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Newsletter by Tyler Reis-Sanford, Martin Cleary, Dan Plouffe, Keiran Gorsky & Farrah Philpot
Team Ontario’s paddlers once again brought home a bevy of medals in the canoe-kayak events on Wednesday at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games, and Kanata’s Ryan Naroditsky helped lead the charge.
After earlier victories in the K-4 men’s 500 metres and K-2 500 m, Naroditsky continued his winning streak in the K-1 500 m and the K-2 200 m with Ottawa’s Fred Brais. The Rideau Canoe Club pair cruised to victory in style, winning their finals by a margin of nearly two full seconds.
Two seconds may not seem like a wide margin, but the 1.695-second gap between first-place Ontario and runner-up Quebec was larger than the gap between Quebec and fifth-place Alberta.
Naroditsky said the encouragement and applause from his friends, family and teammates help him to perform at his best.
“The cheer squad here for Team Ontario has been amazing,” Naroditsky underlined in a phone interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Tyler Reis-Sanford. “There’s also the big drum they bring out. That’s always cool to hear, especially to hype you up before a race.”
Not to be outdone, Naroditsky’s family has been a massive support to the star paddler as well.
“I got a text from my older brother who lives in Montreal,” noted Naroditsky. “All three races that I’ve won so far, he always texts me saying ‘good job, you’re the best, I’m proud of you.’ Knowing that there’s people who believe in you makes you want to push yourself even further.”
Despite only having a week to get in sync with his teammates, and only having “three or four” opportunities to get in the water with them, Naroditsky said he’s been really impressed by the hard work and talent of his fellow Ontario teammates.
“It was the first time we were ever in the boat together,” highlighted Naroditsky. “The second we sat in the boat, we felt really good right off the bat.”
True to Naroditsky’s words, Team Ontario was a mainstay on the podium on the third day of canoe-kayak competition. Fellow Rideau Canoe Club member Kate Osborne took home three medals Wednesday, winning silver in the K-4 women’s 500 m and K-1 200 m events, and bronze in the K-4 200m race.
Isabel Lowry of the Carleton Place Canoe Club had another dominant showing, winning back-to-back medals as she took home gold in the C-1 women’s 500 m race, winning by a margin of more than five seconds.
Rideau’s Ruby Muhl and Carleton Place’s Abbigail Haines captured silver in the C-2 200 m sprint, and then Muhl later teamed up in the mixed division with fellow Rideau paddler Wesley Bartlett to claim yet another medal, this time earning bronze in the C-2 mixed 500 m race.
Ontario rugby sevens men win gold on final play, women take silver
Ontario’s men’s and women’s rugby sevens sides both entered the day undefeated, and the women’s team continued to look unstoppable through the semi-finals with a solid 22-7 drubbing of Team Alberta. The match opened with a quick try from Ainsley McDonald of the Ottawa Irish, and finished with an end-to-end score from ShonDreya Smardon of the Barrhaven Scottish.
The men’s semifinal match proved to be more of a challenge, as a feisty Quebec team seemed unfazed that Ontario was entering the match without having ever trailed in the tournament. Quebec attacked Ontario with speed and aggression, taking an early 5-0 lead, and entered haltime holding a 12-5 lead over a stunned Ontario squad.
The second half saw Scottish players Jack Priestman, Declan Crew-Gee, and the rest of Team Ontario return to form. With a focus on ball control and steady play, Ontario executed well and maintained possession for most of the second half.
“In 15s, it’s all about keeping territory, in sevens, it’s all about possession,” Priestman noted in a pre-Games interview with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Tyler Reis-Sanford. “No matter what you keep the ball because it’s only seven minutes (per half) and if you lose the ball that could be the game ended.”
In the end, possession won out, and Ontario moved on to the finals after scoring 19 unanswered points for a final score of 24-12.
Next up was the women’s turn to face their biggest test yet in the form of similarly undefeated British Columbia.
Barrhaven Scottish star Grace Dingwall continued to make her presence felt on the pitch, contributing on a number of key tackles and opening the scoring to put Ontario up 5-0. Shortly afterwards, the back from Nepean High School found a gap in the opposing defence, and nearly scored again before being taken down by a desperate toe-tapping tackle. The space Dingwall created quickly led to another score on the wing, and Ontario looked confident entering halftime up 10-0.
The second half proved to be more difficult for Ontario, which fell a step behind the B.C. attack. In the end, B.C. managed to storm back into the game, pouring on 22 straight points to claim gold.
