Athletes from the ‘island of honor’ are present in large numbers at the Summer Olympics in Paris

PARIS — Tyler Mislawchuk jumped into the Seine a day later than expected on Wednesday, after the originally scheduled date of the men’s Olympic triathlon had to be postponed due to high pollution levels Tuesday in the iconic but apparently still filthy river, despite the $2.1 billion Cdn has spent to clean up the river for the 2024 Summer Games.

Gold medallist Alex Yee of Great Britain and silver medallist Hayden Wilde of New Zealand, reminiscent of Germany’s Jan Frodeno and Victoria’s Simon Whitfield in Beijing in 2008, raced down the home straight of Paris in a 1-2 finish. Mislawchuk was in the race until late, taking a credible ninth place as the last honorary islander to compete in Paris. They are all over the French capital as a result of the 2024 Olympics. They are the ones who put the rest of their lives on hold to come and train at the various national sports centres on the island.

Mislawchuk, a prairie product, has been affiliated with the National Triathlon Centre in Victoria since 2015: “I’ve been to 27 countries now and Victoria is my favourite place to train in the world. There’s such a great setup and support with PISE and doctors, physiotherapists and chiropractors. I don’t mind running or cycling in the rain in Victoria in the winter. I’ll run and cycle in anything except snow.”

The latter sentiment largely ignores his native Manitoba. But it’s a complicated relationship that many of these centralized athletes have built with the island. They need to be on the island to achieve their Olympic dreams, but they’re torn because their families and friends are back in their hometowns.

“I am a proud born and raised Manitoban, but Victoria also feels like home,” says Mislawchuk.

Rowers Jennifer Casson and Jill Moffatt represented Canada at the Paris Olympics in the lightweight double sculls after finishing fourth at last year’s world championships. They are from Ontario but have lived on the island for seven years, first when Rowing Canada was still based on Elk Lake and since 2021 in Duncan, when it moved its training centre to Quamichan Lake in North Cowichan.

“We’ve been on the island since 2017, from Victoria to Duncan, so we’ve done quite a bit of travelling,” Moffatt said. “But it’s been great for me and Jenny. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Casson added: “The only sad thing for me is that my husband lives in Tampa and that’s a challenge. Other than that, there wasn’t a day that went by that I wasn’t grateful (for the Island training setup) and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

There’s no shortage of native islanders competing in Paris, with plenty of mixing and matching across a range of sports. Joining cyclists Erin Attwell and Sarah Van Dam, both from Victoria, and Maple Ridge’s Maggie Coles Lyster on the world-ranked Canadian women’s pursuit team, which will compete here at the Paris Olympic velodrome next week, is Ariane Bonhomme. The latter is from Gatineau, Quebec, and spends a lot of time training on the island: “I love riding the gravel roads up the island, and also the route from Sooke to Shawnigan Lake. It’s pretty special. We’re cycle tourists, but the island’s trails helped keep it fun as we prepared for Paris.”

Veteran rugby player Charity Williams won an Olympic silver medal Tuesday at the Stade de France with the Canadian women’s sevens team from Langford. Williams, also a bronze medalist with Canada at the 2016 Rio Olympics, noted that she is only 27 and is considering going for gold in Los Angeles in 2028 to complete her medal collection. That would mean four more years of training in Langford, where the Toronto native has called home since 2015, when she first centralized with the national team program and finished high school at the District 62-run Canadian Sports School-Victoria at PISE.

Williams also has mixed feelings about her adopted home: “I’m a 6 girl (slang for the Toronto area code). I still have a 647 phone number. But I’ve lived in Victoria for a long time and Vic is a second home and it’s beautiful.”

Good enough for Olympic bronze in 2016 and now Olympic silver in 2024.

“(Training hubs) are absolutely critical in a country as large as Canada,” said Tricia Smith, president of the Canadian Olympic Committee and a former Olympic rower.

“I was able to train at Elk Lake. It makes such a difference when the team is together and that camaraderie is built. The weather is better in the winter, especially for our sport and a lot of sports. It’s a really spectacular place to train. We need to take advantage of that in a country that has so much wealth in so many areas.”

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