Five divers named to Canadian Olympic team for Paris 2024
Canada has won a diving medal at each of the last seven Olympic Games.
Diving Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee named five divers to their Paris 2024 team on Wednesday, ahead of the Olympic Games this summer.
The team is comprised of Margo Erlam, Caeli McKay, Kate Miller, Rylan Wiens, and Nathan Zsombor-Murray. The athletes qualified for Team Canada based on their performances at the 2024 Canadian Diving Trials that took place from May 17 to 19 in Windsor, Ontario.
McKay will compete in both the women’s 10m individual and 10m synchro events in Paris, teaming up with Miller in the latter event. Wiens and Zsombor-Murray will both compete in the men’s 10m individual and synchro events, while Erlam will compete in the women’s 3m individual competition.
Miller and Erlam will be making their Olympic debuts in Paris, while the other three divers also competed at Tokyo 2020.
McKay came agonizingly close to reaching the synchro podium in Tokyo, finishing fourth with Meaghan Benfeito — just 0.54 points behind the bronze medallists from Mexico. A serious ankle injury at the national trials in June 2021 saw her withdraw from the individual event to focus on the synchro, but three years later she is going to compete in both.
She has had a strong few years internationally since Tokyo 2020. In 2023, McKay won her first World Aquatics Championship medal with a bronze in the individual 10m, before earning another bronze at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games in the same event. She also picked up a bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and is looking to add a first Olympic medal to her collection.
“This is a big step forward for me,” said McKay in a press release. “I missed the last Olympic trials because of an ankle injury. Over the last three years, I’ve worked really hard to get to this place, which I’ve been aiming for almost 20 years. I’m really excited.”
Miller teamed up with McKay in 2023, and made her World Aquatics Championship debut at age 18. She and McKay placed eighth in the 10m synchro, before moving up two spots to sixth at the 2024 World Championships — a result which qualified them for Paris 2024. They won silver together at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super Final in both 2023 and 2024.
Like Miller, Erlam will also make her Olympic debut in Paris. 2022 was her breakout season, as she won 3m synchro gold with Mia Vallée at the FINA Diving Grand Prix in her hometown of Calgary, before finishing fifth at the world championships that year, and adding a bronze at the Commonwealth Games.
At Paris 2024, however, Erlam will compete in the individual 3m competition after winning it at the 2024 Canadian Diving Trials last month, earning Canada’s lone Olympic spot in the event.
As a duo, Wiens and Zsombor-Murray made history in 2022 when they became the first Canadians to win a medal in the men’s 10m synchro event at the World Aquatics Championships, earning a bronze medal in Budapest, Hungary. They have since won silver medals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, and 2024 World Aquatics Diving World Cup in Berlin, Germany.
Competing with Vincent Riendeau at the Tokyo Olympics, Zsombor-Murray finished fifth in the synchro event, and also finished 13th in the individual event. Wiens finished 19th in the individual competition.
After missing the 2023 World Aquatics Championships with a back injury, Wiens finished fifth in the men’s individual 10m platform at the 2024 worlds. He also won a silver medal at the World Aquatics Diving World Cup in Berlin, and has also won 10m platform silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Zsombor-Murray won individual silver at the Santiago 2023 Pan Am Games, which came after his seventh-place finish at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships. He also finished one spot back of the podium at the 2023 World Aquatics Diving World Cup Super Final.
“The Olympics, I always say that it’s a marathon and not a sprint,” said Zsombor-Murray in a press release. “It’s going to be a month away from home. We will have to adapt to the pool as well as the schedule. I am going to have to control the energy and not give everything at the beginning. Everything is going to be new and exciting. I want to keep my reserve, keep my energy high and give everything I can during the competition.”
Canada has won a diving medal at every Summer Olympics going back to 1996, a span that includes 12 of their 14 all-time Olympic medals in the sport. The most recent one came in the women’s 3m synchronized springboard event at Tokyo 2020, a silver won by Jennifer Abel and Mélissa Citrini-Beaulieu.
Diving at Paris 2024 will take place from July 27 to August 10 at the Aquatics Centre.
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