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Strong Island flavour to Canadian Olympic team for Tokyo

Most of the athletes for the Tokyo Olympics weren’t even born in 1984, the last time a Canadian team this large went to the Summer Games. The final roster of 371 Canadian athletes for the Tokyo Games, from July 23 to Aug.
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Mountain biker Catharine Pendrel rides with Felix Belhumeur at the Bear Mountain Golf and Country Club in 2015. Pendrel is competing in her fourth Olympics. DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

Most of the athletes for the Tokyo Olympics weren’t even born in 1984, the last time a Canadian team this large went to the Summer Games.

The final roster of 371 Canadian athletes for the Tokyo Games, from July 23 to Aug. 8, was announced Tuesday by the Canadian Olympic Committee. Sixty-five of them are from the Island or train full time on the Island at the several national training centres located here.

“Insert the cliché, but it’s been a long time in the making,” said Connor Braid of Oak Bay, a member of the Canadian men’s Olympic rugby sevens team, which did not qualify for Rio 2016.

“Step one was to get qualified and selected for Tokyo. Now, step two will be to perform when there. We are going in with a call-to-duty mindset.”

British Columbia punches well above its population weight with 95 of the Canadian Tokyo Olympians citing it as their home province. Only Ontario, with 171 athletes, has more. Quebec is third with 58. Alberta has 28, Nova Scotia eight, Manitoba five, Saskatchewan three and New Brunswick one. Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon have none. Two athletes list hometowns outside Canada.

There are 11 children of Olympians who will compete in Tokyo, including rower Avalon Wasteneys of Campbell River, following Seoul 1988 rower mom Heather Clarke, and rower Kai Langerfeld of Parksville, following Montreal 1976 rower dad York Langerfeld.

“Rowing runs in the family,” said Wasteneys, the UVic Vikes rower, whose aunt Christine Clarke is also an Olympian, from 1984 in Los Angeles.

“I grew up in a sporting environment.”

The younger Langerfeld, who also competed at Rio 2016, is among 144 members of the Canadian Tokyo team attending their second or more Olympics. The leader in that category is sailor Nikola Girke, who will be competing in her fifth Olympics. Among the four-time Olympians club in Tokyo will be high-jumper Michael Mason of Nanoose Bay and mountain biker Catharine Pendrel, who learned her sport on the trails of the South Island.

There is even a Tokyo competitor, equestrian Mario Deslauriers, who was in the 1984 L.A. Olympics.

There are 225 Canadian female athletes who qualified for Tokyo, the youngest being 14-year-old swimmer Summer McIntosh and the oldest the 43-year-old sailor Girke. The number of males on the Canadian team is 146, the youngest 17-year-old diver Cedric Fofana and the oldest 56-year-old Deslauriers.

There are three sets of siblings – track and field athletes Gabriela and Lucia Stafford, swimmers Halle and Cole Pratt and water polo players Claire and Emma Wright. There are two Winter to Summer Olympians – Georgia Simmerling from alpine skiing to track cycling and Vincent De Haitre from long-track speed-skating to track cycling.

There are eight Canadian teams that have qualified for Tokyo, the most in a non-hosted or non-boycotted Games. They include the Langford-based men’s and women’s rugby sevens teams and James Kirkpatrick of Victoria and former University of Victoria Vikes players Matthew Sarmento and Keegan Pereira on the men’s field hockey team and infielder Emma Entzminger of Victoria on the women’s softball team.

“These unique times have forged a special Canadian Olympic team,” said Marnie McBean, three-time Olympic gold-medallist rower, and chef de mission of the Canadian team to Tokyo.

“Despite the pandemic, through their creativity and perseverance, they have become the largest Canadian Olympic team in three decades,” added McBean, in a statement.

“In far less than ideal conditions, they have found a way to be faster and stronger than ever. I have no doubt they are ready to reveal something special at Tokyo.”

cdheensaw@timescolonist.com