For the final match at Swilers Rugby Club, the men went up against the same challenge the women faced, another undefeated B.C. team. Unlike the women however, the men’s side started slow but finished fast.
The game opened with B.C. beating Ontario at their own game, recovering their own kickoffs and starving Ontario of possession, just like Ontario did to Quebec. On the back foot, Ontario went down 12-0 early, before a yellow card at the end of the first half turned Ontario’s fortunes, earning them a penalty try and a man advantage to open the second half.
Priestman entered the game just moments into the second half to replace injured captain Adam Dome, and made a number of key tackles in the final frame of the tournament.
In the end, it was a last-second try from Brock University’s Koen Shroeder that put Team Ontario on top. The score came on the very last play of the game, off of a turnover from British Columbia.
WATCH | Team Ontario men’s rugby sevens championship-winning try
In basketball, the Ontario men lost their final pool match 93-85 to Alberta but still finished atop the standings on tiebreaker. Ontario, Quebec and Alberta all finished the preliminary round 2-1, but Ontario earned the highest seed.
Both Ontario and Alberta played fast and physical in their contest, and the 6’8″ forward Godson Okokoh of Orleans was kept busy in the paint, grabbing rebounds and swatting down shots as quickly as Alberta could take them.
Ontario trailed for most of the game, often by double digits, but with three minutes left to play, they led by four, only to see it vanish two minutes later as Alberta closed the game with an 18-6 run.
Capital Courts Academy’s Emmanuel Oko-Oboh did not take the court for the first time this tournament.
CCA’s Daniella Appoh and the Team Quebec women lost 71-54 to B.C. as both provinces finished pool play 1-2.
In cycling, second-year racer and Algonquin College firefighting student Cadie Geertsema placed 17th in the women’s road cycling final. The summertime park ranger battled not just the heat but also weather impacted by wildfires. Her time of 2:48:01 for the 85.4 km event was just 12 seconds behind the 15-rider pack that was awarded the same time in a sprint finish. Elly Moore was Ontario’s top rider in sixth place.
In women’s box lacrosse, Ontario breezed into the medal round with a dominant and polished performance, hammering Saskatchewan 8-1. Goaltender Kyleigh Payne of the Nepean Knights was the backup in the contest.
Sailing was postponed for a second consecutive day due to wildfires near the Royal Newfoundland Yacht Club, but competition is expected to resume Thursday with Britannia Yacht Club’s Brodie Sorensen tied atop the standings after two races.
“It’s been a long two days of waiting,” said Sorensen.
In swimming, Jordyn Richardson of the Ottawa Young Olympians won her preliminary heat in the women’s 100 m backstroke in 1.05.25 – the fifth-best time among the 47 entered – and then placed fifth in the final.
Richardson swam 100 m more leading off the Ontario women’s 4×100 m medley relay with the backstroke for Ontario, which finished fourth.
Deniz Capraz of the Nepean-Kanata Barracudas was 20th in the men’s 200 m freestyle and reached the men’s 200 m butterfly ‘A’ final, finishing eighth.
Day 6 Preview: Ottawa’s youngest Canada Games athlete will swim for fourth medal
Ottawa’s Deniz Capraz and Jordyn Richardson are polar opposites when it comes to their preference for race length – Capraz loves the distance and Richardson is a sprinter – but they can both agree that they like the freestyle stroke.
Capraz will race his favoured 1,500 m freestyle Thursday and then he’ll take to the open waters for the 3,000 m outdoor race.
Richardson will return to her preferred stroke for the women’s 100 m free, she’s a good candidate to race the mixed 4×100 m free relay.
On Monday, the 13-year-old won her third medal of the Games with a silver in the women’s 4×100 m freestyle relay. That completed her set of St. John’s medals following her mixed 4×100 m medley relay gold and women’s 50 m free bronze on Sunday.
The breakout performance wouldn’t have happened had the Barrhaven athlete not reconsidered swimming about four years ago.
She could easily have passed on the water sport, when she was only six or seven years old. At that point, she was taking swim lessons, but when it came time for her first test, she didn’t make the necessary grade to move ahead.
“In my first year, I refused to duck my head in the water and I didn’t pass the test. That was my style,” Richardson recalled in a pre-Games interview with High Achievers columnist Martin Cleary.
Richardson wasn’t totally heartbroken at not passing her first swim test because she already was immersed in competitive artistic gymnastics at the Nepean Corona School of Gymnastics.
