Player's Own Voice

Athletics experts are losing their minds over Damian Warner’s performance in the Tokyo Decathlon. Sports scientists might accurately say what he did was an order of magnitude greater than a single event gold. And in fact, what Warner achieved would have got him in the finals or on the podium in at least a couple of the individual versions of the decathlon’s ten events. But those are details in the face of the two real headlines. First- Warner scored over 9000 points. In the history of his sport- which is either 140 years old or ten times that age, depending on who you argue with, only three people had managed that tally before yesterday. And not one of them at the Olympics, until Warner battled the field, and enervating heat to deliver 9018 points. The other headline only needs four letters. GOLD. No Canadian has ever done that in Decathlon. Warner is happy to acknowledge all the above. Just don’t make him wear the ‘world’s greatest athlete’ label. That traditional accolade for the Olympic Decathlon champion fits the London, Ontario man better than it does anyone else, but Warner is not given to that kind of swagger. As he says to Anastasia, all he really wants now, after two days of beyond- intense competition, is to get home and make funny noises for his baby boy Theo.

Just like a balance beam routine, Gymnast Ellie Black’s entire Olympic experience teetered on the edge of disaster. She managed to salvage an inspirational fourth place on the beam, despite a freshly re-injured ankle. Which really was a matter of snatching improbable triumph back from the brink of a much more likely painful retreat. Perhaps the least-surprised person in this Olympic drama is Black herself. The 25 year old Canadian Artistic Gymnastics team leader has always led by example, always rolled with the bad breaks, and always encouraged her teammates to see that setbacks are the proving ground for great competitors. Fuelled by very little sleep and even less breakfast, Ellie Black sat down with Anastasia to try and make some sense of the Tokyo experience. This conversation also flirted with disaster, as Black’s exhaustion ran up against a tide of excitement about heading home to Halifax. If we have learned one thing, watching this three time Olympian in action though: she always shows up on game day.

In a crowd of perhaps overly media-trained athletes, Penny Oleksiak lets it all hang out. Canada’s most decorated Olympian has a knack for saying exactly what’s on her mind in interviews. Shortly after Penny scooped medal number seven into her loot bag, the swimming phenom came through the International Broadcast Center in Tokyo to do her duty with the awaiting media. CBC Sports Player’s Own Voice podcast seized the moment to document a not-too polished picture of the Olympic experience from an athlete’s point of view. What’s really on your mind amid all the hubbub and cameras? How does it actually feel to win more Olympic medals than anyone in Canadian history? Exactly what kind of fun will you grant yourself before buckling down again? How much did you hate practising through all those early, unsung years, and do the podium trips make it all worthwhile? It’s a funny and freewheeling fifteen minutes...Anastasia Bucsis puts her new besty at ease, and barely a responsible word is spoken.

Rosie MacLennan has never lacked for admirers. But the four-time Olympian and only Canadian ever to deliver back-to- back golds in the same event earned a whole new level of respect in Tokyo this week. It wasn’t just that her trampoline routine drew gasps from judges, or that she soared to fourth place on a barely healed ankle fracture. It was more that MacLennan’s first thoughts as she entered the obligatory mix zone, were congratulations to her fellow competitors. A graceful gesture in the spotlight , sure, but MacLennan has lived those words behind the scenes for nearly two decades now. She is devoted to the causes of women and girls in sport. Her masters research was all about rights and responsibilities for athletes. And while school kids across Canada have suffered academic setbacks during the pandemic, Rosie has consistently fought to keep physical literacy on the agenda too. Taking a thoughtful fifteen minutes in the International Broadcast Center with Anastasia Bucsis this weekend, MacLennan was obviously happy to skip any talk about her historic competitive career... and argue instead for the virtues of 'disorganized play' among youngsters. Which only confirms what her fellow athletes have said about her all along. Give MacLennan a platform, and she’ll rise to it, for all the best reasons.

Felix Auger-Aliassime’s first Olympic tennis events did not end the way he wanted them to. But the world’s youngest top 20 player has perspective on the experience that would be admirable in someone twice his age. His early singles upset loss was partly about his serve having less than its usual impact. That’s tennis, it happens. But Auger-Aliassime corrected his service nicely when he moved on to his first-ever mixed doubles match alongside Gabriela Dabrowski. Imagine trying an event for the first time, at the Olympics. Auger-Aliassime absorbed huge lessons from his new situation. The geometry, the mixed doubles strategy of forcing unlikely angles on opponents, he soaked it up in a hurry. But the main takeaway for Auger-Aliassime was that, while some professional athletes are less enthusiastic about competing at the Olympics, he was all-in for Tokyo, if only because it met his own personal sense of what’s right. Auger-Aliassime tells Anastasia that there’s no question, the essence of the Olympics is that every country sends its best athletes. When the country asks, you go. And meantime...Paris is only three years away. Should be a better outing, even at the ripe old age of 23.

