PARIS — Tyler Mislawchuk jumped into the Seine a day later than expected Wednesday. That was after the originally scheduled date of the Olympic men’s triathlon race had to be pushed back, due to high pollution levels Tuesday in the iconic but apparently still dirty river, despite the $2.1 billion Cdn spent to clean it up for the 2024 Summer Games.
Gold-medallist Alex Yee of Great Britain and silver-medallist Hayden Wilde of New Zealand, reminiscent of Germany’s Jan Frodeno and Victoria’s Simon Whitfield at Beijing in 2008, thundered down the Paris home stretch in a 1-2 finish. Mislawchuk was in the hunt until late, and placed a credible ninth place, as the latest honorary Islander to compete in Paris. They are all over the French capital like a rash in the 2024 Olympic Games. They are the ones who put the rest of their lives on hold to come to train at the various national sports centres on the Island.
The prairie-product Mislawchuk has been with the National Triathlon Centre in Victoria since 2015: “I’ve been to 27 countries now and Victoria is my favourite place to train in the world. There is such great setup and support with PISE and doctors, physios and chiros. I don’t mind running or biking in the Victoria rain in winter. I will run and bike through anything, except snow.”
The latter sentiment pretty much leaves out his native Manitoba. But it’s a complicated relationship many of these centralized athletes have built up with the Island. They have to be on the Island to achieve their Olympic dreams but they are torn because their family and friends are back in their hometowns.
“I’m a proud born and bred Manitoban, but Victoria feels like home [too],” says Mislawchuk.
Rowers Jennifer Casson and Jill Moffatt, representing Canada in the Paris Olympics in the lightweight double sculls after placing fourth last year in the world championships, are from Ontario but have been living on the Island for seven years, first when Rowing Canada was still based on Elk Lake and since 2021 in Duncan when it moved its training centre to Quamichan Lake in North Cowichan.
“We’ve been on the Island since 2017, from Victoria to Duncan, so we’ve had our fair share of moving around,” said Moffatt. “Yet it’s been great for myself and Jenny. I wouldn’t change any of it.”
Added Casson: “The only sad part for me is that my husband lives in Tampa and that’s been challenging. Other than that, there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t grateful [about the Island training set-up] and I wouldn’t change anything.”
There is no shortage of home-grown Islanders competing in Paris with much mixing and matching in various sports. Joining cyclists Erin Attwell and Sarah Van Dam, both of Victoria, and Maggie Coles Lyster of Maple Ridge on the world No. 5 Canadian women’s team track pursuit foursome, which competes next week here on the Paris Olympic velodrome, is Ariane Bonhomme. The latter native of Gatineau, Que., spends a lot of training time on the Island: “I love riding the gravel logging roads up-Island, and also the route from Sooke to Shawnigan Lake, It’s pretty special. We are velodrome riders but the Island trails helped us keep the fun up as we prepared for Paris.”
Veteran rugby player Charity Williams won the Olympic silver medal on Tuesday at the Stade de France with the Langford-based Canadian women’s sevens team. Williams, also bronze medallist with the 2016 Canadian team at the Rio Olympics, noted she is only 27 and considering going for gold at Los Angeles in 2028 to complete her medal collection. That would mean four more years training in Langford, which the Toronto native has called home since 2015, when she first centralized with the national team program and graduated high school from the District 62-administered Canadian Sports School-Victoria at PISE.
Williams too has mixed feelings about her adopted home: “I’m a 6 girl [slang for the Toronto area code]. I still have a 647 phone number. But I have been in Victoria a long time and Vic has been a second home and it has been beautiful.”
Beautiful enough for Olympic bronze in 2016 and now Olympic silver in 2024.
“[Training nodes] are absolutely critical in a country as large as Canada,” said Canadian Olympic Committee president Tricia Smith, a former Olympic rower.
“I was able to train on Elk Lake. It makes such a difference when the team is together and building that camaraderie. The weather is better in the winter, certainly for our sport, and a lot of sports. It’s a really spectacular place to train. We should take advantage of that in a country that has so much wealth in all sorts of areas.”
