 | Monday, June 21, 2021
By Jesse Campigotto
Here's what you need to know right now in the world of sports: | |  | Monday, June 21, 2021
By Jesse Campigotto
Here's what you need to know right now in the world of sports: | | Canada has a new teenage swimming sensation | | | Five years ago in Rio, a virtually unknown 16-year-old Canadian named Penny Oleksiak became an instant celebrity and a national hero by winning four medals at the Rio Olympics. Before she even had a driver's license, Oleksiak tied for gold in the women's 100-metre freestyle, took silver in the 100 butterfly and added a pair of relay bronze medals. A few months later, she won the Lou Marsh Award for Canadian athlete of the year. It's one of the great out-of-nowhere stories in Canadian sports history.
Last night in Toronto, a new (and even younger) Canadian swimming star was born. Summer McIntosh, who is 14 years old, beat Oleksiak to win the women's 200m freestyle at the national Olympic trials and qualify for Tokyo. McIntosh still needs to be officially named to the Canadian team, but when that formality occurs she'll become one of the youngest Olympians in Canadian history (Barbara Hounsell was 13 when she swam for Canada in the 1964 Games in, oddly enough, Tokyo).
McIntosh and Oleksiak have more in common than just their precociousness. They both come from athletic families (Oleksiak's older brother Jamie plays in the NHL; McIntosh's mom, Jill Horstead, swam in the 1984 Olympics), they're both from Toronto, and they train together at the Pan Am Sports Centre, where the Olympic trials are being held.
Physically, they're less alike. Oleksiak, who's now 21 and stands 6-foot-1, has seven years and six inches on her 5-7 teammate. But McIntosh packs a lot of punch into her smaller frame. Here's what Penny had to say about her after last night's race:
"I love Summer. I hate training with Summer," Oleksiak said. "She does not die. She's 14, so she doesn't get a lot of lactic acid, so every time I train with her, I know she has the gas on and it's all gas, no brakes with her... I was saying this morning, it's funny how my biggest competition is the smallest person in the pool right now. I love her work ethic. She's really strong in and out of the pool mentally. I just love her. Honestly, she's so cute."
The feelings are mutual. “She’s so nice,” McIntosh said of Oleksiak. "She’s just been so awesome and motivating and it’s such an incredible opportunity that I can swim with her every day.”
They should get more opportunities to swim together in Tokyo. Despite her loss to McIntosh last night, Oleksiak will still get to compete in the Olympic 200m freestyle. Back in January, the Canadian team awarded her a spot in the event, and she met the required qualifying time with her second-place finish last night. Oleksiak and McIntosh could also be teammates in the Olympic women's 4x200m freestyle relay. Oleksiak helped Canada win bronze in that event at both the '16 Olympics and the '19 world championships.
But, for now, their focus is on the Canadian trials, which run through Wednesday. Since winning Olympic gold, Oleksiak has slipped in the 100m freestyle. Canada gave an automatic spot in that event not to her, but to Taylor Ruck. But Oleksiak can still win the right to defend her title by placing in the top two and meeting the qualifying standard on Tuesday. McIntosh is not competing in the 100 free, but she's entered in the 800 tonight and the 1,500 on Wednesday.
Read more about McIntosh's stunning victory in the 200 free here. Read about how Oleksiak is approaching her second Olympics here.
CBC Sports is live streaming every race at the Canadian trials. Coverage of the morning sessions starts at 9 a.m. ET, afternoon sessions at noon ET, and the evening sessions (when finals take place) at 5 p.m. ET. Watch them all live here. A big race tonight is the men's 50m freestyle final, where 37-year-old Brent Hayden will try to complete his comeback. The 2007 world champion in the 100 free left the sport after taking bronze in that event at the 2012 Olympics. He returned in 2019 after seven years of retirement to take a run at Tokyo. | | |  | Summer McIntosh is the story of Canada's Olympic swimming trials so far. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press) | | | Quickly... | | | Denis Shapovalov pulled out of the Olympics. Canada's highest-ranked men's tennis player tweeted today that "due to the current situation [the pandemic, presumably] my team and I have decided this is the best decision for everyone’s safety." Shapovalov, 22, is ranked 12th in the world. He skipped the recent French Open due to a shoulder problem. No. 3-ranked Rafael Nadal of Spain announced last week he wouldn't play in the Olympics or Wimbledon this year because his body needs rest. Read more about Shapovalov's decision here.
