The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic games had their closing ceremonies on Sunday. The ceremonies were the conclusion to the surprisingly successful Olympic games.
At this year’s Olympics, Canada had a very successful showing, winning seven gold medals and 24 overall.
Oakville was represented very well this year as five athletes competed in the games.
Runner Benjamin Preisner competed in the men’s marathon final, where he finished in 46th place.
Preisner finished in 46th place out of 76 runners and was 10 minutes and 49 seconds behind the gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya.
The second athlete from Oakville was Alanna Bray-Lougheed, who competed in the Women’s K-4 500m canoe sprint.
Alanna competed in two events: the K-4 500m quarter-final; she and her team finished in eighth place, only three seconds behind the first-place team from Belarus.
Due to those results, Alanna and her team did not qualify for the semi-finals.
Then, Alanna and her team competed in Women’s K-5 500m final B, where they finished third.
The next Oakville athlete is canoe sprinter Simon Mctavish, who, like Alanna, competed in the K-5 500m sprint.
Simon and his team qualified for the semi-finals but would finish fifth and not qualify for the finals.
Another Oakville Olympian to compete was sailor William Jones.
Jones and his sailing partner Evan DePaul competed in the 49er sailing race.
Jones and DePaul competed in two races where they finished 19th in each.
Both races were won by the New Zealand sailing duo of Peter Burling and Blair Tuke.
Finally, we have swimmer Tessa Cieplucha, who competed in the individual 400m medley.
Tessa was unable to qualify in her heat as she finished in sixth place, and you must finish in places 1-4 to move on to the next round of competition.
Yui Oshani from Japan eventually won the event.
Congratulations to all our Olympians. Your skill and dedication to your sport ensured you competed at the world premiere sporting event, the Olympic Games.