Canada Games can be a pipeline to Olympic glory, Catriona Le May Doan says

In one year, the Canada Games will be well underway in St. John's.

For athletes in Newfoundland and Labrador, the games will provide a stepping-stone opportunity that could bring them to the Olympics.

Speed-skating legend Catriona Le May Doan Canada Games alumnusand Olympic gold medallist lived the Canada Games to Olympics pipeline and says others can, too.

"The number of athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics that have come from Canada Games is huge. And I have that experience," Le May Doan told CBC News this week.

She competed in athletics during the 1993 Canada Games, and she competed in speed skating in the 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2002 Olympics.

The Canada Games which will run next summer between Aug. 8 and Aug. 25 arespecial,Le May Doan said.

"They're uniquely Canadian. No other country in the world does anything like the Canada Games," she said.

For athletes, she says, it helps them realize there's more than just you and your sport. Competing in the Canada Games becomes about the province athletes represent.

"It's about all these other sports and representing the same, province and territorycolours, and it's more than just about me," she said. "It really is an opportunity to sort of learn how it works at larger games like the Olympics or Paralympics."

The Canada Games has Olympic Village-style accommodations. The Memorial University of Newfoundland will host the athletes in its student residences.

"All of a sudden now you're in a village and you're in a dorm with other sports and you get to go watch them and you watch their successes and their struggles and you realize that there's sort of this normality to what you're going through," Le May Doan said.

'You want to succeed at that moment'

She says all the athletes have the same desire:to succeed.

"You want to succeed, but it's once every four years. Then you want to succeed at that moment. Then you learn how to deal with successes, and you learn how to deal with struggle."

Not all Canada Games athletes will become Olympians, but Le May Doan said both milestones are huge.

"There will be athletes with St. John's and surrounding areas next year that, you know, this will be the stepping stone for the next level of their sporting career. But there will also be athletes who are going, 'This is the highest I'm going to get,' and it's huge," she said.

Le May Doan wants to see all levels of government prioritize sports. She said it helps with health and builds provincial and national pride.

"We know the positive health benefits of sports physically, mentally, socially, and we want people to be active because we know it's going to take strain off of our healthcare system," she said.

"COVID taught us we need to be active, we need to be social, we need the mental health of our nation, and sport does that," Le May Doan said.

Meanwhile, work continues on preparing sites that will be used for the Games, including the $40-million track and field centre being built along the Aquarena, near Memorial's main campus.

Project lead Tonya Knopp, manager of facilitiesengineering with the City of St. John's, said the facility has been a team effort.

"I'm just really looking forward to seeing it all come together as a as a full project. We have so many different subcontractors on site," she said. "There's a lot of co-ordination that's required to bring all of this together."

The soccer turf, track and athletics field are expected to be built by this fall. The whole project has a completion target of April.

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