Nicole Bunyan from Victoria has long carried the flame for squash in Canada. In four years time, she could carry it into Los Angeles when the sport makes its Olympic debut.
That looming moment for the sport will hang over every competition from now until then, including this week at the Canadian Open women’s squash championship, where Bunyan and 31 other top players from around the world are competing on four courts across the Greater Toronto Area.
The tournament features eight of the world’s top-20 women’s players, including Belgian siblings and world No. 5- and No. 6-ranked Nele Coll and Tinne Gilis, and world No. 10 Amada Sobhy of the U.S.
“The next four years will be a transformative era for our sport as we prepare for unprecedented growth and excitement, finally securing our place on the Olympic program,” Jamie Nicholls, Squash Canada CEO, said in a statement.
“We’re excited to welcome the world’s top athletes to Toronto and showcase our dynamic, diverse and now Olympic sport in its best light.”
SMUS-grad Bunyan came out of the Victoria Squash Club on Cook Street to play for NCAA Princeton of the Ivy League and has performed in the B.C. Games, Canada Games, Commonwealth Games and Pan Am Games but the Olympic inclusion comes late in her career as she will be 34 years old in 2028. Yet Bunyan showed she more than still has it by winning the women’s individual gold medal at the 2024 Pan American championships in August at Lima, Peru. Bunyan was also part of the Canadian women’s gold-medallist team at the Pan Am championships with Hollie Naughton, Danielle Ray and Nikole Todd. Canada won 10 medals in total, topping Colombia’s nine and Argentina’s seven, to sit supreme in the region.
That followed up Islander Bunyan’s two silver medals, in mixed doubles with George Crowne and in the women’s team event, at the 2023 Pan Am Games in Santiago, Chile, and she said at the time: “The Olympics have been a dream of mine and I don’t believe I have yet reached my peak.”
The early stages of the road to Los Angeles has brought many of the best to Toronto this week. Naughton, ranked No. 23 in the world, beat world No. 45 Bunyan 3-1 in an all-Canadian match-up in the opening round of the women’s Canadian Open, which features a purse of $75,000 US, the largest ever for a tournament in Canada. Top-seed Coll was upset by Melissa Alves of France 3-2 in another opening-round game. The tournament runs through Thursday.
