she won gold at the Grand Prix in Taiyuan late last year and is top 5 in the World Rankings so…
Tennis - Our best chance will probably come in women’s doubles. Clay is probably Dabrowski’s worst surface, but Fernandez has made deep runs at clay court tournaments in doubles and they both have chemistry as they played together during Billie Jean King Cup. Although the surface was hard in that instance. Leylah Fernandez has an outside chance at a medal in women’s singles, she’s made a run at Roland Garros before but is way too inconsistent to be anything more than that.
Weightlifting - Maude Charron is in great form at the moment, improving her NR to 236kg at the Phuket World Cup. She’ll be in contention for silver and bronze, as China chose this weightclass as one of their three
Wrestling - According to @Roamingrover86 , Morais, Di Stasio, and Godinez (women’s 62kg) all have medal chances, but it largely depends on the draw. Di Stasio has an easier path as a seed than Godinez.
Volleyball - Men’s team as an extremely outside chance at a medal, but honestly I don’t see it happening. After going 4-0 during the final week of VNL, I thought OK maybe we can do it… until we lost to Japan in 3 during the quarterfinals and a couple of days ago lost in 4 to France in an exhibition. In normal circumstances that would be a okay result, but only 4 sets were played. France also rotated their players a bunch (we did too, but not as much), so yeah not a good result. They might be able to make it out of group, but realistically speaking that’s probably the best we can hope for.
Beach Volleyball - Melissa Humana-Parades/Brandie Wilkerson are ranked 3rd in the world, but despite that I don’t see them medaling at the Olympics. I’m not counting them out or anything, but it feels like they suffer some sort of mental block as they always go out during the quarterfinals of Elite16’s, even though a lot of the time they get “easy draws”. I watch a lot of beach volleyball, and from what I can see there seems to be a problem with Mel’s sideout game, it hasn’t been very consistent. Hopefully she can work a lot on it in training heading into the Olympics.
Josh got a reaction from orangeman for a record, Canadian Olympic Medal Chances Overview