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Newsletter By Jackson Starr, Adam Beauchemin, Martin Cleary, Dan Plouffe & Kaitlyn LeBoutillier
The list of prizes Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski hasn’t won in her decorated tennis career continues to shrink and shrink. The 32-year-old doubles star has won grand slams in both women’s and mixed competition, she’s earned a Billie Jean Cup women’s world title with Team Canada, and now she’s treasuring her first Olympic medal following her run at Paris 2024 alongside Felix Auger-Aliassime.
“It’s definitely been the most recognizable (prize) so far,” Dabrowski told media ahead of the National Bank Open pro tournament in Toronto. “For me personally, it means so much because the Olympics has always been something that I hold in such high regard, and to actually get a medal, it really is like fulfilling a childhood dream.”
Dabrowski was making her third Olympic appearance at the Paris Games and had a grand total of one match win from her previous two participations. That all changed this time when she Auger-Aliassime came up big in many big moments to win three of their four matches in the mixed doubles event.
The Canadians were masters of the tiebreak in Paris. They won their opening round match in a third-set tiebreak over Great Britain, downed USA by the minimum 10-8 score in their final-set tiebreak, and dominated a second-set tiebreak with the Netherlands in their bronze medal match.
Dabrowski said that her Olympic medal most definitely ranks highly among her career achievements.
“I want to say it’s the best one, but I feel like the people who have been part of my journey, not everyone was there,” signalled Dabrowski. “If everyone was there, maybe it would feel like it was something that would take the cake in terms of a result, but it was very different.
“Also, the Olympic experience was very different, not staying in the village. In a small sense it felt like another tennis tournament. It’s really hard to rank them because they’re all so different. This one’s certainly incredibly special and I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to fight for it.”
Winning an Olympic medal was of course an exceptionally proud moment for Dabrowski, but she also feels immense pride whenever she represents Canada for reasons that go beyond achieving results.
“What does playing for your country really mean? I feel like it’s just a generic thing that sounds patriotic, but it’s so much more than that because of the country I grew up in and the values that Canada stands for,” she explained. “I find it very easy to represent Canada because a lot of the things that Canada brings to someone’s life are a lot of the things that are really important.”
Dabrowski had to leave Paris quickly after her tournament came to a close in order to compete in the National Bank Open, with the women competing this year in Toronto.
She’s continued her success alongside her regular partner Erin Routliffe. The 2023 U.S. Open champions clinched their place in the final with a semi-final victory tonight, on the same day as the Closing Ceremonies took place in Paris.
Dabrowski won the semi over her Olympic women’s doubles partner Leylah Annie Fernandez (with whom she won one match before falling in the next round) and Fernandez’s sister Bianca.
“It’s pretty easy (to keep right on playing after Paris) because this is the next tournament right after,” outlined Dabrowski, who previously won a National Bank Open crown in 2021. “In a way, it’s kind of fortunate, you can ride that high amongst a lot of the excitement that’s still there, which is pretty special, and especially in Ontario, which is really cool, obviously me being an Ottawa girl.
“In a sense, we keep going, it’s back to business, I have my routines, training and things that need to get done that I can’t lose focus for, but (I’m) really happy (with) the timing of things and hopefully the energy carries itself.”
Several standout Paris performances for Ottawa Olympians
While Dabrowski was Ottawa’s lone medallist at the 2024 Olympics, a majority of the local athletes who competed in Paris remarkably recorded top-8 finishes in their events.
The two youngest local members of the Canadian Olympic team – 19-year-old Kate Miller and 18-year-old Julie Brousseau – came the next closest to hitting the podium, both in the pool.
Competing alongside Canadian teammate Caeli McKay, Miller put in an exceptional performance in her Olympic debut to place fourth in the women’s 10-metre synchro event. The pair’s total score of 299.22 left them just 5.16 points shy of a medal spot.
In a teary-eyed interview with CBC, Miller and McKay wore the full sting of coming so close to the podium, but were already celebrating the feat they did achieve to come fourth in the world.
“I’m really excited that I was able to compete here,” underlined Miller. “It’s an accomplishment to be here, so I’m really thankful for that. It was really good experience for me.”
Brousseau, meanwhile, maintained her team’s fourth-place position in the women’s 4×200 m freestyle relay as she swam the final leg of the race for the Canadian crew alongside Mary-Sophie Harvey, Ella Jansen and Summer McIntosh.
“I’m pretty honoured to get to anchor those three girls,” Brousseau, the fresh Nepean High School graduate, told CBC after the race. “It definitely means a lot.”
Jacqueline Madogo was another young Ottawa athlete who showed she’s most definitely on the rise with her slew of success on the track.
The soccer player-turned-sprint star collected personal bests on two separate occasions in the women’s 200 m, and set a national record alongside Sade McReath, Marie-Éloïse Leclair and Gatineau’s Audrey Leduc in the women’s 4×100 m relay in order to qualify for the finals, in which Canada finished sixth.
Finishing sixth and setting a new national benchmark was an encouraging sign for a young Canadian relay squad, with McCreath the eldest at 28, Leduc at 25, Madogo at 24 and Leclair at 21.
Madogo, who wore a big smile any time a camera was on her, also left an indelible mark with her joyous celebration of the Canadian men’s 4×100 m relay team’s gold medal triumph.
