Canada projected to win nearly two dozen medals at Paris 2024 Olympics

Canada is expected to win a total of 22 medals, including six gold, at the upcoming Summer Olympics Games.

This forecast, done by Nielsen’s Gracenote Sports, supplies statistical analysis for sports leagues around the world. It also tracks major competitions involving Olympic sports leading up to the Games.

Canada won 24 medals, including seven gold, at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 — the country’s most successful Games outside the 44 won at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which was hit by a Soviet-led boycott from Eastern Bloc countries.

Evan Dunfee, a racewalker from Richmond, is currently training and participating in some races in Turkiye. The 33-year-old has so far qualified for one event and is hoping to expand on that.

“We have an Olympic qualifier for this new mixed team event coming up, so I’ll be racing on Sunday trying to qualify for the Olympics in a second event. The 20k is the event that I’m qualified in now and we have a mixed relay, one male, one female, we alternate legs, we cover a marathon distance — that’s a new event for Paris.”

He says he wasn’t sure he wasn’t sure he had it in him to do the Summer Olympics.

“The 50k racewalk was my main event. That’s the event I was fourth in, in Rio and won the bronze in that last kilometre charge in Tokyo. Unfortunately, they got rid of that event after Tokyo. The 50k is no more and I thought, ‘Am I really going to have the motivation to switch to the sprint event, as I call it.”

That event is the 20k and Dunfee says, he found the drive and is really excited to take on the best in the world.

He admits the training and lead-up to the Games can be gruelling on the body but admits it’s worth it when he gets to represent his country.

“The support back home, especially my hometown of Richmond, I cannot go on a single walk [while] training without people honking their horn, yelling out their windows saying, ‘Hey!’ or ‘Go Evan, go!’ I love that. I think it’s so amazing,” he said.

“I have people who I’ve seen every day for years now that I have no idea what their name is but if I don’t see them while I’m out training, I get worried. It’s really cool to know you have that impact.”

Dunfee is currently training seven days a week and will come back to Richmond before heading to Switzerland for altitude training in June.

He hopes Canadians support the team’s efforts and wants them to keep a lookout for the younger athletes making their way up the ranks.

“At the Pan Am Games in October, we had to go around and introduce ourselves and say what year our first national team was and when I told people it was 2006, there’s a couple of guys on that team that were born in 2003 and they couldn’t quite comprehend that. I do feel like I’m getting to be one of the older guys on the team, but it’s so inspiring.”

Dunfee is also using the Olympics to encourage everyone who can, to get some steps in.

“Walking is the most modular activity you can do. It can be as slow as walking your dog at a couple of kilometres an hour, all the way up to what I do at nearly 16 kilometres an hour and anything in between that. I’m not out there trying to create an army of racewalkers, but if you want to be more active, walking is a completely acceptable and fantastic place to start.”

The Pairs 2024 Olympic Games get underway July 26.

–With files from The Associated Press