If their career trajectories hold as projected, teenage sibling prodigies Mathea and Sanoa Olin of Tofino should be surfing Tahiti in the summer of 2024, site of the competition for the Paris Olympic Games. Elan Jonas-McRae of Boulders Gym in Central Saanich, meanwhile, could literally be climbing the walls in the City of Lights.
It was announced Monday that two sports strong on the Island, surfing and climbing, will continue on the Olympic program from the delayed Tokyo Games next summer to Paris 2024.
“It’s fantastic that we won’t be just a one-off,” said Surf Canada executive director Dom Domic of Victoria.
“We will be a showcase event of Paris 2024. The visuals from Teahupo’o, Tahiti, will be mind-bending.”
The waves in Teahupo’o have been described as a “Wall of Skulls.” It’s also hard to imagine the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics without surfing.
“I expect us to stay on as a poster event for L.A. 2028, as well,” said Domic.
“Mathea Olin [who is 17] could be surfing in three Olympic Games, at least.”
Skateboarding, popular with skating bowls from Sooke to Sidney and Vic West in-between, will also carry over from Tokyo to Paris. Breakdancing will be introduced at Paris in an initiative which allows Olympic hosts to choose from a menu of supplemental sports in addition to the core ones. Karate did not make the cut from Tokyo to Paris.
Tofino is the spiritual and actual centre of the Canadian surfing universe. Surf Canada, the national governing body, is based in Victoria on Broad Street.
Mathea Olin, Victoria born and raised Paige Alms, a big-wave surfer based in Maui, and eight-time Canadian men’s champion Pete Devries of Tofino are among the strong contenders to make the Canadian team to the Tokyo Olympics. But Devries and Alms are in their 30s, making Paris 2024 more of a longshot. It is the Tofino Olin sisters, Mathea 17 and Sanoa 15, who are considered the future of the sport in Canada. Mathea Olin, who in 2017 at the age of 14 won Canada’s first international surfing medals, already has a multi-sport Games medal with bronze in the 2019 Lima Pan Am Games.
Meanwhile, Mathea Olin won the women’s title and Devries the men’s championship in the HomeTown ShowDown last month in Tofino to prepare the Island-based Canadian surfers for the Olympic qualifying trials for Tokyo from May 29 to June 6 in El Salvador. There will be 20 men and 20 women competing in the Tokyo Games.
“I believe we are positioned well with our Canadian men ranked No. 5 in the world and our women No. 12,” said Domic.
Mathea and Sanoa Olin’s Olympics-projected equivalent in climbing for Paris 2024 is Jonas-McRae out of Boulders Gym. The Central Saanich facility has been a hotbed of the sport of climbing since 1993. Twelve of the 40 qualifiers from around the world for the Tokyo Olympics, including Canadians Sean McColl and Alannah Yip, have trained at Boulders Gym under head coach Libor Hroza, the Czech native and former world No. 2 and world record holder in speed climbing.
“Libor has coached a lot of the talent that will be competing in Tokyo,” said Kimanda Jarzebiak, chair of Boulders Gym.
“The Olympic exposure will help grow the base of kids getting involved. Parents like it because it can be a sport for life for their children. The best can then also pursue it as an elite sport,” added Jarzebiak, who will be providing the colour commentary for CBC when the sport makes its Olympic debut at Tokyo.
Jarzebiak said she was “heartened” to hear the medal count in climbing will expand from just those awarded in the overall category at Tokyo to three categories at Paris 2024, including speed. That will greatly aid the prospects for Jonas-McRae and Hroza, both who are speed specialists.