There will be fans in Tokyo. Foreigners are still being kept out, but Olympic organizers said today that Japanese residents will be allowed to fill venues up to 50 per cent capacity, with a maximum of 10,000 spectators (not counting so-called stakeholders, such as sponsors and other dignitaries). The rules are the same for indoor and outdoor venues. Organizers had been counting on about $800 million US in ticket sales, but now they're expecting to make only about half that. They also said a lottery will have to be held to decide who gets to attend because the number of tickets already distributed to people in Japan (about 3.64 million) is about 900,000 higher than the amount of seats that can be filled. Those lucky enough to attend will have to wear masks and won't be allowed to cheer. Read more about the Olympic fan situation here.
There's good news and bad news for the Canadian men's basketball team. Good news first: the Milwaukee Bucks overcame another heroic effort by Kevin Durant (48 points) to beat Brooklyn in overtime of Game 7 and advance to the NBA's Eastern Conference final. That means two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo (pretty heroic himself with 40 points in Game 7) won't be available to play for Greece in the last-chance Olympic qualifying tournament in Victoria next week. Greece is one of the six teams Canada must beat there to earn its first Olympic men's basketball berth since 2000. The bad news? Two more NBA players are officially off Canada's roster. Dillon Brooks (Memphis) and Oshae Brissett (Indiana) join Brandon Clarke (Memphis), Kelly Olynyk (Houston), Tristan Thompson (Boston) and Khem Birch (Toronto) on the list of guys presumed to be in for the qualifier who have since dropped out. That leaves Canada with eight NBA players — still easily the most of any team in Victoria. | | | And in case you missed it… | | | A few other things from the weekend that you should know about:
The Canadian women's basketball team left the AmeriCup without a medal. This isn't a huge deal. Canada was missing its three WNBA players and its focus right now is on Tokyo, where the fourth-ranked team has a shot at winning the country's first-ever Olympic women's basketball medal. Also, Canada still got the top-four finish needed to earn a spot in one of next year's Women's Basketball World Cup qualifying tournaments. But the Canadians' upset loss to host Puerto Rico in Friday's semifinals and double-OT defeat to Brazil in Saturday's bronze game left them off the podium for the first time in the last five AmeriCups. Read more about what the Canadian team learned in this story by CBC Sports' Myles Dichter.
The Olympic men's golf picture took shape. The 60-player field for Tokyo is based on the world rankings as of today — the day after the U.S. Open. The top 15 players get in (with a maximum of four per country) and then countries are allowed up to two golfers each if they're outside the top 15. Spain's Jon Rahm took over the No. 1 spot after birdieing the final two holes yesterday to win his first major title. The next eight players in the rankings are all from the United States. No. 2 Dustin Johnson has said he won't play in the Olympics, so it looks like the four Americans will be Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau, assuming they want to go. Canada will presumably send No. 36 Corey Conners, who missed the cut at the U.S. Open, and No. 63 Mackenzie Hughes, who entered the final round tied for the lead but finished 15th after a tough day in which he hit a tee shot up into a tree. See how the heck that happened here.
American stars Justin Gatlin and Noah Lyles both failed to qualify for the Olympic 100 metres. Only the top three in Saturday's loaded men's final at the U.S. track and field trials got a ticket to Tokyo. Those went to gold-medal favourite Trayvon Bromell, who won in an impressive 9.80 seconds, Ronnie Baker (9.85) and Fred Kerley (9.86). Lyles is the reigning world champion in the 200, and he was hoping to pull a Usain Bolt by winning a 100/200/4x100 triple in Tokyo. But his seventh-place finish in the 100 at the U.S. trials wasn't even good enough to qualify for the relay team. Gatlin's result was even sadder. He placed eighth in a glacial 10.87, likely ending the career of one of the most successful (and controversial) sprinters of all time. Gatlin won Olympic 100m gold and 200m bronze in 2004, reached the 100m podium in 2012 and '16, and won three individual world titles (the 100 and 200 in 2005, the 100 again in '17). He also served a four-year doping ban, making him one of track's biggest villains after he returned in 2010. At 39, Gatlin was trying to become the oldest man in history to win an Olympic track medal. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
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