El Nino weakening doesn't mean cooler temperatures this summer, forecasters say
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Penny Oleksiak cemented herself as Canada's ultimate summer Olympic Games competitor with an unexpected medal in the pool Wednesday.
Her bronze in the 200-metre freestyle for a sixth career medal makes the 21-year-old from Toronto her country's most decorated summer Olympian.
"I just love the Olympics," Oleksiak said. "I think they're so fun. Just knowing the whole world is watching is super crazy."
She surpassed the five medals of rowing's Lesley Thompson-Willie and track and field's Phil Edwards.
One more medal and Oleksiak would move ahead of speedskater Cindy Klassen and speedskater/cyclist Clara Hughes into Canadian sport pre-eminence.
With more races to come in Tokyo, Oleksiak didn't have time to think about her place in history.
Defending a gold medal in the women's 100-metre freestyle and two more relays will keep her on the hop at the pool.
After claiming her bronze in the morning, Oleksiak swam the 100 heats in the evening and advanced to the semifinal.
A 16-year-old Oleksiak won gold in the 100-metre freestyle, silver in the 100-metre butterfly and a pair of freestyle relay bronze five years ago in Rio de Janeiro.
She anchored the women's 4 x 100 freestyle relay team to silver Sunday for a fifth medal.
"I don't think I'm here by chance," Oleksiak said. "I think every time in Rio I got a medal I was like 'I'm so lucky, I'm so lucky' but I think now I have a lot of confidence in my training and I know that I've put in a lot of work."
She didn't race the individual 200-metre freestyle in Rio, although she anchored Canada to bronze in the 4 x 200 relay.
Wednesday's final in Tokyo was just her second internationally after placing sixth in the 2019 world championship. What Oleksiak has discovered about the distance is it hurts, a lot.
"My legs are killing me right now," Oleksiak said afterwards.
Gold medallist Ariarne Titmus of Australia set an Olympic record of one minute 53.3 seconds ahead of silver medallist Siobhan Bernadette of Hong Kong in 1:53.92
Oleksiak led at the first turn, but was fourth at 150 metres. She clawed her way back into podium position and held off a late push by China's Junxuan Yang to touch the wall in 1:54.7.
"I knew it was going to be a dogfight and I was just happy to be a part of it, as weird as that sounds," Oleksiak said.
Oleksiak's medal was the fourth produced by the Canadian women's swim team in as many days following the relay silver, Maggie Mac Neil's butterfly gold and Kylie Masse's backstroke silver.
The Canadians are discovering they haven't lost ground to their competitors during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though they were out of the water longer than any other top-10 swim country in the world in the spring of 2020.
"Every country dealt with it differently and Ontario did not deal with it in the most ideal way for us, but for Team Canada, it's insane how many of our athletes, pretty much all of them, are coming in every single day positive, ready to race," Oleksiak said.
"I love that. It's really motivating for me."
Tokyo's Olympics were postponed from 2020 to 2021 because of the pandemic. June's domestic trials were Oleksiak's first real races in 15 months.
While she learned to appreciate huge volumes of training at Toronto's Pan Am Sports Centre in the absence of competition, racing gets her blood going.
"I'm just really happy to finally be here and get to race and get medals," Oleksiak said. "I love pressure a little bit, I guess. When I know it counts, I know I'm able to kind of show up for it."
Oleksiak posted the sixth-fastest time in the 100-metre preliminaries. Toronto's Kayla Sanchez also qualified for the semifinals in 10th.
Oleksiak sat out the 4 x 200 freestyle relay heats Wednesday, but she's expected to be inserted for the final Thursday morning (Wednesday evening in Canada).
Katerine Savard of Pont-Rouge, Que., Rebecca Smith of Red Deer, Alta., Marie-Sophie Harvey, of Trois-Rivieres, Que., and Sydney Pickrem of Clearwater, Fla., qualified Canada by finishing fourth in the heats.
The women's 100-metre freestyle final is Friday and Sunday's final swim session includes the medley relay.
Pickrem, who is a dual citizen with parents from Halifax, was sixth in the 200-metre individual medley Wednesday.
Markus Thormeyer of Delta, B.C., qualified for the men's 200-metre backstroke semifinal.
Toronto's Josh Liendo and Calgary's Yuri Kisil placed 14th and 15th respectively in the men's 100-metre freestyle semifinals.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 27, 2021.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
A 15-year old boy who was critically injured after a stabbing in Nepean on Thursday has died of his injuries, Ottawa's English public school board said Sunday.
Police say it’s fortunate no one was injured or killed in a collision at North Vancouver’s Park and Tilford shopping centre Saturday evening that sent one vehicle careening into a flower shop and another into a set of concrete barriers outside a Winners store.
The Maple Leafs battled back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Boston Bruins with consecutive 2-1 victories - including one that required extra time - in their first-round playoff series to push the club's Original Six rival to the limit before suffering a devastating Game 7 overtime loss.
Amid scientists' warnings that nations need to transition away from fossil fuels to limit climate change, Canadians are still lukewarm on electric vehicles, according to a study conducted by Nanos Research for CTV News.
Three people have died and two have been hospitalized after a speeding car struck a tree and landed on another vehicle in Fredericton Sunday morning.
A Montreal man is warning Tesla drivers about using the Smart Summon feature after his vehicle hit another in a parking lot.
Madonna put on a free concert on Copacabana beach Saturday night, turning Rio de Janeiro's vast stretch of sand into an enormous dance floor teeming with a multitude of her fans.
Thieves killed two Australians and an American on a surfing trip to Mexico in order to steal their truck, particularly because they wanted the tires, authorities said Sunday.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.