~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
This coverage was first sent as an email newsletter to our subscribers. Sign up to receive it, for free, on our Ottawa at the Olympics page.
Newsletter by Dan Plouffe, Martin Cleary & Keiran Gorsky
Let the Games begin! The Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games officially started this evening with the Opening Ceremonies at San Siro Stadium, and a number of Ottawa Olympians were among those marching in with Team Canada.
(You’ll most easily be able to spot three of our local bobsledders beside their teammate Shaq Murray-Lawrence carrying the Canada sign for the group of athletes based in Cortina d’Ampezzo.)
WATCH CBC SPORTS | Canadian athletes enter Olympic venues at opening ceremony festivities
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
Our Ottawa Sports Pages team is very excited to share the stories of our 16 Olympians from the Ottawa area over the next 17 days. From today until the Games close on Feb. 22, our newsletter subscribers find us in your inbox each evening. That’s when competition will have concluded for the night in Italy, which is six hours ahead of us in Ottawa.
Before you get too deep into time change mathematics to figure out when you’ll be able to catch your favourite athletes in action, we’ve got a great tool you can utilize on our website – the OTTAWA OLYMPIANS’ SCHEDULES PAGE.
There you can view the competition calendar for all our Ottawa athletes (in our time zone). You can also use the “Ottawa Olympians’ Schedules” navigation bar at the top of our website to select an individual athlete. You can then click on the “subscribe to calendar” menu at the bottom of the athlete’s schedule page to add/export their events to your digital calendar.
You can watch events live on TV with CBC, TSN or Sportsnet and online via CBCsports.ca or CBC Gem. We’ll be sharing lots of clips and coverage from Canada’s national Olympics broadcast rightsholder throughout the Games when they highlight Ottawa athletes too.
What else have we got in store? In our daily newsletter, our reporting team will give you a recap of that day’s events, plus a preview of what’s to come. We’ll have interviews with athletes, and others involved with the Olympics too. (Just in case you’re wondering, our reporting team is based here in Canada, so we’ll be connecting with our local Olympians online/by phone whenever possible.)
We have an awesome team of 16 Ottawa Olympians ready to compete in Milano Cortina (plus several more NHL and PWHL players from the Ottawa Senators and Charge, and some others with looser connections to the capital).
We’ll tell you a lot more about each of them throughout the Olympics in our daily coverage, but here are the local athletes we’ll be following in the coming weeks:
You’re welcome to check out the pre-Games profiles we’ve put together on each of our Ottawa Olympians via the links above or on this central webpage.
Here are a few neat statistics on our local team:
• They are a relatively experienced group from Ottawa – more than half of Team Canada are Olympic rookies, but Ottawa has 11 returning to the Games, with five set to make their debuts.
• About 1 out of 8 Team Canada athletes is from the capital region, which is more than double as many as you’d expect based on our population.
• Speed skater Ivanie Blondin is the most experienced of the bunch, set to enter her fourth (and likely final) Olympics, while Beijing 2022 triple-medallist Isabelle Weidemann, curler Rachel Homan and alpine skier Valérie Grenier are attending their third Olympics. All are certainly considered medal threats.
• And Jared and Hannah Schmidt (ski cross) are one of four sets of siblings on Team Canada set to compete in Milano Cortina.
We can’t wait to share our local Olympians’ stories with you in the next couple weeks! You can find all of our coverage in one place on our Ottawa at the Olympics central webpage at:
OttawaSportsPages.ca/Ottawa-at-the-Olympics
If you’ve got friends who love the Olympics, be sure to let them know they can sign up to get our free daily newsletters there too.
By clicking on the submit button, you consent to receive a newsletter from Ottawa Sports Pages. You may unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the bottom of our emails. Ottawa Sports Pages | 21 Kolo Dr., Ashton, ON., K0A 1B0
Ottawa Olympians in action on Feb. 7:
Day 1 Preview: Isabelle Weidemann’s third Winter Olympics could feature historic medals, mentorship
One of the first Ottawa Olympians in action at the Games is none other than our most decorated athlete from the 2022 Games, Isabelle Weidemann.
That distinction was originally to go to women’s hockey goaltender Kayle Osborne, but her first match, which had been scheduled for yesterday, wound up being postponed due to a virus that has knocked out much of the Finnish team.
Osborne, the 23-year-old from Munster who is slotted as Canada’s #3 goalie for the tournament, will still see her first action Saturday when Canada takes on Switzerland at 3:10 p.m. ET, while the match against Finland has been rescheduled for Feb. 12, the day before the quarter-final round is due to start.
Weidemann will be racing in the long-track speed skating women’s 3,000 metres, just like in 2022 when she won Canada’s first medal of the Games. That bronze medal win mirrored the moment that the Gloucester Concordes skater’s Olympic dream a dozen years before then when fellow Ottawan Kristina Groves earned the same colour medal in the same event on the opening day of speed skating at the Vancouver 2010 Games.
Now, Weidemann stands at the doorway to Canadian Olympic greatness, reports High Achievers columnist Martin Cleary in his pre-Games feature on the 30-year-old Colonel By Secondary School grad.
That door is currently locked. But the Gloucester Concordes Speed Skating Club member can open it, if she develops the right code during an 11-day period by winning her fourth, fifth and sixth Olympic medals in Milano.
That would make her just the third Canadian to win six career medals at a Winter Olympic Games. And while that vaunted status is no given by any means, Cleary breaks down the reasons that kind of encore performance could be in the cards.
You can read his full feature here.
Also getting her Games underway Saturday will be Katherine Stewart-Jones in the women’s cross-country skiathlon (10 km classic style & 10 km free technique).
The 30-year-old Nakkertok Nordic athlete will be competing in her second Olympics. She was the only Canadian to meet pre-selection criteria for the Olympics, which put her in the unique position of being able to dictate her preparation, but with less national team involvement than in the past.
You can read Cleary’s pre-Games profile on Stewart-Jones here.
We’re look forward to telling you more about all the action tomorrow evening, when you’ll hear from us next. Enjoy the Games!
Ottawa at the Olympics Newsletter
The Ottawa Sports Pages will produce an Ottawa at the Olympics Newsletter throughout the Feb. 6-22 Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, featuring daily recaps, previews and competition schedules. Sign up to receive it in your inbox for free below.