A win in Rio for Canada’s women: They dominated

Welcome home, Olympians. Stittsville’s Erica Wiebe was greeted at the Ottawa airport Tuesday by around 100 enthusiastic fans. Gatineau’s Natasha Watcham-Roy, who brought home bronze with the Women’s Sevens Rugby team, also received a celebrity’s welcome.

Other Olympians arrived home to Canada Tuesday as well — Penny Oleksiak arrived in Toronto, wearing her gold medal. She won more medals at a single Summer Olympics than any other Canadian.

Wiebe, a 27-year-old gold medallist who lives in Calgary, had this to say about her wrestling strategy after her victory: “Pressure her, break her, make her want to quit.”

Impressive words. As significant as each individual medal is, as impressive as each accomplishment, personal best and step up on to the podium, the collective importance of this Olympics is even greater.

Mayor Jim Watson, who was at the airport, said of Wiebe, “She will be a role model for a lot of other athletes, particularly for young women.”

He’s right, and the 2016 Olympics were remarkable, not just because of Canada’s 22 medals — four gold, three silver and 15 bronze — but also because women dominated the show. Sixteen of those medals were won by women, and they dominated across an impressive range of sports — from swimming and rugby to wrestling. There was a gold medal in trampoline, and a bronze in mountain biking.

Rio yielded a veritable army of role models, and not just Canadians, either. Consider Simone Biles, the dominant American gymnast, rejecting comparisons to Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps: “I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I’m the first Simone Biles.”

Or Katie Ledecky, the American swimmer. The New York Times reported she’d “broken” male swimmers by beating them; Ledecky, cool as a cucumber, said she hadn’t noticed, and that, “I was probably just concentrating on doing my own work.”

Having role models in sport for young women matters not just to get more women into highlevel athletics. The Canadian Olympic Committee says that in 2010 four per cent of girls get enough physical activity daily; nine per cent of boys do. Only 19 per cent of women play sports, compared to 35 per cent of men. Here’s hoping this new generation of role models will get another generation enthused about sports.

Andrea Pretty, 19, who was at the airport to greet Wiebe, said the wrestler was an inspiration: “If she can do it and power through, then so can I. It’s a huge confidence booster.”

For Canadian sports, for Canadian women and girls, Rio 2016 was a huge success. Welcome home, and congratulations.