Canada's track record
Historically, Canada has been successful in the pool, particularly its relay teams. The country has earned 39 Olympic medals overall in swimming, including seven gold, 13 silver and 19 bronze. Canadian swimmers won medals in eight straight Olympic Games leading into Athens in 2004, where the team was held off the podium.
Canada has a long and proud tradition in international synchronized swimming, considered a member of a strong six-country group that includes the United States, Russia, Japan, France and Spain. Canada has won eight Olympic medals, including three gold, four silver and one bronze.
The country's first diving medal came in 1956, which stood for nearly three decades until 1984, when Sylvie Bernier won the country's first and only Olympic diving gold medal that year in the 3-metre. In all, Canada has an excellent chance to improve on its two diving medals from 2004.
Canadians ready to make waves
Canadians ready to make waves
July 16, 2008
Canadian athletes competing at recent Olympic Games have climbed on to the medal podium with regularity from canoes, kayaks and rowing shells. But they've been less successful in the water. That could change in Beijing.
Expectations are high at the pool, where Canadian athletes in swimming, synchro and diving have legitimate chances to win a medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing.
The Canadian swim team will be 27 members strong and will be led into Beijing by Brent Hayden, who is the country's first world champion in swimming since 1986. Ranked second in the world in the 100m freestyle heading into the 2007 World Aquatic Championships in Australia, the 24-year-old from British Columbia captured gold and set a Canadian record in the process.
"It's an exciting and fun team that we have," said Pierre Lafontaine, Swimming Canada's CEO and national coach. "We have veterans who are going to be great for the team and provide some great experience."
Among the GTA athletes competing will be Andrew Hurd (Toronto), Colin Russell (Oakville), Alexa Komarnycky (Toronto) and Lindsay Seeman (Newmarket).
In Synchro, the duet of Isabelle Rampling of Burlington and Marie Pier Boudreau-Gagnon has a combined 16 years of national experience.
Rampling and Bourdreau-Gagnon will compete in their first Olympic Games in Beijing. The pair, along with the Canadian team comprised of eight swimmers, earned an Olympic berth at a qualifier that took place in Beijing in April.
Since first being partnered in 2005, the two enjoyed immediate success, winning gold at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and finishing sixth at the World Cup which serves as one of synchro's three major competitions.
In diving, three-time Olympian and two-time world champion Blythe Hartley of British Columbia will carry a heavy heart into Beijing after dedicating her season to her older brother, Strachan, who died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma at the age of 30.
It's a moving tribute for one of Canada's premier divers who stood on an Olympic podium four years earlier in Athens with Emilie Heymans, winning bronze in the 10-metre synchro.
"It's amazing," said Hartley. "When I first started out I never really anticipated I would go to three Olympic Games. I feel very fortunate."