Canada had arguably its best-ever showing at a Summer Olympic Games this year with nine gold medals and 27 podium finishes — and it’s largely thanks to the country’s female athletes.
It has been an incredible run for the Canadian women at these Olympics. They have helped Canada to its second-highest medal total at the Summer Games, with only the 44 medals from the boycotted LA 1984 Games landing higher.
Out of Canada’s 27 medals at the Paris Games, 17 were won by women across 12 different sports. That accounts for 62.9% of Canada’s total medal haul and continues a trend over the last few Olympic Games, where the majority of Canada’s success has come from women.
The CBC’s Devin Heroux compiled impressive numbers from the last few Summer Games, including Tokyo 2020, where a whopping 75% of Canada’s medals were won by women.
Canadian women won 17 of the 27 medals the country won at Paris 2024.
At Tokyo that number was 18 of 24.
And at Rio 2016 it was 16 of 22.
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) August 11, 2024
This time around, Summer McIntosh led the way for the Canadian women, winning three gold medals and one silver medal to become the most successful Canadian athlete in a single Summer Olympics.
Canoer Katie Vincent also had quite the success at these Games, taking home two medals, a gold and a bronze. McIntosh and Vincent were the only women to win multiple medals for Canada at these Olympic Games.
Outside of those two, plenty of other women shocked the world with their medals. Camryn Rogers became the first Canadian to win gold in the women’s hammer throw competition, and Christa Deguchi became the first Canadian Olympic champion in judo.
In team sport, the Canadian women’s rugby seven’s team came up just short in the gold medal match to take home silver in their best-ever Olympic result. The duo of Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson did the same with a silver in the beach volleyball tournament.
Canada also saw firsts, with Alysha Newman grabbing bronze in pole vault, Skylar Park taking bronze in Taekwondo, and Eleanor Harvey getting a bronze medal in fencing.