Ottawa’s Eliezer Adjibi was an alternate for the champion squad, while 1996 Olympic relay champion Glenroy Gilbert of Ottawa was the team’s coach.
“I am very proud of these guys,” Gilbert told CBC. “We had a meeting yesterday and what we talked about was simple: ‘How do you want to leave Paris? How do you want to leave the Olympic track here?,’ because there’s no guarantee any of us will be back in four years, so how do you want to leave it?
“Do you want to leave it with a medal or do you want to leave it as just one of the rest of the field? They decided tonight that they wanted to leave it as Olympic champions.”
Despite a rocky start to her Games as she lost weight due to an illness, Lauren Gale displayed great form come the finish as she anchored the Canadian women’s 4×400 m relay team to a sixth-place performance.
Gale said in a pre-Games interview with Ottawa Sports Pages reporter Jackson Starr that her goal was to earn a relay medal for Canada. With runners ranked 33rd, 37th, 80th, 141st and 146th in the world entering the Paris Olympics, the odds looked long for Canada, but the 24-year-old showed the idea wasn’t so far-fetched when Canada came within 2.29 seconds on the top-3 in a season-best time of 3:22.01 in the final.
Ariane Bonhomme also experienced a sickness-riddled Olympics with the Canadian women’s track cycling pursuit team. The two-time Olympian felt that the squad didn’t fulfill its potential when it finished eighth.
“I wish racing was this week. It was weird — it was definitely a question of hours. I think had we raced 24 or 48 hours later it would have been different,” Bonhomme, who got hit by a bacteria infection shortly before her first race, reflected in an interview with the Sports Pages’ Adam Beauchemin.
“My experience in Tokyo still has a very special place in my heart, more than this past week at this moment,” she added. “I know that I’ll come around to enjoy what happened in the last couple weeks and I know at some point it’ll have a special place in my heart — but, not right now.”
Eighth place was also the result for Canadian women’s water polo team goalkeeper Jessica Gaudreault, who was in net for every one of Canada’s games in Paris after being left off the team’s main roster for the Tokyo Olympics.
Canada picked up a key victory over China to reach the playoff round as part of in its 1-3 record in the preliminary stage. Canada lost its quarter-final match to eventual-champion Spain, followed by two more defeats in classification games.
Sam Zakutney placed eighth as well in the men’s artistic gymnastics team competition. The 25-year-old revelled in the opportunity to make history alongside teammates with whom he shares a very close bond as Canada qualified the men’s team final for the first time ever.
“I hope this just inspires the young generation,” Zakutney said in an interview with the Sports Pages’ Jackson Starr. “I really hope it gets them all fired up and ready to keep working hard to continue that legacy forward.
“I’ll still be around to keep doing my part to make sure we keep meeting the standard that we now set this year, but I’m excited to see how they’re going to follow.”
Vanessa Gilles was the other Ottawa athlete to achieve a top-8 result, but her on-field and off-field contributions to the Canadian women’s soccer team were simply unforgettable.
It was quite the rollercoaster ride for the 28-year-old defender and Team Canada. Their tournament started with the drone cheating scandal, coaching suspensions and a six-point penalty.
Needing wins in every match in order to advance past the group stage, Gilles scored the team’s winning goal against both host France and again versus Columbia to claw Canada through to the quarterfinal.
While Canada was ultimately eliminated by Germany in penalty-kicks, Gilles’s passionate post-game interviews helped ignite an entire nation’s worth of support for the team’s players.
“Right now, I feel an immense amount of pride,” Gilles told CBC after the match against Columbia. “Pride for the players here, for the staff that are grinding it out, for the supporters, friends and family that are here.
“The friends and family came to our hotel and made sure that we felt the support and the love… just pride to be Canadian, pride to be a part of this group.”
Hallowed memories for Ottawa Olympians
There were many more memorable moments for Ottawa’s Olympians:
Canoe slalom paddler Lois Betteridge said it was “spectacular” to hear the roar of the crowd during her Olympic debut in whitewater kayak.
Archer Eric Peters also soaked up the energy from Olympic fans and won a single-arrow shootout to advance through his second knock-out match.
Marial Shayok was proud to be a part of a “surreal” Olympic debut for South Sudan’s men’s basketball team, which won its opening match.
Mike Woods was part of a late breakaway in the Olympic men’s cycling road race but couldn’t maintain podium pace. He raced alongside fellow Ottawa cyclist Derek Gee, who was coming off a top-10 finish at the Tour de France.
Kayakers Toshka Besharah-Hrebacka and Natalie Davison were another Ottawa pair who competed together in Paris, making their Olympic debuts in the same boat.
And swimmer Regan Rathwell enjoyed her unexpected trip to the Olympics, which she earned following four surgeries in 14 months shortly before the Canadian team trials.
“The feeling is indescribable,” Rathwell said of racing in the Olympics in an interview with Sports Pages reporter Adam Beauchemin. “I truly thought I would never get back to this level. I’m really grateful for the people that helped me get back. Special. That’s the only word I can really use to describe it.”
And with that… This concludes our daily Ottawa at the Olympics coverage, though we’ll be back once more to wrap things up and provide an update on our Ottawa Sports Pages Fund donation campaign and take a fun look back on some of our local Olympians’ earlier days in sport.
Thank you very much for following along, we hope you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as we have!