It took Adam Keenan of Victoria 13 years of training and competition, and just as many heartbreaks, to finally become an Olympian.
“I was in the middle of a lifting session at PISE [Tuesday] when the announcement came and I had to catch my breath,” said the hammer thrower out of Lambrick Park Secondary.
“I finished my lift and then let it soak in.”
After so many close calls — fourth and fifth places respectively in the 2018 Gold Coast and 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games and missing qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics by just one spot — Keenan will become an Olympian at age 30 in Paris.
“It’s been 13 years of work and 13 years of support from my mom and my coach. This is a shared moment,” he said.
Long the dominant hammer thrower in Canada, Keenan was surpassed in thunderous fashion when fellow-Islander Ethan Katzberg of Nanaimo won Commonwealth Games silver in 2022 at Birmingham and then gold at the 2023 world championships in Budapest, and 2023 Pan Am Games gold in Santiago, to go into the Paris Olympics this month as the favourite for gold after having made the ninth longest throw in history and longest since 2008 at a meet in Kenya in April.
“For so many years, it was just me in Canada, with nobody within 10 metres,” recalled Keenan, who qualified following his performance at the Canadian Olympic trials over the weekend in Montreal.
“I have known Ethan since he was a junior. There is no jealousy or anything like that. I am so grateful to have someone to pass the torch to.”
The Canadian track and field team for the 2024 Paris Olympics was announced Tuesday with Katzberg, Keenan, Canadian and North American men’s marathon record holder Cam Levins of Black Creek, and Olivia Lundman of Nanaimo in the mixed marathon racewalk relay with Evan Dunfee of Richmond.
You can count Islanders Katzberg and Levins among the marquee names on a powerhouse 48-member Canadian team headed to Paris that includes six-time Olympic-medallist sprinter Andre De Grasse of Markham, Ont., defending Tokyo Olympics decathlon-champion Damian Warner of London, Ont., defending world decathlon champion Pierce LePage, world 800-metre champion Marco Arop of Edmonton, Tokyo Olympics 5,000-metre silver medallist Mohammed Ahmed and 2023 world silver-medallist women’s shot-putter Sarah Mitton of Nova Scotia.
