While the Stanley Cup will be coming to Six Nations on July 24, later this summer, the Hamilton, Brantford, Burlington and Niagara regions could be home to Olympic gold medals.
The Paris Olympics kick off July 26 and local stars like the National Basketball Association’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and sailor Will Jones will compete for Canada.
Here’s the full list of local Olympians headed overseas.
Mohammed Ahmed: Track, St. Catharines
St. Catharines runner Mohammed Ahmed will compete for Canada in his fourth Olympic Games this summer, after appearing in the 10,000-metre race in London 2012, and both the 10,000-metre and 5,000-metre races in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020.
In Tokyo, he earned a silver medal in the 5,000-metre, Canada’s first Olympic medal in long-distance track. That came just a few days after he finished sixth in the 10,000-metre, Canada’s best Olympic result in that event since 1912. At the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, Ahmed – whose nickname is “Mospeed,” was the first Canadian to break the 27-minute mark in the 10,000-metre.
Ahmed attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied political science and saw much success in cross-country and track. He was the 2014 Big Ten Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year after finishing third in the 10,000-metre at the National Collegiate Athletics Association Championships.
Heather Bansley: Beach Volleyball, Waterdown
Waterdown’s Heather Bansley was named to Canada’s Olympic beach volleyball teams in July along with Melissa Humana-Paredes, Brandie Wilkerson, Sophie Bukovec, Samuel Schachter and Daniel Dearing. Bansley is back on the court after retiring after the Tokyo Olympics, where she and Wilkerson advanced to the quarterfinals following an upset of third-ranked Kelly Claes and Sarah Sponcil of the United States. She will team up with Bukovec in Paris.
Schachter and Dearing secured the men’s continental spot and Bansley and Bukovec won the women’s continental berth at the NORCECA Beach Volleyball Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Tlaxcala, Mexico. Both teams went undefeated throughout the tournament without dropping one set.
This will be the third Olympics for Bansley. She competed in Tokyo in 2020 and Rio in 2016, finishing fifth both times.
Sabrina D’Angelo: Soccer, Welland
Goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo, 31, returns to the Olympics for Canada Soccer after winning a bronze medal at Rio 2016 and playing for Canada in numerous tournaments and events for more than a decade.
She plays for Arsenal in England’s Women’s Super League. She joined the team last year after four years with Swedish club Vittsjo GIK.
D’Angelo played college soccer as a University of South Carolina Gamecock before joining the National Women’s Soccer League’s Western New York Flash in 2015. She moved to the North Carolina Courage in 2017 and then moved to Europe in 2019.
Adam Dong: Badminton, Burlington
Burlington’s Adam Dong will be competing in men’s doubles badminton along side partner Nyl Yakura of Toronto. He and Yakura are coming off a gold medal win at the 2023 Pan American Games. They also picked up a silver medal at the Pan Am Championships in Guatemala in April of 2024. Dong is the owner and director of coaching at Lions Badminton Training Centre in Burlington.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Basketball, Hamilton
Probably the biggest Canadian star heading to Paris for the Olympics, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a guard with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
He attended St. Thomas More Catholic and Sir Allan MacNab secondary schools before moving to Tennessee to finish his high school career. He was drafted 11th overall in the NBA in 2018.
He’ll share the court with his cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker, of Toronto. Alexander-Walker is a shooting guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the NBA.
On July 16, Sports Illustrated named Gilgeous-Alexander as one of the top contenders to win the NBA MVP for the 2024-25 season. He finished second, this past season, to three-time MVP Nicola Jokic. Gilgeous-Alexander aims to lead Canada to its first Olympic basketball medal in 88 years.
Eleanor Harvey: Fencing, Hamilton
Eleanor Harvey started fencing at 10 after deciding she wanted to be “an Olympian in something; a friend recommended fencing and she was pretty good right away,” according to OIympics Team Canada.
This will be her third trip to the Olympics, after placing seventh in individual foil in Rio 2016 – Canada’s best-ever result in an individual fencing event. (“Foil forms the basis of modern fencing,” according to the Olympics organization, describing the sword as a light weapon (0.5kg), 110cm in length, with a 90-centimetre, flexible blade.) She placed 16th in the same event in Tokyo 2020 while also placing fifth in the team foil event that year.
Harvey won the NCAA championships in 2016 while an Ohio State University Buckeye. She graduated in 2018 with a bachelor of arts in psychology and gender studies and runs her own business, Lennygarb, putting her original designs on Canadian-made and upcycled clothing.
James Hedgcock: Cycling, Ancaster
Ancaster’s James Hedgcock, 22, will represent Canada in cycling. He and teammates Tyler Rorke and Nick Wammes defeated Colombia to win gold in men’s track cycling team sprint at the Pan American Games in 2023. He and Rorke make their Olympic debuts in Paris.
He was one of 21 cyclists named to Team Canada in June and one of six competing in the track sprint competitions.
Ella Jansen: Swimming, Burlington
Swimmer Ella Jansen, 18, was named Swimming Canada’s breakout swimmer of the year in 2022 and will compete at her first Olympics in Paris. She has competed in two World Aquatics Championships, in 2023 and 2024, and won five medals at the World Junior Swimming Championships in 2023.
