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Updated July 23 with a newly named addition to the Canadian Olympic team, Shalaya Valenzuela.
About 10,500 athletes from around the world are getting ready to participate in the world’s most prestigious multi-sport competition.
The list of Canadians who will take part in the Summer Olympics, which kick off July 26 in Paris, France, includes four Indigenous athletes.
They are wrestler Justina Di Stasio, swimmer Apollo Hess, diver Margo Erlam and Fynn McCarthy, a member of the men’s volleyball squad.
All four of these athletes are making their Olympic debuts, and no doubt these Games, which continue until Aug. 11, will represent a career highlight in their respective athletic careers.
A closer look at these Indigenous athletes who will be chasing some Olympic hardware in Paris follows:
JUSTINA DI STASIO
Justina Di Stasio, a member of Norway House Cree Nation, already has an impressive collection of medals from prestigious international competitions.
Di Stasio, a 31-year-old who lives in East Vancouver, wants to add some Olympic hardware to her list of accomplishments.
She’ll be competing in the women’s 76-kilometre weight class in Paris. She earned her Olympic berth in late February at the Pan-American Olympic qualifiers in Acapulco, Mexico.
Di Stasio is a former world champion. She won the gold medal in her 72-kilogram event at the 2018 world tournament held in Budapest, Hungary’s capital city.
She also won gold medals at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru and at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
For Di Stasio, this will be her one and only Olympics as she plans to retire from the sport to focus on her teaching career.
APOLLO HESS
A decision to leave Alberta and move to train to Toronto has paid off for Apollo Hess.
A member of Kainai Nation in Alberta, Hess had been racking up his share of medals as a member of the University of Lethbridge swim team.
But Hess, who is 21, decided to put his schooling on hold last August so that he could move to Toronto and focus on his swimming at the High Performance Centre – Ontario.
His decision proved to be a wise one as Hess placed second in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke event at the Canadian Olympic swimming trials held in the Ontario capital city this past May. After that meet he was named to Canada’s Paris-bound swim team.
Hess started making a name for himself during his first year at the University of Lethbridge. He won five medals at the national USports swim meet in 2022. And he was named as the country’s rookie of the year at the Canadian university level.
MARGO ERLAM
Margo Erlam, who is Métis, earned her ticket to Paris at the Canadian diving trials, which were held this past May in Windsor, Ont.
Erlam, who is 21, won the women’s three-metre springboard event at those trials. And her routine earned enough points to meet Diving Canada’s Olympic qualification criteria. Erlam defeated Quebec’s Pamela Ware, a two-time Olympian, at the trials.
Like Hess, Erlam also left home to further her training. When she was 16 she moved from her Calgary home to go train with the Saskatoon Diving Club. Erlam is also currently a sociology student at the University of Saskatchewan.
Erlam has had some notable international results. She finished fifth, along with her partner Mia Vallee, at the women’s three-metre synchro event at the 2022 World Aquatic Championships in Budapest. Erlam also finished ninth in her individual one-metre event at that meet.
Erlam and Vallee also won the bronze medal in their three-metre event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
FYNN MCCARTHY
Fynn McCarthy, who is Métis, is one of 12 players that have cracked the roster for the Canadian men’s volleyball squad that will compete in Paris.
The team earned a spot into the Games with their second-place pool (division) finish at an Olympic qualifying tournament in China last October.
This marks the third straight Olympics that the Canadian men’s volleyball team has taken part. McCarthy, who is from Lake Country, B.C., and his teammates will be looking to improve upon Canada’s eighth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, a year later than originally scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canada will enter this year’s Games as the ninth-ranked team in the world.
McCarthy and his teammates enjoyed some recent success in the Volleyball Nations League held during May and June.
The Canadian squad placed fifth in preliminary-round action and was eliminated following a quarter-final loss to Japan, the eventual silver medalists of the competition.
SHALAYA VALENZUELA
It was announced on July 22 that another Indigenous athlete, Shalaya Valenzuela, a member of Tseshaht First Nation in British Columbia, will also be part of the Canadian contingent in Paris.
Valenzuela, who is from Abbotsford, B.C., was added as a reserve player to the women's rugby sevens squad.
Valenzuela, who is 25, was not on the original list of 12 players that had been named to the club earlier this month.