She's the 2019 world number one junior tennis player. Still only 18 years old, the Canadian competitor has just finished a very respectable Olympic debut. Fernandez won her opening match, and only fell short against Barbora Krejcikova, who happens to be this year’s French Open winner in both singles and doubles. But if you think this young player finds solace in being outplayed only by a current grand slam winner, you’d be sorely underestimating the competitor’s mind. Fernandez hates to lose. Period. She also hates it when so-called tennis experts dismiss athletes who don’t have classic physiques. Fernandez is adamant that you needn’t be a giant to thrive in sport. All it takes is for coaches and federations to recognize and work with a player’s raw attributes. She makes it very clear to Anastasia, Instinct and drive can take it from there.

Tammara Thibeault, Canadian middleweight, has her first Olympic bout tonight. That’s got to be an anxious time for many boxers, but when Tamm steps into the ring, it's usually kind of a zen experience. Just before the opening bell, no matter what her opponent is up to, Tammara finds herself calm, focussed, knowing her business. When people call it the sweet science- that’s a euphemism, but not Thibeault. She‘s a fan of what she calls ‘pretty boxing’. Thibeault is a mover, a technical fighter, and she’s got a wicked jab. There’s a dance happening when she’s on her game. Of course, it takes two to tangle, and tonight’s dance card sees Tamm facing Nadezhda Ryabets, of the mighty Kazakh Boxing team. But as Thibeault tells Anastasia, she does her homework before every bout. She knows who she’s up against, she’s got a battle plan, and a realistic outlook. “It’s not tennis, right?” Tamm Takes a beat before delivering the closer. “Somebody’s going to get beaten up.”

When it comes to bike racing, the biggest compliment your peers can pay you is when they stay on your wheel at all times. If you aren’t a threat to win, nobody needs to chase when you try to ride off the front of the peloton. So coming into the Olympic road race, Canadian Michael Woods had an excellent strategy in place: keep an eye on the winner of the last two Tours De France, Tadej Pogacar, and do his best to chase Belgian climber and sprinter, Wout Van Aert. Trouble is, guess who those two professional beasts were following in the field of 100 racers? Bingo. The pack has wised up to the fact that when conditions are hot, wet or windy, climbs are relentless, and distances above 200 kilometers...Rusty Woods is the man to beat. He is too modest to say so, chatting with Anastasia today from the Olympic Village, but Woods played his cards perfectly Saturday. He was super aggressive on Mount Fuji, climbing to the front of the field, but the world’s best riders were nervously marking his every move. Woods' fifth-place finish is a deceptive result...in a six hour race, he missed a silver medal by hundredths of a second. The Canadian gets the last laugh though. While the rest of the cyclists were off to yet another dreary ice bath...Rusty was hopping a plane home to Andorra, where he and his wife Elly are expecting a little brother for their toddler daughter any second now.

Skylar Park is one of only two Taekwondo athletes that Canada has sent to Tokyo. But she’s aiming for the finals in the Olympic 57 kilogram class. The friendly but lethal young Winnipegger has caught the attention of the martial arts world. With sixteen black belts in Skylar’s immediate family, she has been sparring for 20 of her 22 years. That’s not a typo. She was two when she got into the Korean martial art! Just before the high kicks started flying, Park caught up with Anastasia to talk about her odds for gold (respectable) the source of her confidence (she’s been beating up older boys since she was three) and her family’s remarkable footprint in the prairies (their Taekwondo school is a Winnipeg institution). The Tokyo Summer games are Skylar Park’s first Olympics. She has every intention of returning for Paris 2024, and when those games roll around, there’s a solid chance she’ll have her two little brothers as teammates.

World champion Hurdler and acclaimed new author, Perdita Felicien will be covering track and field events at the Tokyo Olympics. She shares her insights about the racing days to come on the Player's Own Voice podcast this morning. Spoiler alert- there are no firm predictions about who is going to take the women's 100m finals, but plenty of confidence in saying that particular race will be one for the ages. Felicien is also frankly obsessed with Beach volleyball. And weightlifting. Which only proves, when it comes to the Olympics, everyone has their thing. Host Anastasia Bucsis can't resist probing some of the still raw stories from Perdita's book. 'My Mother's Daughter' describes she and her mom's own childhood, and the precarious circumstances that the two of them managed to overcome as they fled poverty, abuse, and uncertainty. Perdita tells a story like she runs: Fast. Powerful. And leaving you no choice but to pay attention.