But then she reached a point in her gymnastics career where she had to reconsider her future. Suddenly, swimming was back on the starting blocks for her.
“I was a competitive gymnast up to two years ago. My schedule was full (and couldn’t accommodate swimming),” Richardson added. “I did gymnastics for a very, very long time.
“Swimming was new to me at the same time and gymnastics was getting a little bit harder. I progressed to a higher level, but it was more dangerous and I had a mental block. It was hard to continue.”
Richardson found Level 7 on the Ontario gymnastics competitive scale too challenging, a year after winning the Level 6 gold medal in vault at the Ontario age-group championships.
When Richardson started training at the Ottawa Youth Olympians Club with coach Norma Perez, she saw a return to a positive frame of mind for sports.
Richardson now practises eight times a week at a variety of pools in Ottawa, since OYO lost its home pool about 12 years ago with the closure of the Carlingwood YM-YWCA’s Lockhart Ave. facility. She also has three dryland sessions each week.
In January, Richardson broke her wrist in a fall while trying to catch a city bus and needed two months of recovery and rehabilitation.
But by June, she’d qualified to compete at her first Canadian swimming trials in Victoria. At only 13 years old, she was one of the youngest swimmers competing at the trials against the best junior and senior athletes in the country for berths on teams to various international and domestic competitions.
As the third youngest in the field of 74 swimmers in the women’s 50-metre freestyle, Richardson tied for 27th place, after the preliminary heats with a time of 26.78 seconds. In a three-swimmer time trial to break the tie and secure the reserve junior final berth, Richardson went even faster with a clocking of 26.38 seconds, which equalled the Ontario girls’ 13-year-old record for the 50-metre freestyle. It was originally set in 2007.
“I love the 50 free. I’m not a long-distance swimmer. I like to go as fast as I can. I go as fast as I can,” Richardson confidently pointed out.
In the women’s 100-metre backstroke, she was 24th overall after the heats and 11th among juniors in 1:04.57, which qualified her for the B final. She was seventh in the secondary final and 15th overall in 1:05.40.
The trials and several other swim meets between April and June allowed Swim Ontario to determine its 34-swimmer team for the Canada Summer Games.
In June, Richardson was in a Quebec swim meet at the Jean-Drapeau aquatic complex, when Perez gave her unexpected good news. Richardson had already won six races at the meet and Perez put the cherry on top by telling she had been selected to Team Ontario for the Canada Summer Games.
“I was very, very excited. I was very happy,” exclaimed Richardson.
On top of the freestyle, Richardson will throw in a 50 m butterfly on her Thursday schedule as well.
Other local athletes in action Thursday:
Powered in part by Josh Adamson’s perfect record, Ontario’s mixed tennis team will face PEI in their morning quarterfinals series.
After taking Wednesday as a much-needed day of rest, Adamson will seek to continue his dominant run that saw him capture Tennis Canada U16 national titles in both singles and doubles.
Adamson has been dominant thus far in the tournament, not only remaining undefeated in three matches, but also managing to win every set, in both singles and doubles action.
As Ontario enters the quarterfinals as the highest-ranked team in tennis for the first time since 2017, coach Bobby Mahal told the Sports Pages’ Tyler Reis-Sanford that he’s confident in his players’ abilities to keep that momentum going, and thinks that Ontario has a real chance to bring home gold.
“Because he (Adamson) was coming off a pretty hectic tournament schedule, I had him play doubles against Alberta,” Mahal said of Ontario’s opening series. “But then against B.C. and Quebec, he played in singles matches… he’s the number one player from Ontario.”
Godson Okokoh, Emmanuel Oko-Oboh and the Ontario men’s basketball team will play an evening quarterfinal match against New Brunswick, while Daniella Appoh’s Quebec women will face Nova Scotia in an afternoon quarterfinal.
After meeting their fate in the Canada Games’ pool of death, Reinaldo Abraham, Luca Ugarte and the Ontario men’s soccer team have a placement round game against PEI as they battle for fifth through eighth positions.
Kyleigh Payne and the Ontario women’s box lacrosse team will face Alberta in an evening semi-final for a spot in the gold medal game. Ontario topped Alberta 5-3 in their earlier preliminary round encounter.
Ottawa at the Canada Games Daily Newsletter
A huge team of 48 Ottawa athletes is competing at the St. John’s 2025 Canada Summer Games in Newfoundland. The Ottawa Sports Pages will be sending out a free daily email newsletter with recaps, previews and profiles throughout the Aug. 9-24 national youth multi-sport event.
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