Jansen started swimming when she was six years old, and competes in freestyle, butterfly and medley races.
She is also an ardent pin collector, a passtime popular at multi-sport games. According to Swimming Canada, her favourite band is the Bee Gees, her favourite superhero is Spiderman and her pre-race meal is a bagel with cream cheese and a banana with peanut butter.
Will Jones: Sailing, Hamilton
The pride of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club in the city’s North End, Will Jones’s face is plastered on a banner outside the club as they prepare to support him in his Olympic run, his second after competing in Tokyo in 2021, where he placed 19th. It’s a long way from when he first learned to sail, on a Laser with his dad at their cottage.�
Jones, 29, has been competing internationally since 2017, when he won the 49er Junior World Championships, according to his Sail Canada profile. A 49er is a two-person, high-performance skiff, named for its hull length of 4.99 metres.
He will compete in Paris with partner Justin Barnes, from Pickering, Ont., and says his competition superstitions include “not shaving during a competition and wearing mismatched socks for good luck,” according to Canada’s Olympic team.
Kristen Kit: Rowing, St. Catharines
Kristen Kit, 35, was the coxswain – the person who steers the boat and faces forward – for Canada’s women’s eight rowing crew when they won gold in Tokyo in 2021. It was her debut at the Olympics, but she’d already been to numerous international-level competitions, including the Paralympics in 2012 and 2016, where she won bronze in para rowing.
Kit began rowing in 2003 at the Sir Winston Churchill Rowing Club in St. Catharines, Ont., according to the Canadian Paralympic Committee. The Olympic Committee website adds that her grandfather was the teacher adviser who started the rowing team at her high school while she was in Grade 9 and that she coxed her first race in 2003, despite not knowing how to steer the boat. “Her team still won despite crossing the width of the course multiple times,” it says.
She is also an accomplished road cyclist and now lives in Victoria, B.C.
Carson Mattern: Cycling, Ancaster
Ancaster’s Carson Mattern, 20, will represent Canada in the cycling track endurance events in Paris. Mattern was part of the Canadian men’s pursuit track cycling team that won gold in Santiago, Chile, at the Pan Am Games in 2023. He and teammates Campbell Parrish, Michael Foley and Sean Richardson beat Colombia by nearly nine seconds in the final, lowering their own Pan Am record with a time of three minutes 53.593 seconds.
“It’s been an overwhelmingly positive experience for me,” said Mattern in Chile, who was 2022 junior track world champion in the men’s individual pursuit and omnium events. “I’ve been to a few World Championships and other events and the vibe is unmatched here. Just being around all the best athletes from our country as well as others uplifts us to do the best and represent Canada the best we can.”
Kia Nurse: Basketball, Hamilton
Kia Nurse, a point guard with the Los Angeles Sparks in the Women’s National Basketball Association, will take her third trip to the Olympics after leading Canada’s team with 13 points per game in Tokyo in 2021.
Part of the renowned Hamilton sports family that includes National Hockey League player Darnell Nurse and Professional Women’s Hockey League player Sarah Nurse, Kia won gold at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto and was a leader on the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team that set an NCAA record for 111 consecutive wins in 2017.
She was drafted by the New York Liberty in 2018, and has since played for the Phoenix Mercury and Seattle Storm before joining the Los Angeles Sparks following a trade in January. She is a two-time WNBA champion and was named a league all-star in 2019.
Claire Scheffel: Artistic Swimming, Brantford
Brantford’s Claire Scheffel, 20, heads into the Olympics with plenty of momentum after she and her teammates won silver in the acrobatic routine and bronze in the team free event at the World Aquatics Artistic Swimming World Cup Super Final in June in Oviedo, Spain. She was on the nine-athlete roster named to Paris earlier in June. Canada seeks its first Olympic medal in 24 years in the sport. She also helped the Canadian team win bronze at the 2023 Pan Am games.
Alena Sharp: Golf, Hamilton
Golfer Alena Sharp, 43, qualified to represent Canada at the Paris Olympics and, along with Brooke Henderson, is one of the top two Canadians in the world rankings.
“I always feel… a lot of pride in wearing the red and white and you go there and you’re part of Team Canada,” Sharp told the CBC. “You’re playing for yourself, yes, because you want to win a medal, but you’re representing your country and there’s no greater honour.”
It will be the third Olympics for both golfers. Sharp, ranked No. 292 in the world, was 30th in Rio and 40th in Tokyo. She is coming off a bronze-medal win at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
Emma Grace Van Dyk: Para Swimming, Hamilton/Port Colborne
Emma Grace Van Dyk got into swimming when she was young as a form of physiotherapy. Now, it’s taking her all the way to the Paralympic Games in Paris.
Earlier this year, at the Paralympic team trials in May, she broke the Canadian record in the S14-class 100-metre backstroke. She also holds records in the 400-metre individual medley and the 200-metre butterfly.
Van Dyk also rows at a high level, and often competes with her sister, according to the Canadian Paralympic Committee. She has also worked for Parks Canada at Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake as a player in the War of 1812 re-enactment.