Lauren Bay-Regula is exactly where she wants to be. Thirteen years since the last time she played Olympic fastball, the pitcher is back on the mound, throwing heat and helping a team of mostly much younger players wrap their heads around playing the game at the highest possible level. Just a few weeks before their first tilt (a four- nothing win over Mexico) and a few days more before the Tokyo opening ceremonies, Anastasia Bucsis caught up with the mother of three, and second time around baller. It has not been an easy return to full time sport for Bay-Regula, or her business partner/husband. But he and the kids got behind her dream. She needed every bit of that support while she was working her way through a serious post partum depression, and the lingering miserable memories of having missed the podium by a tiny margin back in 2008. Compared to that, throwing fastballs for the first time in more than a decade was a piece of cake.

Bo Levi Mitchell is back in business. He had his iffy shoulder fixed during the CFL’s pandemic furlough, and he’s raring to QB Calgary toward another Grey Cup. Even though the twice- league MVP is known for his cannon, he takes a back seat to no one in the conversation department. Settling in behind the mic on Player’s Own Voice podcast this week, Bo holds forth on Football in Texas, and his ownership of high school records in that state. He leads us through the highs and lows of his college campaigns. He threw the most interceptions in NCAA one year, and won it all the next. Bo envisions an XFL-CFL future, with gambling, The Rock, and Drake or Biebs luring younger eyeballs back to the gridiron. And he’s all in for the Canadian game, by the way. The big field, three downs, those are sacred once the two leagues get serious about matchmaking. He’s also got a blunt assessment of economics and the NFL...When is major money a major problem? When it scares owners into dangerously slow development of new players. If the second quarterback looks sharper than the 90 million dollar guy? Owners don’t care for looking like they overpaid. Bo Levi Mitchell is a bit of a lightning rod. He’s probably never going to get hugged on the streets of Saskatchewan, but he’s also never going to zip it for fear of riling the critics. And he’s in fine form today.

Watch out for the athletes who make it look easy. They are the ones who have poured agonies of effort into every millisecond of their game. Olympic Gymnastics Champion Kyle Shewfelt is a prime example. The ‘Style of Kyle’ was practically balletic, but every ‘effortless’ gesture was the product of intense, obsessive hard work. CBC’s Gymnastics and Trampoline analyst explores the many layers of mental and physical effort that excellence demands in his new autobiography ‘Make it Happen’, but almost more fascinating than his years of chasing a perfect routine, is his time spent adrift when the competitive career ended. Kyle tried to fit into a few new careers, and he is no enemy of hard work...but it wasn’t until he was slapped in the face by the obvious that he remembered- Gymnastics! That’s what I love- I’ll open a gym! Kyle and his fellow Calgarian Anastasia Bucsis broaden the talk to issues that define his sport internationally now. Why are male gymnasts revered in Germany and Japan, but elsewhere seen as lesser athletes than those in team contact sports? Why can't robo-judging take some of the bias out of artistic gymnastics scores? And why do Gymnastic routines and difficulty points never stay the same from one season to the next? You'll be watching Gymnastics like a pro when the Tokyo games get underway.

If you want to get inside knowledge about Canadian, American, and British soccer, you could buttonhole three players from the three systems, or you could simply check in with Janine Beckie. Born to Canadian parents in Colorado, she’s played top level footy for both countries, and she’s currently under contract with Manchester City. So the forward has deep knowledge about the quirks and qualities of most of the leading women in the game. Sometime teammates, sometime opponents, often both. At this moment, Beckie is digging in her cleats for the Olympic tilt, and that’s top of mind as she catches up with Player’s Own Voice podcast host Anastasia Bucsis. How is the Canadian team taking to new coach Bev Priestman? What’s going to make the difference in Canadian efforts to finish even higher on the podium than the 2012 and 2016 Bronze wins? What’s the thinking on the current roster? Beckie is forthcoming about the peaks and valleys of her career, and she shows particular class in describing one stinging moment, a missed world cup penalty kick in 2019. Beckie took exactly the right lesson from that saved shot, which is, she is an aggressive, confident penalty taker, and not a dang thing is going to change about that!

Andre De Grasse, Canada’s top sprinter, was a very young man when he dashed his way into international stardom at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Five years later, the phenomenal athlete has evolved into a competitor who seems wise beyond his years. He’s a plugged-in and thoughtful parent now, who credits his three year old daughter with teaching him patience on the daily. He’s also a published author, having filled his unplanned pandemic down time with dedicated writing practise. His ‘Run With Me’ is an inspirational children’s book about mindfulness and perseverance. De Grasse is healthier now too, having learned patience the hard way, enduring the long and bumpy process of rehabbing a nagging hamstring injury. The only area in which De Grasse remains unchanged, we are delighted to learn, is in his approach to big race days. De Grasse has always had an instinct for saving his best performances til it matters most.