By Dan Plouffe
On top of Kelleigh Ryan’s exclusion due to her fencing event rotating out of of the Olympics this quadrennial, sport politics kept another local athlete out of the Games as well.
Two-time Olympic hammer thrower Sultana Frizell of the Ottawa Lions Track-and-Field Club was not nominated for Canada’s track-and-field team despite hitting the international standards set out to make her eligible.
The Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games champion and Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games bronze medallist hit the first key qualification requirements laid out by Athletics Canada – she threw her season-best 73.66-metre performance within 10 days of the qualification period opening at a May 10, 2015 competition in Japan, and she placed in the top-2 at the July 7-10 Canadian Olympic trials in Edmonton.
But the team’s head coach ultimately determined that she hadn’t demonstrated “competitive readiness” this season. Hampered by an early-season toe injury that kept her from being able to generate full power/momentum in her windup, Frizell’s best toss of 2016 was 69.14 m in Edmonton, where she finished behind Heather Steacy (who was chosen for the team) at 69.71.
“She threw well enough. She was in 2nd place. Other people went who weren’t even in 2nd place and didn’t have a reason to get picked,” notes Lions club head coach Andy McInnis. “But instead of dwelling on Sultana’s situation, I’ll admire the character of someone who knows what it takes to go to Rio and go to the Olympics.
“The fact that she didn’t appeal – she certainly could have, and I think given the appeals that were won, she would have been selected – so I’ll take note that it’s winning character.
“I think she knows who she is and what it takes to do well and that’s why we didn’t see an appeal.”
Frizell does plan to now compete in the Scottish national hammer throw championships the day before her event would have been on at the Olympics.
Volleyball vet left Rio team
Ottawa’s Adam Simac fell victim to the reduced number of Olympic positions available on each volleyball team (down to 12 from the international norm of 14). In what was surely a heart-wrenching decision, Team Canada coach Glenn Hoag left two of Canada’s long-serving players off the Rio roster in Simac and 40-year-old libero Dan Lewis.
Simac was a key figure in Canada climbing into its current top-10 spot in the world rankings, earning numerous best blocker awards in tournaments along the way. The 32-year-old middle had returned from shoulder surgery in time to help Canada secure its first Olympic berth in 24 years at the May 27-June 5 last-chance qualifier in Tokyo.
“My hope with the Olympics is inspiring the next generation of volleyball players,” Simac said in a June interview following the qualifier. “The kids who are at home watching the Olympics with their parents and saying, ‘Wow, volleyball’s pretty cool.’
“In a country like Canada where hockey is paramount, every little bit of visibility really, really helps out.”
RA Centre-based badminton player Alex Bruce and mixed doubles partner Toby Ng narrowly missed accumulating enough ranking points to qualify for an Olympic spot, finishing just behind a U.S. pair (35,768 to 34,814 points) that they beat at the 2015 World Championships and lost to in the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games final.
Bruce and women’s doubles partner Phyllis Chan also missed out on the final Olympic spot behind a U.S. team.
London 2012 Olympian Seyi Smith reemerged to claim a spot in the men’s 100 m final at the track-and-field trials but placed 7th (finishing .04 seconds behind 5th-place finisher and Rio 2016 team member Segun Makinde, also of Ottawa).
Maddy Schmidt of the Rideau Canoe Club lost a head-to-head race for Canada’s K-2 women’s 500 m Olympic spot. Water polo players Jessica Gaudreault (Capital Wave) and John Conway (Ottawa Titans) both lost one-goal games in the decisive matches at their respective women’s and men’s Olympic qualification tournaments. Recent Carleton Ravens grads Philip and Thomas Scrubb lost to France 83-74 in the final of their men’s basketball last-chance qualifier alongside national team assistant coach Dave Smart. And Sam Zakutney (Ottawa Gymnastics Centre) and the Canadian men’s artistic gymnastics team missed out on claiming a berth at the final qualification event in Rio.